Alain de Botton

...De Botton achieves this bulk with ruthless application and many ingenious devices. Some of these - like filling a fifth of the book with pictures - may strike purists as cheating. But couching each chapter as a literary essay is definitely a good idea, since quotation, especially of poetry, takes up a lot of space. So do capsule biography and paraphrase; de Botton generates almost four pages by rearranging sentences from Robert Baldick's translation of A rebours. And when all else fails, the literary pose gives licence to cod-Proustian long-windedness, replete with 'it is perhaps', 'that which' and the bogus 'precisely'. Here, for example, is how he expresses the notion that things look small from a plane: 'We may know this old lesson in perspective well enough, but rarely does it seem as true as when we are pressed against a cold plane window, our craft a teacher of profound philosophy - and a faithful disciple of the Baudelairean command: "Carriage, take me with you! Ship, steal me away from here!/Take me far, far away! Here the mud is made of our tears!"'...

...Perhaps it's unfair to make fun of de Botton's effusions. They're not meant to be taken that seriously, after all, and a few of his readers might be tempted to pick up the works of Proust or Xavier de Maistre. Why shoot fish in a barrel - especially when they're not doing anyone any harm? At the same time, though, there's something rather chilling about the gulf between what de Botton has to say and the way he goes about saying it. Does a sequence of platitudes really need all that padding? This is how de Botton once put the idea that convoluted language doesn't necessarily imply deep thought:

'It is common to assume that we are dealing with a highly intelligent book when we cease to understand it . . . Yet the association between difficulty and profundity might less generously be described as a manifestation in the literary sphere of a perversity familiar from emotional life, where people who are mysterious and elusive can inspire a respect in modest minds that reliable and clear ones do not.'

'Such prose masks an absence of content,' he remarks a few pages later, offering 'unparalleled protection against having nothing to say'.

(I think this is another example of strange transatlantic misunderstandings, cf US-ers taking Stuart Home seriously. Us Brits are like "AdB has a reputation in the US?!?!" - I blame John Updike, as for most things. I also think US-ers take Martin Amis far more seriously than we do. Which makes me wonder: which US writers do Brits over-rate?)

Snork! Pfft! Silly Americans!

I also want to mention Botton and editor's tragic and chronic misuse of the comma. Saramago notwithstanding, being European is no excuse for run-on sentences.

I don't underrate Twain (I rate everyone precisely how they deserve, obviously!), and I think he is widely considered in the UK to be of the very highest calibre.

ha ha, Mary to thread.

Does anyone have any recommendations for Proust translations?

Did you guys finish all the volumes? I've finished Sodom and Gomorrah but have yet to crack open The Captive or Time Regained. Although stupidly I went to see Raoul Ruiz's adaptation of the latter (doh!). I'll avoid Chantal Akerman's film of the former until I actually read the book.

A+ lolz http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2009/08/11/that-nice-mr-alain-de-botton-can-be-nasty-too/

heard the first bit a while ago but second bit good too

Alain – is this OK? v memeable

haha yes great post

Conrad - is this OK?

; )

alain de botthurt, morelike

Somebody's been pressing his bottons, that's for sure

really think it should be aw naw, no' annoni oan an' aw noo Tom D.

Naw, that makes nae sense and is ungrammatical an' aw

On the hand though: Aw naw, no' Annoni oan an' aw, noo. That works.

Googling leads me to think you're right, so I've changed aw naw, no' annoni oan noo an' aw to aw naw, no' annoni oan an' aw noo, an' awa noo

this is OK

I wonder if the 'old-timers' above got hold of the (then) shiny new Proust translations (I guess the overall editor would be the person responsible to focus the army of translators to produce a Proust that was singular).

I was actually looking at the Penguin Arabian Nights set today (125 quid no way ever that would happen!)

what about £75.93?

http://www.media-pricer.co.uk/books/854661/The-Arabian-Nights-Tales-of-1001-Nights-Giftset-by-Unknown-Author

This is a bizarre thread to see revived, mostly because I thought I liked this book. I recommend it to people! I re-read part of it last year and thought, yeah, this was a pretty nice book to have read. I'm at a loss to explain the change -- maybe I just expected more out of it while actually reading, and then started to appreciate it more in hindsight.

"this book" meaning The Romantic Movement, obv

nabisco's been nobbled

They look nice, too.
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, May 5, 2003 12:02 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So does your mom.
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, May 5, 2003 12:13 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this was a very rude thing to say nabisco, what do you think professor de botton would say, about it, or proust

ha, yeah, I have no idea why I would randomly have made that joke. it's possible I'd hung out with Amateurist recently in Chicago, so maybe it made sense in some kind of off-board way. (I have never seen Amateurist's mom)

still confused as to what I didn't originally like about Romantic Movement, though, it's totally okay.

uh

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/26/alain-de-botton-temple-atheism

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/26/alain-de-botton-temple-atheism

any atheists who think this would be a good idea?

the barbican is already a temple dedicated to how amazing humanity is, he better not fuck up barbican

scraping de Botton of the barrel as per usual

with his bible and these plans for a base, he only needs a boat and some celebs to install himself as the L Ron Hubbard for our non-religion

thought The City was a giant temple for atheists anyway tbh

They already based the design of the O2 on de Botton's head, what more does he want? The rampant ego of the man.

isn't the 02 basically a cavernous empty space oh wait

he has a boat. it's currently plonked on the top of the queen elizabeth hall for £350 a night.

He was on This Week, he doesn't seem to grow any older (or wiser)

<A href="http://ameliatorode.typepad.com/life_moves_pretty_fast/2009/11/going-loco-with-southern-railways.html";>Will this man's crimes never end?</a>

Oh for the love of god.

Know what you're going through with the formatting A. Just remember to click on the 'show formatting help'

I heard about this guy and thought there might be some substance there, then read part of one of his books and found absolutely nothing, and now he's actively pissing me off with this idea

When he first came out I thought, how fresh and clever, but that was very short lived. I blame NPR for getting me all hyped up about him and going out and getting his book. NPR got me interested in the Russell Simmons book too.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehousedaily/2014/03/if-alain-de-botton-thinks-museum-captions-can-heal-us-hes-a-moron/

stands, applauds

Naturally, this must have been exactly what Plato was thinking when he introduced us to the philosopher-kings of The Republic. It wasn’t about the running of an ideal state (totalitarian, as we might understand it today), but how best to ensure self-fulfilment for eggheads, that tiresome class of person who can beat you at a pub quiz but whose thoughts and insights are so trite and banal that you wouldn’t want to prop up a bar with them afterwards.

u wot m8? philosophers of antiquity were all about telling people the best way to live. recipes for happiness and all.

http://www.philosophersmail.com/100314-relationships-lawrence.php

AAAAHHHHHHHH

why

The Selena Gomez one was super creepy as well.

still my favourite thing on de Botton: http://samkriss.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/why-does-alain-de-botton-want-us-to-kill-our-young/

I dunno, on one level I was just "OMG hahahahahah Alain de Botton writing fan fiction about Jennifer Lawrence, LOL but also it's only fan fiction, what's the big deal."

But then I thought about it a little bit more, and it's like... dude, own your fan fiction. Don't try to pawn it off as ~serious thought experiment~ philosophy. The creepy as fuck part is not having sexual fantasies about a celebrity, or even writing them down, it's trying to pawn off your dirty little sex fantasies about a celebrity as ~SERIOUS THOUGHT~ rather than what they are.

However, men seem to do this all the time under the guise of calling it ~literature~ so I don't know why this is so very different.

he really is a grindingly banal fuckwit
http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2014/06/the-great-philosophers-6-hegel/

Hegel has had a terrible influence on philosophy.

better than having zero influence eh Al?

woof - Stay Calm

an inspiring vision of how money can pay for art is to be found in the Florence of the 14th century, even if this period featured appalling attitudes to children and the rights of women.

plenty of great xmas gifts for your deep thinking friends in the school of life shop, i'll be buying a few of these http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/the-philosophers-jumper/

Thought this thread update would be about this deep tweet

https://twitter.com/alaindebotton/status/546391442080681984

ahaha i just noticed that he's blocked me on twitter, i have never @'d him so i guess he searched for his name, found this vile attack i made on him https://twitter.com/eeeeeein/statuses/489059948576661504, and did the only sensible thing

lol. you're lucky you aren't up before the beak for slander.

i lold at that tweet

de Botton Bitch

all in da butt hole

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-08/11/airbnb-alain-de-botton-the-new-art-of-travel

i dont want to think of these people any more

I was going to link to this video of his on London and how its becoming like Dubai but I lasted 10 secs so I didn't.

I read his Proust book a few years ago and thought it was quite good. Although it didn't especially make me want to read any Proust. de Botton himself I kind of regard as being partway between Simon Reynolds and Will Gompertz, ie people who probably know what they're talking about, but whom I'd probably chin for their pervasive brand of everyman-yet-aloof smugness if I met them in real life.

get that money and f--- the haters adb

I'm the A-D-B as you can see
Every eye, don't you be watching me
I don't want no problems cause I put you down
In the ground where you can not be found
I'm just dirt dog trying to make sum bunny
So give me my streaks and give me my honey

v jealous of merdeyeux getting stylishly blocked

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1654093541543706&set=gm.1613798142242217&type=1&theater

i really think there was some utility in the Skeptic Movement as a mainstream voice critiquing concepts like "wellness" but i guess the feel better industrial complex comes for us all pic.twitter.com/iO22vpvN8l

— worm (@SzMarsupial) January 24, 2020

if there was a big bomb at this event i would feel better

'It's called a "gong bath," and despite the name, there is no water or nudity involved. Instead, a group of people lie on the ground while a shaman-like leader bangs gongs over you.'

i know there are worse people on that list but bill bryson really grinds my gears.

Yeah I've never got him - or rather I do get him and that's why I hate him - but recently a friend of mine who liked his early work told me he's got really hateful in his dotage

When's the moment Bryson became bad? I think it was maybe when he came back to Britain in like 2001

he has always been bad but idk when he started upsetting his former fans

When I was 13 his stuff was hilarious so former fans had better include a childhood caveat

my theory is Stuart Maconie co-opted his twee pie and mash bullshit so he had to stake out new turf as an angry, angry man

I haven't read Bryson in adulthood obv

Maconie is Cardiacs' man on the inside, leave him be haha

what is bryson angry about? bathroom warrior? anti-pc?

litter

british people do litter terribly tbh bryson otm.

That looks like hell on Earth.

needs more Paul McKenna

it's Sedaris who's angry about Brit litter, isn't it? He goes out on the verges with a grabber. Maybe Bryson is too.
Anyway, balls to de Botton, I fart in his gong bath.

Playing with the idea of showing that picture to my yoga teacher.

Many yoga studios put the occasional gong bath session. I despair.

Also wtf is a pop-up podcast

I've always fancied a gong bath tbh altho not within a gazillion miles of these choads

I'm told by a couple of people in my class that it's a nice thing but just wouldn't care for it.

i wouldn't mind standing in front of that big gong in the rank films thing with some ear plugs in while the gongman gives it a lash

I like big gongs and I cannot lie

I once went to a music class for working with SEN children and the guy had a huge chime bar, like the size of a coffin. When he hit it you felt the sound waves fill the room, right thru your chest, it was brilliant

that sounds great. better than a gong imo

Having recently watched Eddie Prevost playing a gong with an electric toothbrush I am here to tell you gongs are awesome.

that barbican event belongs on Real England imo