How Proust Can Change Your Life

Acclaim for

Alain de Botton

’s

How Proust Can Change Your Life

“Erudite.… After reading de Botton’s book, one will savor Proust with fresh wonder and gratitude.”

—Washington Post

“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’ Flaubert’s Parrot.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Ingenious … charming, erudite … an amusing homage to a literary genius whose utter lack of talent for living becomes a tender inspiration.”

—Elle

“Writing with great clarity, concision, and wit, de Botton translates the Proustian message into humbler but energetic prose.”

—Village Voice Literary Supplement

“Proust, through de Botton, offers wiser and wittier advice, and on more subjects, than any syndicated columnist.”

—Hartford Courant

“One of my favorite books of the year.… Seriously cheeky, cheekily serious.”

—Julian Barnes

“A witty, elegant book that helps us learn what reading is for.”

—Doris Lessing

“A wonderful meditation on aspects of Proust in the form of a self-help book.… Very enjoyable.”

—Sebastian Faulks

Also by

Alain de Botton

On Love

The Romantic Movement

Kiss and Tell

The Consolations of Philosophy

The Art of Travel

Alain de Botton

How Proust Can Change Your Life

Alain de Botton is the author of On Love, The Romantic Movement, Kiss and Tell, The Consolations of Philosophy, and The Art of Travel. His work has been translated into twenty languages. He lives in Washington, D.C., and London. He can be reached at www.alaindebotton.com.

FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MAY 1998

Copyright © 1997 by Alain de Botton

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

Author photograph © Miriam Berkley

Random House Web address: www.randomhouse.com

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

1. HOW TO LOVE LIFE TODAY

2. HOW TO READ FOR YOURSELF

3. HOW TO TAKE YOUR TIME

4. HOW TO SUFFER SUCCESSFULLY

5. HOW TO EXPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS

6. HOW TO BE A GOOD FRIEND

7. HOW TO OPEN YOUR EYES

8. HOW TO BE HAPPY IN LOVE

9. HOW TO PUT BOOKS DOWN

A

CKNOWLEDGMENTS

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 L’Intransigeant. It had a reputation for investigative news, metropolitan gossip, comprehensive classifieds, and incisive editorials. It also had a habit of dreaming up big questions and asking French celebrities to send in their replies. “What do you think would be the ideal education to give your daughter?” was one. “Do you have any recommendations for improving traffic congestion in Paris?” was another. In the summer of 1922, the paper formulated a particularly elaborate question for its contributors: