How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel

by Alain de Botton (Goodreads Author)

book data

1,371 ratings, 3.74 average rating, 183 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		23%
4		37%
3		29%
2		6%
1		2%

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published

April 29th 1997 by Pantheon Books

details

Hardcover, 199 pages

isbn

0679442758 (isbn13: 9780679442752)

description

This is a genius-level piece of writing that manages to blend literary biography with self-help and tongue-in-cheek with the profound. The quirky, ea…more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2,208)

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Jul 10, 2008

Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

My wife and I fell in love reading this book together (way back in September/October 2002). I don't know what anyone else will think of this book, but I'll never enjoy reading a book more. B and I left a note on Proust's grave when we visited Paris on our honeymoon. He is the (gay) patron saint of our marital union. Here's my best advice: read this book with a loved one.

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Aug 16, 2007

R. rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: 2007

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: violently miserable writers

Sometimes it's the book you grab at the last second--not the books you came to the library for--that you end up sitting up with all night long.

Afterwards, sat outside with Mickey and reminisced about our childhood and what we expected from the future.

Also, that what we really wanted at 2 a.m. was a truckstop-black, piping hot coffee..."Yeah, me too! Why is that?"

We both...we both get that craving at 2 a.m.

Earlier, I picked up my copy o...more

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Feb 14, 2008

Laura rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

"Proust said the great momments - like when he ate the madeleine dipped in tea - are those when we escape time. We do what we do in the present but we experience the same action in the past. Thus we are nowhere, neither in past nor present, the miracle of an analogy has freed us from the lockstep of time. He does not explain why this freedom should be so desireable, but presumably it is because time moves in only one direction, toward weakness and death. We embrace the things that allo...more

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Mar 18, 2008

Maggie rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: 2008, most-highly-recommended, non-fiction

This book really can change your life. It can also make you laugh, and expand your vocabulary.

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Apr 19, 2008

Jenny rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

I really enjoyed this little book. It’s not like I’ve ever actually read Proust, except in quotation marks. And after reading this book, I don’t feel any strong urge to do so. It’s full of fascinating little anecdotes about Proust’s life, but it also wanders lazily and charmingly through the things that one can learn from Proust’s work. The main thing is to pay really close attention to every moment – great advice for any writer, great advice for anyone. In illustrating how Pro...more

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Feb 20, 2010

Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

Read in February, 2010

As a Proust lover, and a firm believer that novels in general, and "In Search of Lost Time" in particular, have made my life better, this was a brilliant birthday present from my mom. (By the way, it wasn't even the most brilliant book-present she gave me!) Unfortunately, the execution didn't live up to the promise of the concept. De Botton comes off as what he, apparently, is, namely a dilettante with high-culture pretensions. He tends to proclaim rather obvious banalities as prec...more

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Aug 11, 2009

Jon rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

Written by Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life is something of a conundrum. The book is at once a piece of literary criticism and a self-help book, and at the same time neither of those. That is, it analyzes the literature and life of Marcel Proust and is structured in the regular "how to" fashion of self-help manuals (with chapter titles such as "How to Suffer Successfully" and "How to Be a Good Friend"), but unlike most contemporary literary criticism...more

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Jun 30, 2009

Daniel rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: general-nonfiction

A few years ago someone pointed out to me that the words "envy" and "jealousy" mean slightly different things; in the first case, the word implies only that you want something someone else has, whereas the second also includes the idea that you have a just claim to the desired object. Having said that, I would say that I am jealous of Alain de Botton rather than envying him; I mean, does this guy say anything deeper than what I spout off after a few glasses of wine? This litt...more

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1 comment

Jun 11, 2009

Colleen rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

Read in January, 2007

I'm not sure why I read this book--I've never read Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I'm not sure why I continued to read it after I learned the entire book tied in with In Search of Lost Time. But I did and I'm glad--I enjoyed it. Reading In Search of Lost Time may have helped in understanding How Proust Can Change Your Life but it certainly wasn't necessary. I was drawn in by the opening: "There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness. Had we been placed on earth ...more

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Jun 24, 2009

Kat rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: modern-literature

What I learned from this book can only be summed up by saying simply that I am firmly against self-help books - every one, except this.

Alain de Botton wowed me before with his Consolations of Philosophy, which left me with an overwhelming sense of clarity, and my friends in the certainty that I had finally lost the plot entirely. It was on the back of that incredible work that I picked up his in-depth treatise on Proust's In Search of Lost Time. It has never really occured to me to read P...more

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Aug 21, 2009

Carol rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: local-library

Read in August, 2009

This book is an easy 215 pages in "self-help" format, making it a good bio of Proust to read as I was finishing up the last 50 or so pages of Swann's Way.

I really liked the last chapter on "How to Put Books Down," where de Botton says "It was a symbol of what Ruskin had done for Proust, and what all books might do for their readers, namely bring back to life, from the deadness caused by habit and inattention, valuable yet neglected aspects of experience."...more

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3 comments

Feb 26, 2009

Prashant R rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

Read in January, 2007

N'allez pas trop vite !

Yes, don't go so fast...stop, savor and enjoy the many extraordinary pleasures of the ordinary things which are strewn around your everyday life.

This gem of a book is filled with these kind of delightful bon-mots distilled from Proust's life and works. Alain De Botton's entertaining,educating and often illuminating book belongs to a unique genre. It is is part literary criticism, part exploration of Proust's life and work and a part self-help manua...more

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Feb 08, 2009

Catherine rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: 2009, non-fiction, theatre-and-acting

Read in February, 2009

recommended to Catherine by: Neil
recommends it for: Brian, Joy, Lindsay Garvey, Beth, Jean Ann, Neil Gaiman

Upon the reccomendation of a friend I picked "How Proust Can Change Your Life" up, although I've read only excerpts of the first volume of "In Search of Lost Time". Not only do I find myself wanting to give Proust a more serious try, but I also find a desire to live my life differently. In fact, I think subtle changes are already taking place. It's not so much about changing your entire lifestyle as it is about changing how you see your life. According to de Botton throug...more

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Dec 21, 2009

Jeremy rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: recommendations

This was a fantastic book. In principle, more like it should exist. The difficulty in really appreciating a lot of dense works of art is that one must be able to see through the creator's eyes to really appreciate it. This movement is already the approach in phiosophy. Due to the difficulty of personally systematic language in a writer like Kant, people often learn much more from reading explanations of Kant's words than from slogging through the Critique. Hell, German students of Kant read...more

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Feb 14, 2010

Anjou rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

As much as I enjoyed de Botton's first book 'On Love' and looked forward to another fun philosophical foray, I do not recommend this particular narrative. Also, the title is deceptive. While one can't but admire Proust, 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' did not inspire me to live any differently than I do now. Perhaps that is because I already embrace many of the intended lessons of this book, and no real fault of the author. In all honesty though, I decided to read it more for the comical as...more

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Nov 14, 2009

Emilie rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: 09, nonfiction

Read in December, 2009

i picked up How Proust Can Change Your Life Not a Novel because proust is one of those writers i feel i should read. but whenever i see how heavy (literally) and long the first part, Swanns Way, is, i, um, politely run in the other direction.

this is a good introduction to proust, and a fun literary biography and more even if you never intend to read proust. Alain de Botton is smart and original and funny and irreverent. this book is part literary biography, part literary analy...more
i picked up How Proust Can Change Your Life Not a Novel because proust is one of those writers i feel i should read. but whenever i see how heavy (literally) and long the first part, Swanns Way, is, i, um, politely run in the other direction.

this is a good introduction to proust, and a fun literary biography and more even if you never intend to read proust. Alain de Botton is smart and original and funny and irreverent. this book is part literary biography, part literary analysis, and part, thoughts on life, love, suffering, what it means to be a reader.

its funny and sad and inspiring in a way, that proust was so terribly wise (he is quoted extensively) and yet he had not much talent for living-spent much of his life bed ridden, terribly sensitive to everything, thin-skinned, sickly, mamas boy who liked men more then women but liked beer more then both.

de bottom presents some really interesting themes/ideas he sees as prousts-such as a challenge to our concept of reality and how to suffer well (meant to be cheeky i think, and serious too) -idea that you have to alchemize the feelings of pain into ideas. proust is very into paying attention, the idea that its not reality itself that is often the trouble but our perception of reality which is mired in routine and expectations and the story we keep telling ourselves.

so, i think this means that you need to make meaning, to make a context, to name it and figure it out. like you get malaise you get so used to thinking you know why but sometimes reality isnt what we think it is. sometimes we get careless with our language and we use language inaccurately and repeatedly to portray our own reality that we end up losing the truth.

and that agreed upon shared reality is not really real reality, we think it is, we even believe we see and experience it, but so often we are only seeing what we expect to see, and shaping our experiences to an accepted and acceptable mold. and that our own individual impressions of reality are more important and worth capturing and expressing then the dull reality that everyone agrees upon.

i think these are pretty fascinating ideas! that we can lose the essence and get lulled too by the familiar and the routine into not seeing the truth of ourselves and the world around us. and proust wishes for us to “n’allez pas trop vite” (dont go too fast), to pay attention to what is truly there, for us in our own individual ways.

proust is a compelling figure,a genius who is desperate for love (doting on his maman, and his friends, despite their mostly not showing that they truly understand him or what matters most to him), (and, okay, he has interesting and funny ideas about friendship versus the true relationship he has with writing, the only place he can really be and express himself.)

writing for many ( i dont remember the number, but its like 18) years while sick in bed, focusing on individuality and the way our experience is of interest in its specificity. he is searching for, according to de bottom, the time we lose because we are not really paying attention, as well as to the lost time of our memories. i think its the magical quality of the memories of lost time that alert proust of what is always there, but often missed, and he wishes for himself, and for us to recapture-this vitality of life...
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Jul 27, 2009

Pearl rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

Concise, readable book that breaks down Proust to his essential elements and throws in a bunch of funny biographical info (the man was quite the loopy guy). I like it for its unpretentious yet randomly incisive observations about life, friendship, wisdom, and unhappiness (how it's both a figment of perception as well as a truism in being human). De Botton's good at untangling some of Proust's least accessible ideas and making them seem intuitive. There may not be anything truly life-changing/sur...more

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May 01, 2009

Evanston Public Library added it (review of isbn 0679779159)

Read in June, 2009

If you think that a lazy, hypochondriacal, long-winded 19th Century French fancy man can have no relevance to your everyday life, then this book may just change your mind. No prior knowledge of Proust or his epic, seven volume novel In Search of Lost Time is necessary in order to read and enjoy this book, which falls somewhere between the realms of biography, lit crit, and self-help manual. In between sprinklings of delightfully odd facts from Proust’s life, De Botton analyzes the man’s noto...more

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Dec 02, 2009

aarthi rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

Worth reading. Some tidbits:

"Pain is surprising; we cannot understand why we have been abandoned in love... why we are unable to sleep at night.... Identifying reasons for such discomforts does not spectacularly absolve us of pain, but it may form the principal basis of a recovery. While assuring us that we are not uniquely cursed, understanding grants us a sense of the boundaries to, and bitter logic behind, our suffering. 'Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas,...more

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Jul 15, 2009

Keely rated it:

(review of isbn 0679779159)

bookshelves: non-fiction, philosophy

Read in June, 2009

This was the best book I've read in quite some time. Thought-provoking, funny, and highly enjoyable.

One of the book's major themes was on the purpose of art, both visual art and novels. Proust's theory is that despair arises when our observations about our daily life become stale giving us the false belief that life is tedious. The job/gift of artists and writers is, therefore to see the beauty in the minute details of the external and internal life. Artists allow everyone else to a...more

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