A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Contents:

Main

the Best

the Rest

Review Index

Links

to e-mail us:

the complete review - fiction

Essays in Love
(On Love)

by
Alain de Botton

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

- Return to top of the page -

Our Assessment:

B : weaknesses galore, but clever enough, with his trademark digressions, that we do recommend it

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Alain de Botton picks up the torch, so to speak, more or less where Stendhal left off. De Botton’s On Love reads as if Stendhal had lived into the ‘90s, survived modern critical theory (as he clearly has), thought it was funny (as he likely would have), but retained a novelist’s sympathy for the impulse -- which he shared -- to deconstruct and to dissect in search of some higher understanding." - Francine Prose, The New Republic
  
  
• "The result is something like La Rochefoucauld’s maxims crossed with Adolphe, with jokes and against a background of luggage reclaim areas and breakfast cereal packets. (...) Ingeniously pinpointed mundane details stop the novel from getting too abstract. It is witty, funny, sophisticated, neatly tied up, and full of wise and illuminating insights." - Gabriele Annan, The Spectator

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

- Return to top of the page -

The complete review's Review:

       Baby-faced in appearance, Gallic in name and often in attitude, English Wunderkind De Botton has achieved notable (and somewhat galling) success at an early age, with five books to his name before he turned thirty. On Love was his first novel (Essays in Love, as the British original had it) -- though there are also similarly themed later novels, Kiss & Tell and The Romantic Movement. Love preoccupies the young author, as well it might, and though a big subject to tackle, De Botton tackles well.
       The story of this novel is simplicity itself: a love affair, from its very beginning to its very end. De Botton's narrator describes falling in love with Chloe, being in love with her, and then getting over her. An old story, the twist here is in how De Botton relates it, dwelling and (over)analyzing each and every aspect, and looking to see greater truths in them.
       De Botton is intelligent, and he chooses to approach his book cleverly. Clever and intelligent do not always mix, but De Botton manages quite well. Each relatively short chapter is further divided into numbered paragraphs, each a brief point (or often a brief digression) illuminating various aspects of the love between Chloe and the narrator -- and love in general. Young, well-educated, fairly well to do, neither is completely sympathetic. Part of De Botton's success is that he shows us everyday love in characters who are not particularly appealing. He revels in considering all aspects of love, including -- or rather, especially -- the mundane and everyday and trivial. There are charts and pictures and diagrams, and some of it is too cute and forced, but overall it is indeed a clever little book.
       It is a young author's book, and we occasionally grimace at some of what De Botton tries -- but it is a difficult subject to handle well. Other people's love affairs are often not the most interesting of subjects, especially when one deals with the everyday minutiae, but for most of the book De Botton keeps us hooked with his interesting thoughts on love's many aspects. The almost banal affair itself does stifle the narrative (De Botton's strength is certainly essayistic, which is why his Proust book is far superior to the novels), but there are enough well-conceived flights of fancy to keep the reader amused.
       In her review Francine Prose makes particular note of the chapter entitled Marxism, where the Marxism in question is not Karl's, but rather the Groucho's who didn't want to belong to any club that would have him. It is that sort of cleverness that fills the book, and those who are put off by it should turn elsewhere. Prose is correct in expecting that those who can't appreciate this notion (which De Botton handles very cleverly) would not enjoy the book. We would argue that the book is, on some level, even more demanding than that. De Botton is intelligent, and the book is rich in allusion and reference. While most of this is enjoyable, it is perhaps the place where he truly goes wrong: the references are too clever for the quality of his narrative (he is not quite up to snuff in the story-telling department yet), and so readers are left either disappointed by the writing or confused by the references.
       We still recommend this book rather highly, as an interesting failed effort, with enough quality, humor, and cleverness (and love-talk !) to satisfy. Like all of De Botton's book, it makes one think -- though without being overly taxing.

- Return to top of the page -

Links:

• The revised or standard version ? by Alain de Botton

• Bookslut
• Life in the District

• See the complete review's Alain de Botton page
• Alain de Botton - official site
• Interview at The Idler

• The Art of Travel
• The Consolations of Philosophy
• How Proust can change your Life
• Kiss & Tell
• The Romantic Movement
• Status Anxiety

• Gregory Dart considers Unrequited Love
• See Index of Contemporary British fiction at the complete review

- Return to top of the page -

About the Author:

       English author Alain de Botton was born in Switzerland in 1969 and educated at Cambridge.

- Return to top of the page -

© 1999-2010 the complete review

Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links