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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
slow-paced
When I started reading I thought this was my first A de B book, but I remember now I tried to read The Art of Travel and had largely the same objections. Mainly, that Alain de Botton has somehow convinced everyone that because he is cynical and wordy he's saying something worth listening to.
I will freely admit that maybe I'm just not smart enough for this book, but I find myself disagreeing with almost every assertion he makes. It can be, he claims, "hard to walk into a freshly decorated house without feeling pre-emptively sad at the decay impatiently waiting to begin". Wha...? I have never in my life walked into a home, or any other sort of building, and thought, "meh, can't enjoy this, in a decade or two it might not be so pretty". Soon afterwards he says that when we speak of being "moved" by a building "we allude to a bitter-sweet feeling of contrast between the noble qualities written into a structure and the sadder wider reality within which we know them to exist. A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception."
Again, wha...? Can one not enjoy beauty simply because it is beautiful? Beauty is largely fleeting, yes, but this assumption that the universal experience is to appreciate a well-designed or beautifully decorated building only through the lens of "too bad the whole world isn't like this" is presumptuous and unnecessarily negative.
I will freely admit that maybe I'm just not smart enough for this book, but I find myself disagreeing with almost every assertion he makes. It can be, he claims, "hard to walk into a freshly decorated house without feeling pre-emptively sad at the decay impatiently waiting to begin". Wha...? I have never in my life walked into a home, or any other sort of building, and thought, "meh, can't enjoy this, in a decade or two it might not be so pretty". Soon afterwards he says that when we speak of being "moved" by a building "we allude to a bitter-sweet feeling of contrast between the noble qualities written into a structure and the sadder wider reality within which we know them to exist. A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception."
Again, wha...? Can one not enjoy beauty simply because it is beautiful? Beauty is largely fleeting, yes, but this assumption that the universal experience is to appreciate a well-designed or beautifully decorated building only through the lens of "too bad the whole world isn't like this" is presumptuous and unnecessarily negative.
Alain de Botton just never disappoints. He has changed the way I think about a number of things and I'm better off for it. In The Architecture of Happiness there are no revolutionary notions but it opens the mind and the senses for beauty on several levels.
I took my time with this book. I think that is what de Botton intended. The essays are sometimes no more than two paragraphs, but each and every one packs a punch. I highlighted something on almost every page of this book. Much more than architecture, but general aesthetics, human psychology, and history. Once again, de Botton proves himself as a brilliant observer and writer.
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
As I've been reading this book I find myself looking at space and architecture differently. Very interesting.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
I originally rated this book 4 stars; but given how often I think about it, how often Sam and I talk about it, and how frequently I recommend it to library patrons and friends I had to bump it up.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
interesting enough as a philosophical examination of why we build buildings and the feelings we may derive from them.
a little preachy at times and very subjective.
a little preachy at times and very subjective.