The Consolations of Philosophy

The bank holiday has afforded me another day of reading - and thus has seen me finish off Alain de Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy. I have to admit to some initial distaste towards the individual and phenomena that is De Botton - a few glimpses of him speaking on TV (maybe on Late Review or one of his own series) had rather put me off the man in an unreasoned way.

That is until a charity shop threw his book The Art of Travel my way a few weeks ago which I read and throroughly enjoyed. Especially all the bits on Gustave Flaubert - who came across as far more interesting than I remember from studying the European novel 15 or so years ago. (Not to say I didn't enjoy reading Madame Bovary, I did, but the humorous fellow emerging from De Botton's book was unknown to me).

Anyway, another charity shop has seem fit to throw this book at me - and that has been today's read. Enjoyable again, although not as much as The Art of Travel - I could have done with more of the personal stuff - the anecdotal asides from his own life, which in this and the previous book put me slightly in mind of Geoff Dyer and his great book Yoga for People Who can't be Bothered to do it.

While I didn't buy this book because of it, when I browsed the chapter headings and saw one titled " Consolation for a Broken Heart" - I thought that there might be some useful salve for my own damaged organ contained therein. Alas the meditations of Schopenhauer could not raise my spirits or help heal my own broken heart.

Schopenhauer's views regarding the romantic urge in the human put me in mind of previous meditations of my own on the "tyranny of biology" and the 'against nature' vibe of De Sade. This tyranny of biology, the urge to reproduce that gets us all into so much trouble with yearnings, thwarted and unfulfilled passions, love lost in painful partings etc. But then I'm not in a great space regarding these things right now... I still believe in LOVE mind.

So, anyway, this book - yeah its good, worth a read and I'll be trying to catch his new TV series on buildings (starts tonight on More4) and will buy and read his new accompanying book The Architecture of Happiness, as soon as my local charity shop is stocking it.