I’ve gone through several books by Alain de Botton over the past few years. I read The Architecture of Happiness on the strength of its beginning, which includes a passage on the inner workings of his own house, a house that, left on its own after the occupants have left, rearranges itself after the night by “clearing its pipes and cracking its joints”. Nice. On the whole, though, I was glad I took that book out of the library instead of buying it. Ditto How Proust Can Change Your Life. (The Consolations of Philosophy is still on my to-read list—in my defence, I have a very long to-read list.) I do have on my bookshelf The Art of Travel and Status Anxiety, and still occasionally refer to them. Right now I’m halfway through The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, and I have to say I think this is de Botton’s best so far.
De Botton’s talent is to bring to our attention what seems ordinary, mundane, plain and even ridiculous and, in allowing a reader to see it deeply and thoughtfully through his eyes, bestow it some dignity. He displays this talent beautifully in Work.
Consider what he does in the first chapter, “Cargo Ship Spotting,” with a group of five men standing in the rain at the end of a pier: He likens their study of the progress of the cargo ship Grande Nigeria to that of ornithologists observing a Phylloscopus trochilus, he compares their concentration to that of a small child discovering a piece of chewing gum on a crowded sidewalk. The men’s dedication to their study, he argues, is deeper than that of many museum attendees who go through the motions of admiring a centuries-old nude but really are rather impatient for the cafeteria at the end of the hall.
These men, who may not be well-read or aware of 14th century Florentine art, are alive to some of the most astonishing aspects of our time: “They know what it is about our world that would detain a Martian or a child.”
That’s what de Botton knows. He also knows how to put it in language you want to savour. That’s his gift.
De Botton also introduces us to the world of an artist who paints for love, since money largely eludes him. This painter, de Botton says, knows what his art is for: “To help us to notice what we have already seen.” And the same can be said for de Botton’s work.
I live on the “wet coast” of British Columbia, and from the end of the sidewalk to my house, I have a narrow view of the ocean a block and a half away. Cargo ships, coming to or from Vancouver or Seattle, frequently pass through those waters, and I rarely pay them much attention. At least I haven’t in the past; I expect I’ll look at the next one I see in a different way.
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