Alain de Botton
“Erudite.… After reading de Botton’s book, one will savor Proust with fresh wonder and gratitude.”
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“A lively, original guide to living, and … an engaging introduction to the life and letters of one of the century’s most interesting fictional thinkers … literary criticism wearing its slyest disguise since Julian Barnes’
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“Ingenious … charming, erudite … an amusing homage to a literary genius whose utter lack of talent for living becomes a tender inspiration.”
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“Writing with great clarity, concision, and wit, de Botton translates the Proustian message into humbler but energetic prose.”
“Proust, through de Botton, offers wiser and wittier advice, and on more subjects, than any syndicated columnist.”
“One of my favorite books of the year.… Seriously cheeky, cheekily serious.”
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“A witty, elegant book that helps us learn what reading is for.”
“A wonderful meditation on aspects of Proust in the form of a self-help book.… Very enjoyable.”
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Also by
Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton is the author of
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MAY 1998
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1997.
Photograph Acknowledgments
Barnaby’s Picture Library, Bridgeman Art Library, (Louvre, Paris), (Peter Willi, Musée Marmottan, Paris), (Louvre, Paris/Giraudon), (Louvre, Paris/Giraudon); Mary Evans Picture Library, Hulton Getty Collection, Simon Marsden
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:
De Botton, Alain.
How Proust can change your life / Alain de Botton.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83349-5
1. Proust, Marcel, 1871–1922—Humor. I. Title.
PQ2631.R63Z54917 1997
843′.912—dc21 96-47106
Random House Web address: www.randomhouse.com
v3.1
Contents
There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness. Had we been placed on earth by a malign creator for the exclusive purpose of suffering, we would have good reason to congratulate ourselves on our enthusiastic response to the task. Reasons to be inconsolable abound: the frailty of our bodies, the fickleness of love, the insincerities of social life, the compromises of friendship, the deadening effects of habit. In the face of such persistent ills, we might naturally expect that no event would be awaited with greater anticipation than the moment of our own extinction.
Someone looking for a paper to read in Paris in the 1920s might have picked up a title called
