864. On Love

On Love
Alain de Botton
1993
Around 195 pages

Alain de Botton wrote How Proust Can Change Your Life, so I knew immediately I was in good hands. I was instantly charmed by this novel, starting with the title. 

The novel is presented in a unique form. It's basically a case study of love between our narrator and a woman he meets on a plane, Chloe. The structure was reminiscent of Flaubert's Parrot, where each chapter basically focuses on an idea and how it relates to our novel's main subject; in this case, the relationship between Chloe and the narrator.

The novel is peppered with philosophical insights, and I had to keep pausing to digest his ideas. Is there a subject more worthy of further examination than the topic of the love? For the most part, especially in fiction, we don't question it so much. Two characters fall in love because, they just do, love is unpredictable. De Botton really dives into our own internal transformations when we fall in love, and how little it actually has to do with the object of that love.

Sometimes when I'm reading a book that it is, in my eyes at least, perfect, I get vaguely sad for some reason. But de Botton even helped me put a label on this feeling, as Chloe experiences similar symptoms during their holiday in Spain. The doctor diagnoses it as a form of an anhedonia, where you feel misery because you realize heaven is available on Earth. 

I just love those books where you keep thinking to yourself "that is what it's like!" Highly recommended!

RATING: *****

Interesting Facts:

In August 2014, de Botton was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

UP NEXT: Complicity by Iain Banks