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Summary: Del Amor
Review: Es el primer libro que leo de alguien nacido en el mismo año que yo y que trate del amor. Al final de su lectura la sensación fue de tranquilidad. Yo no estaba loco. No estoy segu
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Summary: Very good prose, but ultimately tedious
Review: De Botton's book is inventive, erudite, and quite
engrossing. But, it's too cerebral, too steeped
in "francophony" intellectualism. Love is not like
that; you can't be thinking things through all
the time. Woody Allen once had a joke about the
prospect of brain removal: "Not my brain, not my
second-favourite organ!" And that's the crux:
In love, the mind should perhaps take second place.
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Summary: I'd like to hear from readers
Review: If there are any readers of my first novel who have comments, please email me
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Summary: A wonderful love story
Review: An extremely witty account of a love story, that basically says everything you'll ever need to know about love. It is written in a highly original style, which avoids the boredom of most novels. An ingenious mixture of analysis and story. Great
Rating:
Summary: A modern, super-funny classic
Review: This book is the "When Harry Met Sally" of books. It gets to the core of everything related to LOVE -- and keeps a sense of humor about the whole ordeal. You will recognize your own experience time and again throughout the book, and laugh every step of the way. The book tells the story of De Botton's relationship with one woman -- the beginning giddy phase, the settling in lovey dovey phase, and on through the other phases till the end. De Botton's witty writing makes everyone's favorite topic even more fun. This book is such a memorable read that I always recommend it to friends (or buy it for them) -- and all of them have loved it too.
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Summary: Philosophy and love
Review: When it comes to love, there are two kinds of people -- the romantics, who let their emotions sweep them and guide them; and the more cynical people, who use philosophy and biology to explain away love. Alain de Botton seems to be trying to incorporate both into his wittily literate "On Love: A Novel," but his writing leans too far in one direction and fails to really be engaging.
On the Paris-London plane, a young man falls instantly in love with a beautiful girl sitting near him. He tracks her down in London, and tries his best to win Chloe over. Soon they are visiting her parents, making love in front of a mirror, and telling each other loving lies over a wonderful breakfast.
But their affection for each other is not complete. Chloe doesn't want to move in. He hates her taste in shoes, jam, and reading. The first blush of love fades away, leaving them to notice that they are essentially incompatible. They bicker, drift apart, and gradually Chloe ditches the loser -- and after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, the cycle starts over.
"If the fall into love happens so rapidly, it is perhaps because the wish to love has preceded the beloved....'' Or so says the unnamed narrator, as he first sees Chloe. De Botton gives some interesting insights into crushes, long-term love and what it takes to make a relationship work -- the relationship between Chloe and the narrator doesn't work because of dishonesty, both to each other and to themselves.
Perhaps the biggest problem with "On Love" is that while Alain de Botton shows us a love affair that is essentially based only on emotion, he doesn't let any of that feeling seep through. The look back on the relationship has little warmth or anger -- it's all coldly analytical, as it studies the anatomy of love, and name-drops half the philosophers known to civilization.
If the story were more robust, it might warrant the richly overblown philosophical ponderings. But it's a very ordinary story, with very ordinary occurrances, and so the ponderings on the Jesus Complex and Plato seem like someone obsessing on minutiae. It's certainly literate and sometimes quite funny, and de Botton does have some intriguing points -- does a person fall in love because they want to? Do you fall for someone because they are beautiful, or are they beautiful because you are in love?
The narrator is a bit of an idiot, and not a terribly sympathetic one -- he seems petulant and immature (throwing a tantrum because Chloe doesn't have "decent" jam?), and he doesn't learn from his mistakes. Chloe comes across as far more sympathetic -- she's enthusiastic, sweet-natured, and most of her problems stem from the narrator. Okay, she's uncultured, but she deserves better.
A philosophical anti-romance novel, "On Love" is a mixture of wit and first-time awkwardness. Alain de Botton has talent and a quirky style, but his first novel is not his best.
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Summary: One of the Greatest Books Ever
Review: Absolutely hilarious! His analogies are superb and he captures what it is like to be single through the full stages of a relationship, start to the inevitable breakup.YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK!
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Summary: unbelievable insight
Review: Alain de Boton's debut novel is by far and away one of the most perceptive books I've ever read. Although de Boton is trained as a philosopher, he fuses his observations concerning relationships with an engaging plotline.
The plotline isn't what makes the book, however. Instead, it's his perceptive and uncanny insight into each stage of the relationship, from its inception to its demise. And while it is obviously related to one relationship in particular, his ability to universalize the romantic experience is one of the biggest strengths of the novel. For example, he argues that "most people would throw away their cynicism, if they could; the majority just never have the chance." I read this book with a highlighter and so did most of my friends. And I don't even highlight the books I"m supposed to read for school. If any book is a must read, it's this one. Everyone who wants a relationship, is in a relationship or who has ever had a relationship should read this book.
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Summary: A Brillant Debut...
Review: I stumbled across De Botton's book years ago in book store, but didn't have the patience to read it (ugh, I didn't like philosophy in college, why read it again?). A friend recommended How Proust Can Change your Life to me a few years back, but I forgot about that too. Then, reading Joe Epstein's Snobbery (which is filled with Proust quotes), I ventured out and started my de Botton education with On Love. What a tour de force. I found myself laughing and cringing in acknowledgement of the universality of the situations. As one who deconstructs love much like our nameless hero (although without the classical references, I tend to use TV as source material), I found this book refreshing and honest. He realizes in the end, that falling in love is indeed folly, but the kind of folly that makes heroes. Read this wonderful book.
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Summary: Boring...this is more philosophical commentary than a novel.
Review: Despite its saucy red cover and the bouncy lower-case fonts that adorn it and despite even its title, On Love is not a romance novel. It's more of an anti-romance novel. But not entirely. It's not a totally cynical perspective we come to see things from. Certainly, the narrator gets a little jaded with the whole love thing, but you'll figure out pretty quickly that he can't be trusted anyway, and-as his story unfolds-he learns and we have the opportunity to do so, too. The story's not unique. The events that unfold in the unnamed narrator`s relationship over a few months aren't particularly striking; on the contrary, they're quite common. In fact, they're freakishly common. No, it's his meditations on love that draw us on. And yes, he does waffle on from time to time, but de Botton (and/or our narrator) does draw out some great moments for thought. He falls in love within the novel's first moments. So if not an anti-romance, then this is a reverse romance. The tracing of a falling out of love. Chloe is beautiful in a Kantian sort of way, rather than a Platonic sense, our narrator explains in some detail. He meets her on a flight back from Paris, and he spends a few pages just deliberating over the probability of his ever meeting her in the first place. Which he decides is quite slim. By which we already know he thinks too much. Which is something he and I have in common then. But never mind. That just means I can identify with our narrator. When his affair begins to run out of fuel, our narrator falls from those dizzy heights of love into a not-quite deadly spiral. But he learns from this experience, too, and the voice that results may, I suspect, be the voice of de Botton himself. Because in the end, that voice is a reasonable, though perhaps ironically hopeful one. De Botton is a strong, gifted, and intelligent writer. He was born the same year I was and he got this published when he was 24. Which means he wrote it when he was 22 or 23. Which makes me 1) sick with jealousy and 2) feel like a tremendously lazy bastard (I've published one measly short story at 30). On Love is quite funny, clinically sexy, pretty thought provoking and a little long in places. And hopeful.
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