Hitting rock Botton

Recently I read another book by the balding wunderkind Alain de Botton which once again confirmed my initial sentiment, namely that I don’t like the guy. Foolishly enough, it has taken me 4 infuriating books to finally realise this seeing as I got blindsided by a fifth one that was actually not that bad and encouraged me to give him another chance. How wrong I was.

His work is best described on his website: He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences and ideas and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life.'

I have to admit that when Botton is writing about philosophy, he is at his best. He has a way of turning this trying subject matter into a light and breezy topic filled with fun little anecdotes and that’s also why I was pleasantly deceived by How Proust can change your Life. Not having read anything by Proust and having only elementary knowledge of his life, I was fascinated by this book as it contained a delightful and potent mix of an ironic ‘self-help’ book and biographical facts of one of the melancholy greats of the Western canon. This novel was a turning point that made me give Botton an ill-advised second chance and lead me to Status Anxiety about our fear of what others think of us. I have to say, now I’m scared. The first novel of his that I read was Kiss and Tell about a man who writes his girlfriend’s biography, it was OK. The story was a bit bland but once again contained fun tit bits. Next were two novels that instigated the root of my dislike: Essays in Love and The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel. The story in both novels was bad, poorly written and reminiscent of chick lit for the mentally disabled. Botton is great at telling fun intellectual facts but when it comes down to actually writing or creating something on his own, he sucks and sucks big time.

Good concept, interesting anecdotes and that’s about it. And that basically sums up his whole oeuvre as far as I’m concerned.