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A review by wanderingmole
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
5.0
I estimate to have highlighted 30% of this book and to have reread as much of it out loud to whoever was in the vicinity at the time. I really enjoy this style of de Botton reflective commentary on his fictional characters’ relationships. I think this quote sums up what the book sought to achieve, and in my mind, did:
p 215: “By the standards of most love stories, our own, real relationships are almost all damaged and unsatisfactory… But we should be careful not to judge our relationships by the expectations imposed on us by a frequently misleading aesthetic medium. The fault lies with art, not life. Rather than split up, we may need to tell ourselves more accurate stories - stories that don’t dwell so much on the beginning, that don’t promise us complete understanding, that strive to normalise our troubles and show us a melancholy yet hopeful path through the course of love.”
One could argue that a gap in the book is that it doesn’t deal with when people *should* leave unhealthy and harmful relationships, but I can see how that may have been outside the scope of what this book sought to achieve. This is a book that paints a more forgiving picture of what a healthy long term relationship can look like. And when de Botton talks about “normalising our troubles”, I don’t interpret him as talking about normalising abuse or other harms.
p 215: “By the standards of most love stories, our own, real relationships are almost all damaged and unsatisfactory… But we should be careful not to judge our relationships by the expectations imposed on us by a frequently misleading aesthetic medium. The fault lies with art, not life. Rather than split up, we may need to tell ourselves more accurate stories - stories that don’t dwell so much on the beginning, that don’t promise us complete understanding, that strive to normalise our troubles and show us a melancholy yet hopeful path through the course of love.”
One could argue that a gap in the book is that it doesn’t deal with when people *should* leave unhealthy and harmful relationships, but I can see how that may have been outside the scope of what this book sought to achieve. This is a book that paints a more forgiving picture of what a healthy long term relationship can look like. And when de Botton talks about “normalising our troubles”, I don’t interpret him as talking about normalising abuse or other harms.