The Book Tower

4/5

I was quite ill last week with a cruel stomach bug. When not in the bathroom, I took the advantage of spending my time curled up with the cats and reading. Luckily for me my companion was Essays in Love by Alain de Botton. This is a writer who first came to my attention a few years ago with the excellent The Art of Travel. But like countless others, de Botton was cast to the back of my mind with all the other writers I really must read again.

So I was very glad to get reacquainted . Essays in Love is de Botton’s very first book, written in 1993 when he was in his early 20s. Semi-autobiographical, it charts a relationship he has with a young lady called Chloe. The couple meet on a Paris to London flight and proceed to embark on a not particularly unusual love affair. What is remarkable however is de Botton’s writing, especially in how he can make the ordinary and common incredibly fascinating. The wonders of this chance encounter (he marvels over the incredible odds that they sat next to one another on that particular flight), are followed by all the joys and complications of love – that first breakfast together, the introductions to parents and friends, the unpicking of past histories, the rows, the doubts, the plucking up the courage to say I love you. Throughout the book de Botton examines the nature of one who claims to be in love, the characteristics of the passionate, the unwise and the irrational. Why does he have a terrible row with Chloe over her odd choice in shoes? Especially when his newsagent’s choice in shoes is even odder? If he loved his newsagent would he react in the same way? And why does he react with jealously to Chloe’s actions, even when he knows his suspicions are unfounded and absurd? And so on – pondering over every mad notion anyone in a relationship has ever entertained.

What let me down slightly that at times the situation did not always seem real. Alain and Chloe appeared a little too text book and showed all the too obvious stages in a relationship, from conception to bitter break up. At the end of the book, depressed and defeated the lonely de Botton slips into the self indulgent despair we’ve all slipped into. And that doesn’t make the final chapters easy reading. But perhaps this is his intention. Alain and Chloe are text book lovers because they are like us all, we notice the obvious hallmarks because we are all doomed to repeat the pattern.

Alain de Botton is a thoughtful writer with a neat line in self deprecation. He is also very funny, one of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud. Like his other work Essays in Love is peppered with references to philosophers and their writing but skilfully done as to not alienate the reader. What’s ultimately, and strangely, satisfying is that even though he writes very wisely about the subject he has probably learnt nothing. As he hints at the end, like all foolish lovers he will keep making all the same mistakes again.