How Proust Can Change Your LifeA bestselling author draws on the work of one of history’s most important writers to show us how to best live life in a book that’s "delightfully original.... A self-help book in the deepest sense of the term" (The New York Times). Alain de Botton combines two unlikely genres—literary biography and self-help manual—in the hilarious and unexpectedly practical How Proust Can Change Your Life. Who would have thought that Marcel Proust, one of the most important writers of our century, could provide us with such a rich source of insight into how best to live life? Proust understood that the essence and value of life was the sum of its everyday parts. As relevant today as they were at the turn of the century, Proust's life and work are transformed here into a no-nonsense guide to, among other things, enjoying your vacation, reviving a relationship, achieving original and unclichéd articulation, being a good host, recognizing love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on a first date. It took de Botton to find the inspirational in Proust's essays, letters and fiction and, perhaps even more surprising, to draw out a vivid and clarifying portrait of the master from between the lines of his work. Here is Proust as we have never seen or read him before: witty, intelligent, pragmatic. He might well change your life. |
Contents
3 | |
11 | |
HOW TO TAKE YOUR TIME | 31 |
HOW TO SUFFER SUCCESSFULLY | 49 |
HOW TO EXPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS | 85 |
HOW TO BE A GOOD FRIEND | 105 |
HOW TO OPEN YOUR EYES | 133 |
HOW TO BE HAPPY IN LOVE | 159 |
HOW TO PUT BOOKS DOWN | 173 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 198 |
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Common terms and phrases
able affection Albertine answer appearance appreciation asked beauty become believe called chance comes considered describe desire dinner dress Duchesse experience expressed eyes face fact failed feel felt France French friendship give habit hand happy hope human ideas images imagine impression inspired interest invited Italy known lack later least leave less letter lives look Lost Madame Marcel means meet memory mind mother narrator nature never novel object offered once ourselves pain painting Paris particular perhaps person physical problem Proust Proustian qualities questions readers reality reason Ruskin Search seems sense sent simply sleep someone suffering suggests surprising taken talk tell things thought told town turn understanding volume wanted wish woman write wrote young