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The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
We spend most of our waking lives at work—in occupations most often chosen by our inexperienced younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our jobs mean to us.The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace, beautifully exploring what other people wake up to do each day—and night—to make our frenzied world function. With a philosophical eye and his signature combination of wit and wisdom, Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around an eclectic range of occupations, from rocket scientist to biscuit manufacturer, from accountant to artist—in search of what makes jobs either soul-destroying or fulfilling.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
414 people are currently reading
8,756 people want to read
About the author
Alain de Botton
136books14.9kfollowersAlain de Botton is a writer and television producer who lives in London and aims to make philosophy relevant to everyday life. He can be contacted by email directly via
He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences and ideas- and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life.'
His first book, Essays in Love [titled On Love in the US], minutely analysed the process of falling in and out of love. The style of the book was unusual, because it mixed elements of a novel together with reflections and analyses normally found in a piece of non-fiction. It's a book of which many readers are still fondest.
Bibliography:
* Essays In Love (1993)
* The Romantic Movement (1994)
* Kiss and Tell (1995)
* How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997)
* The Consolations of Philosophy (2000)
* The Art of Travel (2002)
* Status Anxiety (2004)
* The Architecture of Happiness (2006)
* The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)
He is a writer of essayistic books, which refer both to his own experiences and ideas- and those of artists, philosophers and thinkers. It's a style of writing that has been termed a 'philosophy of everyday life.'
His first book, Essays in Love [titled On Love in the US], minutely analysed the process of falling in and out of love. The style of the book was unusual, because it mixed elements of a novel together with reflections and analyses normally found in a piece of non-fiction. It's a book of which many readers are still fondest.
Bibliography:
* Essays In Love (1993)
* The Romantic Movement (1994)
* Kiss and Tell (1995)
* How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997)
* The Consolations of Philosophy (2000)
* The Art of Travel (2002)
* Status Anxiety (2004)
* The Architecture of Happiness (2006)
* The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 655 reviews
June 14, 2009
Damn! This book just confirms my desire to have Alain de Botton as a friend. What a smart, erudite, witty, unassuming mensch this guy is. With a quirky curiosity that helps him take an interesting perspective on almost any subject he tackles. His previous books shows his willingness to take on quite a variety of topics. but, of all his books that I've read thus far, the subject of work seems particularly well-suited to his particular (and prodigious) talent.
The book consists of ten chapters, in each of which the author explores a specific job in depth. The text is augmented throughout with photographs by Richard Baker, about 15 per chapter. These serve as an excellent complement to de Botton's remarks and reinforce one of the book’s major strengths, which is Alain de Botton’s skill for anchoring his exploration of profound questions pertaining to work (what to do with one’s life? how to combine earning money with attaining fulfilment? how to balance career and family obligations?) in intelligently chosen, concrete examples.
A listing of the ten chapters gives an idea of the wide-ranging and eclectic nature of his investigation:
1. Cargo Ship Spotting
2. Logistics (including a photo essay which follows the path of a tuna from its capture in a Maldives fishing boat to the supermarket shelf)
3. Biscuit Manufacture
4. Career Counselling
5. Rocket Science
6. Painting
7. Transmission Engineering
8. Accountancy
9. Entrepeneurship
10. Aviation
The list fails to convey the charm and subtlety of de Botton’s writing � to appreciate those, you’ll have to read the book yourself. In each chapter there is something to delight � the author’s curiosity will make you think about commonplace things in a new way, and his thoughtfulness and erudition make him a charming tour guide. The chapter on “rocket science�, centred around a trip to French Guiana to report on the launch of a French-made communications satellite commissioned by a Japanese TV station, is a tour de force of nonfiction writing. But de Botton’s particular talent shines through most obviously in those chapters which appear superficially least promising. You think to yourself � how can anyone write about biscuit manufacturing, or accountancy, and be interesting? Then you read the chapters in question, and re-read them, and think � how the hell did he do that?
This book is riveting. No review can do it full justice. You really do need to read it yourself. It’s certainly among the top five non-fiction books I’ve read in the past ten years.
The book consists of ten chapters, in each of which the author explores a specific job in depth. The text is augmented throughout with photographs by Richard Baker, about 15 per chapter. These serve as an excellent complement to de Botton's remarks and reinforce one of the book’s major strengths, which is Alain de Botton’s skill for anchoring his exploration of profound questions pertaining to work (what to do with one’s life? how to combine earning money with attaining fulfilment? how to balance career and family obligations?) in intelligently chosen, concrete examples.
A listing of the ten chapters gives an idea of the wide-ranging and eclectic nature of his investigation:
1. Cargo Ship Spotting
2. Logistics (including a photo essay which follows the path of a tuna from its capture in a Maldives fishing boat to the supermarket shelf)
3. Biscuit Manufacture
4. Career Counselling
5. Rocket Science
6. Painting
7. Transmission Engineering
8. Accountancy
9. Entrepeneurship
10. Aviation
The list fails to convey the charm and subtlety of de Botton’s writing � to appreciate those, you’ll have to read the book yourself. In each chapter there is something to delight � the author’s curiosity will make you think about commonplace things in a new way, and his thoughtfulness and erudition make him a charming tour guide. The chapter on “rocket science�, centred around a trip to French Guiana to report on the launch of a French-made communications satellite commissioned by a Japanese TV station, is a tour de force of nonfiction writing. But de Botton’s particular talent shines through most obviously in those chapters which appear superficially least promising. You think to yourself � how can anyone write about biscuit manufacturing, or accountancy, and be interesting? Then you read the chapters in question, and re-read them, and think � how the hell did he do that?
This book is riveting. No review can do it full justice. You really do need to read it yourself. It’s certainly among the top five non-fiction books I’ve read in the past ten years.
February 9, 2017
خیلی چیزها هستند که به سادگی از کنارشون می گذریم یا فراموششون کردیم. این کتاب یادآوری دقیق و ارزشمندی از همین موضوعه. به خصوص وقتی پای کار در میونه...
عالی بود...
عالی بود...
August 16, 2012
A desultory meditation, by turns erudite and sardonic. De Botton uses the examples of ten occupations as entry points into associative digressions, but he never gives the workers themselves any voice. While this oversight limits the scope of what he can accomplish in a work that he himself commends to his readers as "reportage," the altar of self-conscious melancholy whereupon the Other is sacrificed proves worthy of contemplation.
And now, a digression of my own.
De Botton notes that he gave a lecture at California State University, Bakersfield, and that the lecture was "notable for its near-unanimous absence of attendees." This observation neither surprises me nor strikes me as dishonest because I am, regrettably, from Bakersfield and, regrettably, well acquainted with what constitutes its milieu (if courting Sarah Palin to speak at "conferences," MONSTER TRUCK PANDEMONIUM THIS SATURDAY!SATURDAY!SATURDAY!, and a fast food chain restaurant on every corner can even be said to qualify as a milieu). What does surprise and strike me as dishonest is that De Botton then claims to get lost when he leaves Bakersfield. Seriously? There're basically two ways into this shit city. Granted, they pretty much look the same, what with their low desert scrub and billboards promising a better life in the military; however, if you've mistaken them for something else, I gotta say that you've seriously underestimated the gravity of your situation and I, therefore, question your intelligence and the veracity thereof. Now, my problem with his claim is that he ends up in nearby Mojave as a result, where he is summarily cussed by a native (THAT I buy). And, frankly, I'm cool with it because De Botton has shown himself to be a tourist that is too clever by half.
And now, a digression of my own.
De Botton notes that he gave a lecture at California State University, Bakersfield, and that the lecture was "notable for its near-unanimous absence of attendees." This observation neither surprises me nor strikes me as dishonest because I am, regrettably, from Bakersfield and, regrettably, well acquainted with what constitutes its milieu (if courting Sarah Palin to speak at "conferences," MONSTER TRUCK PANDEMONIUM THIS SATURDAY!SATURDAY!SATURDAY!, and a fast food chain restaurant on every corner can even be said to qualify as a milieu). What does surprise and strike me as dishonest is that De Botton then claims to get lost when he leaves Bakersfield. Seriously? There're basically two ways into this shit city. Granted, they pretty much look the same, what with their low desert scrub and billboards promising a better life in the military; however, if you've mistaken them for something else, I gotta say that you've seriously underestimated the gravity of your situation and I, therefore, question your intelligence and the veracity thereof. Now, my problem with his claim is that he ends up in nearby Mojave as a result, where he is summarily cussed by a native (THAT I buy). And, frankly, I'm cool with it because De Botton has shown himself to be a tourist that is too clever by half.
Shelved as 'to-avoid'
August 22, 2013In July of 2009, Caleb Crain gave this book in The New York Times. Though the review is well-written and specific, it is not, on its own, enough to make me reject de Botton outright. The fact that the author then sought out Crain's blog and , however, is quite another matter:
This would seem to make it quite clear that he is no more than a spiteful, petulant child, incapable of assembling a coherent thought. All of his accusations come by way of inane attacks which do nothing to defend the worth of de Botton or his book. This is not how an intelligent, capable man writes, and this is not what a measured response to criticism looks like. This is an embarrassment.
Of course, the comment caused a significant bust up in the literary world, and was covered by various literary news sources. Later, de Botton , where he apologized and said:
Indicating that he is the sort of man who is courteous in public, but in private, where he imagines he can get away with it, becomes an utter prat. In short, it confirms everything Crain claimed about de Botton's confused and erratic sense of superiority, and more. As ever, it demonstrates that a bad writer does not require a critic in order to look bad on a public stage.
"Caleb, you make it sound on your blog that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment. In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value. The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary. I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon � so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer. You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review. You present yourself as 'nice' in this blog (so much talk about your boyfriend, the dog etc). It's only fair for your readers (nice people like Joe Linker and trusting souls like PAB) to get a whiff that the truth may be more complex. I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude."
This would seem to make it quite clear that he is no more than a spiteful, petulant child, incapable of assembling a coherent thought. All of his accusations come by way of inane attacks which do nothing to defend the worth of de Botton or his book. This is not how an intelligent, capable man writes, and this is not what a measured response to criticism looks like. This is an embarrassment.
Of course, the comment caused a significant bust up in the literary world, and was covered by various literary news sources. Later, de Botton , where he apologized and said:
"I never believed I would have to answer for my words before a large audience. I had false believed (sic) that this was basically between him and me."
Indicating that he is the sort of man who is courteous in public, but in private, where he imagines he can get away with it, becomes an utter prat. In short, it confirms everything Crain claimed about de Botton's confused and erratic sense of superiority, and more. As ever, it demonstrates that a bad writer does not require a critic in order to look bad on a public stage.
September 17, 2009
I picked this up because I heard the author speak on a couple public radio shows and he seemed interesting. I've also always struggled with the ideas of "work" and "vocation" (i.e. I imagine that if I had the latter, the former wouldn't be so frustrating), so I was actually very excited to read an examination of "the pleasures and sorrows of work." Unfortunately, this book is less an examination and more a set of witty but disorganized notes from a handful of trips to different workplaces. He doesn't even begin to state the purpose of the book until about 70 pages in, when you learn he's somewhat concerned about the dilution of meaning in a specialized workforce. Up until then, it's mostly just ruminations on the magnitude of the shipping industry or the absurdity of cookie marketing, and this continues throughout, seasoned with amusing turns of phrase, notes on his personal travails, and the occasional absurd and completely unexplored assertion, like "It is the high-minded [i.e. idealistic, un-capitalist:] countries that have let their members starve." Funny stuff, occasionally intriuging, but unfulfilling. Where's the history? Where's the hypothesizing on root causes? Who's actually happy at work and why?
I think the most telling fault is the near complete lack of anyone's voice but the author's. Almost no sign of workers speaking for themselves, in their own words, despite the obvious fact that he talked to many, many people. Botton seems much more interested in his own disjointed mental peregrinations than in how his "research" subjects actually think and feel about work, and about the role of work in the overall scope of human affairs.
I think the most telling fault is the near complete lack of anyone's voice but the author's. Almost no sign of workers speaking for themselves, in their own words, despite the obvious fact that he talked to many, many people. Botton seems much more interested in his own disjointed mental peregrinations than in how his "research" subjects actually think and feel about work, and about the role of work in the overall scope of human affairs.
December 12, 2019
I spotted this book among a display at my local library, one of those monthly themed-topic selections the library staff picks out. What We're Reading This Month or If You Liked That, You'll Like This, or something similar. As I was going through a bit of an existential crisis career-wise at the time, the title really grabbed me so I pulled out my phone, added it to my trusty ŷ to-read list, and there it sat for two years or so.
When I finally got around to reading it, I wasn't sure what I was in for. My own career path is brighter today in some regards (more money for lower expectations) but dimmer in some others (it may become the job I do until retirement, some 30-odd years away). I know I was hoping for something like Studs Terkel's Working, an investigative, man-on-the-streets interview series illuminating what work really means to workers, or a Mary Roach-esque sort of book with lots of pithy insights into modern life. I guess this one falls somewhere in between: the author says he was hoping to "attempt a hymn" as a celebration of workers, but he doesn't interview any or give them their own voice. Instead he observes things and extrapolates his own meaning from their work, ascribing a certain melodramatic sanctity to the Blue Collar and the Average Joe. He does not successfully fulfill his aim, though, since he often focuses more on the products and processes that make modern society run than the people behind them.
The book is written (I daresay overwritten, and sometimes painfully so) in what we might call "Encyclopedic" mindfulness, that is, the author attempts to catalog every possible detail, to draw attention to the life and energy in the mundane, to make the little things we gloss over after seeing them a thousand times seem fresh and new again. Everything gets a quirky descriptor or metaphor, but they aren't all poetic or appropriate; some are just weird. It's lively writing, but not lovely writing. It strikes me as perhaps good narration for a documentary film, but in writing it reads like magazine copy: high-energy and captivating for as long as you're giving it your attention, but easily forgettable once you've turned your thoughts elsewhere. I liked it, but it's unlikely to stick with me for a while.
3 stars out of 5. Far and away the best section is Chapter 4, in which the author shadows a career counselor and puzzles through the origins and damaging residual impact of the idea of work as a calling. Also enjoyable is Chapter 6, a rhapsody on a painter and his painstaking devotion to his craft. But although enjoyable, these chapters don't really gel together; we have some examples of fine writing, but not a cohesive whole. By the end he's ruminated in warehouses and office buildings, on factory floors and at inventors' fairs and sales conventions, but hasn't really drawn any firm conclusions so the ending is anticlimactic.
(Read in 2017, the sixteenth book in my Alphabetical Reading Challenge)
When I finally got around to reading it, I wasn't sure what I was in for. My own career path is brighter today in some regards (more money for lower expectations) but dimmer in some others (it may become the job I do until retirement, some 30-odd years away). I know I was hoping for something like Studs Terkel's Working, an investigative, man-on-the-streets interview series illuminating what work really means to workers, or a Mary Roach-esque sort of book with lots of pithy insights into modern life. I guess this one falls somewhere in between: the author says he was hoping to "attempt a hymn" as a celebration of workers, but he doesn't interview any or give them their own voice. Instead he observes things and extrapolates his own meaning from their work, ascribing a certain melodramatic sanctity to the Blue Collar and the Average Joe. He does not successfully fulfill his aim, though, since he often focuses more on the products and processes that make modern society run than the people behind them.
The book is written (I daresay overwritten, and sometimes painfully so) in what we might call "Encyclopedic" mindfulness, that is, the author attempts to catalog every possible detail, to draw attention to the life and energy in the mundane, to make the little things we gloss over after seeing them a thousand times seem fresh and new again. Everything gets a quirky descriptor or metaphor, but they aren't all poetic or appropriate; some are just weird. It's lively writing, but not lovely writing. It strikes me as perhaps good narration for a documentary film, but in writing it reads like magazine copy: high-energy and captivating for as long as you're giving it your attention, but easily forgettable once you've turned your thoughts elsewhere. I liked it, but it's unlikely to stick with me for a while.
3 stars out of 5. Far and away the best section is Chapter 4, in which the author shadows a career counselor and puzzles through the origins and damaging residual impact of the idea of work as a calling. Also enjoyable is Chapter 6, a rhapsody on a painter and his painstaking devotion to his craft. But although enjoyable, these chapters don't really gel together; we have some examples of fine writing, but not a cohesive whole. By the end he's ruminated in warehouses and office buildings, on factory floors and at inventors' fairs and sales conventions, but hasn't really drawn any firm conclusions so the ending is anticlimactic.
(Read in 2017, the sixteenth book in my Alphabetical Reading Challenge)
May 25, 2013
De Botton applies his self-consciously philosophical style to exploring the how and why of a cross-section of professions across the Western world. Relying upon a mix of happenstance encounters and his own personal agenda , de Botton pursues his stated quest to attempt to create:
"a hymn to the intelligence, peculiarity, beauty and horror of the modern workplace, and not, least, its extraordinary claim to be able to provide us with, alongside love, the principal source of life's meaning."
The book had a quiet and promising start. De Botton respectfully, thoughtfully and sweetly details the passions of a group of "ship spotters" (men who stand in harbors all day and watch and debate the merits of various ships). He credits these gentlemen with inspiring this work. Their passion reminded him of a childhood awe and an old-fashioned sense of the wide-eyed wonder at those who Sail the High Seas. De Botton was struck by how often our admiration is channeled into socially accepted and admired aesthetic professions and delights (painters, sculptors, actors, singers, poetry, etc), while these men, possessed of keen feeling and in-depth knowledge of their chosen objects of love, have been able to see that beauty should not be so narrowly defined:
"At the end of a pier in Gravesend, five men are standing in the rain. They are tracking a ship... There is no practical reason for their scrutiny. They are not in charge of preparing her berth for its next occupant or, like the staff at the nearby control tower, assigning her a shipping lane for the journey out to the North Sea. They wish only to admire her and note her passage. They bring to the study of harbor life a devotion more often witnessed in relation to art, their behavior implying a belief that creativity and intelligence can be as present in the transport of axles around the tip of the western Sahara as they are in the use of impasto in a female nude. Yet how fickle museum-goers seem by comparison, with their impatient interest in cafeterias, their susceptibility to gift shops, their readiness to avail themselves of benches. How seldom has a man spent two hours in a rain-storm in front of Hendrickje Bathing with only a thermos of coffee.
Admittedly, the ship spotters do not respond to the objects of their enthusiasm with particular imagination. They traffic in statistics. Their energies are focused on logging dates and shipping speeds, recording turbine numbers and shaft lengths. They behave like a man who has fallen deeply in love and asks his companion if he might act on his emotions by measuring the distance between her elbow and her shoulder blade. But in converting a passion into a set of facts, the spotters are at least following a pattern with an established pedigree, most noticeable in academia, where an art historian, on being stirred to tears by the tenderness and serenity he detects in a work by a fourteenth century Florentine painter, may end up writing a monograph, as irreproachable as it is bloodless, on the history of paint manufacture in the age of Giotto."
This lovely opening statement seemed to promise a book full of such encounters, with de Botton seeking out and discovering people with similarly overlooked passions. There were three other chapters that did just that. However, I discount one, as it is about a working painter, one of the professions that has been deified and declared divine. Therefore, I didn't think that it particularly belonged in this book's brief of giving the stage to unsung workhorses. The other was a simply told and delicately considered story of a man named Ian, who was a member of the Pylon Appreciation Society. De Botton takes a long walk with Ian along an electricity line running from the Channel coast to the edge of London, following the pylons that will deliver electricity to Trafalgar Square. It was a surprisingly affecting to discover this small, but apparently international and dedicated, hobby. There are apparently even books on the subject, such as one striking Dutch publication which:
"was a defense on the contribution of transmission engineering to the visual appeal of Holland, referencing the often ignored grandeur of the towers on their march from power stations to cities. It's particular interest for Ian lay in its thesis about the history of the Dutch relationship to windmills, for it emphasized that these early industrial objects had originally been felt to have all the pylons' alien, threatening qualities, rather than the air of enchantment and playfulness now routinely associated with them. They had been denounced from pulpits and occasionally burned to the ground by suspicious villagers. The re-evaluation of the windmills had in large part been the work of the great painters of the Dutch Golden Age, who, moved by their country's dependence on these rotating utilitarian objects, gave them pride of place int heir canvases, taking care to throw their finest aspects into relief, like their resilience during storms and the glint of their sails in the late afternoon sun...perhaps it would be left to the artists of our own day to teach us to discern the virtues of the furniture of contemporary technology. He hoped that photographs of pylons might in the future hang over dining tables and that someone, one day, might write a libretto for an opera set along the grid."
The second chapter that tried very hard to instill some sense of wonder was the one about rocket science, where de Botton travels to French Guinea to witness the launching of a satellite that will broadcast for a Japanese television company. The chapter does a lot of "look how far we've come", in juxtaposing the primitive jungle that surrounds the rocket launching site and the nearby native peoples that still worship trees and rocks. However, it also mourns the loss of the "great advance" made by a single man, now lost in the small contributions of teams of scientists to incredibly specific problems that, if successful, only a few people will ever know about. In the end, however, his sense of awe is overcome by a sense that we have come to worship ourselves. That is, that old horse that God is Dead and science has replaced it in an unsatisfying way, because to some extent humans are now gods.
I must say that other chapters were also similarly handicapped by this occasional dated, Freudian, white male preoccupations with things like sublimated desire(aviation), a weird digression into the purpose of sexual harrassment policies sparked by de Botton's interest in a beautiful lady at one place he visits (accountancy), or a Mad Men-esque Man in the Flannel Grey Suit obsession with some stereotypical squeezing out of life that happens to the worker bee in the middle of the food chain. I took these as yet another example of his permanent pose as an 18th century Man of Letters, as well as the generational and gender gap between him and myself (more on that below).
The rest of the book was spent on professions that the author clearly had to talk himself into admiring in some way. The opening section was a long disquisition on a British biscuit manufacturer, packed with musings on the subliminal desires tapped by advertising slogans used for dessert snacks and one amusing short anecdote about a middle level manager that de Botton suddenly bombarded with questions about the deeper meaning of her work and what kind of satisfaction she finds in it while she was in the middle of a spreadsheet.
These chapters were less about passion and more about providing a depiction of a day-in-the-life of these people, and creating a sense of communal experience with them. That is, letting us see that other people's lives are generally as mundane as our own, despite the money or status generated by their profession. De Botton makes some effort to point out the special surrealities of each profession and, through invocational, hypnotic and somewhat poetic recitations of breakfast choices and trains, to induce some sense of recognition or respect. However, this approach is less inspiring and somewhat repetitive. It also draws a hard, bright line under the fact that he is exploring professions that are largely reserved for the educated, somewhat middle to upper class people who are likely to read this book. There are approximately three pages where he contrasts the fate of a waiter in an executive boardroom and an executive himself, but it feels shoehorned in for lack of anything more interesting to say about accountants. It also draws the reader's attention to a huge chunk of professions-those that are more labor-of-the-body and less labor-of-the-mind focused (though of course not necessarily so and just on the surface)-that were overlooked. It makes the whole exercise seem even more of a snobbish, abstracted and rarefied -not in a good way- thing than I think de Botton meant it to be. As a result, many of the pages flowed by in a highly unremarkable fashion, with under pursued moments and themes that were more trite than they needed to be (though expressed in de Botton's typically elegant and polished fashion).
The final coda, which explores a graveyard of airplanes in the Mojave Desert, therefore ends up feeling overdetermined and under-explored, a discourse on work as a distraction from death. I am even a subscriber to the 18th century Ruienlust evoked here and I found it largely unmoving. I think that in the hands of a writer who was less determined to create a saying and put his book in a Fine Tradition of Western Writers and more interested in describing, making connections and illustrating, it could have been moving. It smacked of wasted potential. I hope that some other writer visits that graveyard and gives it the genuinely passionate treatment that it deserves.
Finally, a note on style. De Botton is clearly an admirer and imitator of the 18th century travelogue and Samuel Johnson style of witty aphorism and generalized saying. I don't have a problem with that (and sometimes, I admit, am drawn to it. However. There are things that can irritate a reader that result from it. He frequently takes time out to muse on profound truths and make larger truths out of the specific. Sometimes this can feel ham-handed, and sometimes his insights are not particularly profound. In addition, it can result in some wince-worthy metaphors ("almost all of the exhibitors at the fair were destined to throw themselves at the cliff face of entrepreneurial achievement and fall flat..." ouch.)
I still feel that Status Anxiety is Botton's best book. If only because I think that most of his books and ideas are, at their core, about status and expectations in some way or another, so I think it makes sense that he understands that the best.
Nonetheless, I think that this book can be worth reading if you are experiencing professional dissatisfaction (if only for giving you a sense that everyone else is too and the grass is not always greener), or if you too found the story of the ship spotters and the electricity pylon admirers as affecting as I did.
"a hymn to the intelligence, peculiarity, beauty and horror of the modern workplace, and not, least, its extraordinary claim to be able to provide us with, alongside love, the principal source of life's meaning."
The book had a quiet and promising start. De Botton respectfully, thoughtfully and sweetly details the passions of a group of "ship spotters" (men who stand in harbors all day and watch and debate the merits of various ships). He credits these gentlemen with inspiring this work. Their passion reminded him of a childhood awe and an old-fashioned sense of the wide-eyed wonder at those who Sail the High Seas. De Botton was struck by how often our admiration is channeled into socially accepted and admired aesthetic professions and delights (painters, sculptors, actors, singers, poetry, etc), while these men, possessed of keen feeling and in-depth knowledge of their chosen objects of love, have been able to see that beauty should not be so narrowly defined:
"At the end of a pier in Gravesend, five men are standing in the rain. They are tracking a ship... There is no practical reason for their scrutiny. They are not in charge of preparing her berth for its next occupant or, like the staff at the nearby control tower, assigning her a shipping lane for the journey out to the North Sea. They wish only to admire her and note her passage. They bring to the study of harbor life a devotion more often witnessed in relation to art, their behavior implying a belief that creativity and intelligence can be as present in the transport of axles around the tip of the western Sahara as they are in the use of impasto in a female nude. Yet how fickle museum-goers seem by comparison, with their impatient interest in cafeterias, their susceptibility to gift shops, their readiness to avail themselves of benches. How seldom has a man spent two hours in a rain-storm in front of Hendrickje Bathing with only a thermos of coffee.
Admittedly, the ship spotters do not respond to the objects of their enthusiasm with particular imagination. They traffic in statistics. Their energies are focused on logging dates and shipping speeds, recording turbine numbers and shaft lengths. They behave like a man who has fallen deeply in love and asks his companion if he might act on his emotions by measuring the distance between her elbow and her shoulder blade. But in converting a passion into a set of facts, the spotters are at least following a pattern with an established pedigree, most noticeable in academia, where an art historian, on being stirred to tears by the tenderness and serenity he detects in a work by a fourteenth century Florentine painter, may end up writing a monograph, as irreproachable as it is bloodless, on the history of paint manufacture in the age of Giotto."
This lovely opening statement seemed to promise a book full of such encounters, with de Botton seeking out and discovering people with similarly overlooked passions. There were three other chapters that did just that. However, I discount one, as it is about a working painter, one of the professions that has been deified and declared divine. Therefore, I didn't think that it particularly belonged in this book's brief of giving the stage to unsung workhorses. The other was a simply told and delicately considered story of a man named Ian, who was a member of the Pylon Appreciation Society. De Botton takes a long walk with Ian along an electricity line running from the Channel coast to the edge of London, following the pylons that will deliver electricity to Trafalgar Square. It was a surprisingly affecting to discover this small, but apparently international and dedicated, hobby. There are apparently even books on the subject, such as one striking Dutch publication which:
"was a defense on the contribution of transmission engineering to the visual appeal of Holland, referencing the often ignored grandeur of the towers on their march from power stations to cities. It's particular interest for Ian lay in its thesis about the history of the Dutch relationship to windmills, for it emphasized that these early industrial objects had originally been felt to have all the pylons' alien, threatening qualities, rather than the air of enchantment and playfulness now routinely associated with them. They had been denounced from pulpits and occasionally burned to the ground by suspicious villagers. The re-evaluation of the windmills had in large part been the work of the great painters of the Dutch Golden Age, who, moved by their country's dependence on these rotating utilitarian objects, gave them pride of place int heir canvases, taking care to throw their finest aspects into relief, like their resilience during storms and the glint of their sails in the late afternoon sun...perhaps it would be left to the artists of our own day to teach us to discern the virtues of the furniture of contemporary technology. He hoped that photographs of pylons might in the future hang over dining tables and that someone, one day, might write a libretto for an opera set along the grid."
The second chapter that tried very hard to instill some sense of wonder was the one about rocket science, where de Botton travels to French Guinea to witness the launching of a satellite that will broadcast for a Japanese television company. The chapter does a lot of "look how far we've come", in juxtaposing the primitive jungle that surrounds the rocket launching site and the nearby native peoples that still worship trees and rocks. However, it also mourns the loss of the "great advance" made by a single man, now lost in the small contributions of teams of scientists to incredibly specific problems that, if successful, only a few people will ever know about. In the end, however, his sense of awe is overcome by a sense that we have come to worship ourselves. That is, that old horse that God is Dead and science has replaced it in an unsatisfying way, because to some extent humans are now gods.
I must say that other chapters were also similarly handicapped by this occasional dated, Freudian, white male preoccupations with things like sublimated desire(aviation), a weird digression into the purpose of sexual harrassment policies sparked by de Botton's interest in a beautiful lady at one place he visits (accountancy), or a Mad Men-esque Man in the Flannel Grey Suit obsession with some stereotypical squeezing out of life that happens to the worker bee in the middle of the food chain. I took these as yet another example of his permanent pose as an 18th century Man of Letters, as well as the generational and gender gap between him and myself (more on that below).
The rest of the book was spent on professions that the author clearly had to talk himself into admiring in some way. The opening section was a long disquisition on a British biscuit manufacturer, packed with musings on the subliminal desires tapped by advertising slogans used for dessert snacks and one amusing short anecdote about a middle level manager that de Botton suddenly bombarded with questions about the deeper meaning of her work and what kind of satisfaction she finds in it while she was in the middle of a spreadsheet.
These chapters were less about passion and more about providing a depiction of a day-in-the-life of these people, and creating a sense of communal experience with them. That is, letting us see that other people's lives are generally as mundane as our own, despite the money or status generated by their profession. De Botton makes some effort to point out the special surrealities of each profession and, through invocational, hypnotic and somewhat poetic recitations of breakfast choices and trains, to induce some sense of recognition or respect. However, this approach is less inspiring and somewhat repetitive. It also draws a hard, bright line under the fact that he is exploring professions that are largely reserved for the educated, somewhat middle to upper class people who are likely to read this book. There are approximately three pages where he contrasts the fate of a waiter in an executive boardroom and an executive himself, but it feels shoehorned in for lack of anything more interesting to say about accountants. It also draws the reader's attention to a huge chunk of professions-those that are more labor-of-the-body and less labor-of-the-mind focused (though of course not necessarily so and just on the surface)-that were overlooked. It makes the whole exercise seem even more of a snobbish, abstracted and rarefied -not in a good way- thing than I think de Botton meant it to be. As a result, many of the pages flowed by in a highly unremarkable fashion, with under pursued moments and themes that were more trite than they needed to be (though expressed in de Botton's typically elegant and polished fashion).
The final coda, which explores a graveyard of airplanes in the Mojave Desert, therefore ends up feeling overdetermined and under-explored, a discourse on work as a distraction from death. I am even a subscriber to the 18th century Ruienlust evoked here and I found it largely unmoving. I think that in the hands of a writer who was less determined to create a saying and put his book in a Fine Tradition of Western Writers and more interested in describing, making connections and illustrating, it could have been moving. It smacked of wasted potential. I hope that some other writer visits that graveyard and gives it the genuinely passionate treatment that it deserves.
Finally, a note on style. De Botton is clearly an admirer and imitator of the 18th century travelogue and Samuel Johnson style of witty aphorism and generalized saying. I don't have a problem with that (and sometimes, I admit, am drawn to it. However. There are things that can irritate a reader that result from it. He frequently takes time out to muse on profound truths and make larger truths out of the specific. Sometimes this can feel ham-handed, and sometimes his insights are not particularly profound. In addition, it can result in some wince-worthy metaphors ("almost all of the exhibitors at the fair were destined to throw themselves at the cliff face of entrepreneurial achievement and fall flat..." ouch.)
I still feel that Status Anxiety is Botton's best book. If only because I think that most of his books and ideas are, at their core, about status and expectations in some way or another, so I think it makes sense that he understands that the best.
Nonetheless, I think that this book can be worth reading if you are experiencing professional dissatisfaction (if only for giving you a sense that everyone else is too and the grass is not always greener), or if you too found the story of the ship spotters and the electricity pylon admirers as affecting as I did.
December 16, 2015
I found de Botton's voice condescending and arrogant. He refers to women as "symbols" one too many times for me--just because a woman is attractive doesn't mean that she can't be an effective salesperson independently of her looks.
Beyond the misogyny, I doubt de Botton's ever had a "real job" in his life, and his quest to learn more about the world of work seems like a way for him to look down on all of us working drones. I read the book expecting to find out more about the unique aspects of these people's lives and careers in rocket science, accounting, painting, electrical engineering--wouldn't it be interesting to know what the daily routines of a rocket scientist are??
However, de Botton fills the book with overblown metaphors about the meaning of life and spends the rocket science chapter simultaneously poking fun at Japanese television and the desolate landscape of a poverty-stricken South American country. He watches a rocket launch in awe, then talks about how society has fallen prey to worshiping the false gods of science and technology over nature...when mere pages later, in the electrical engineering chapter, he goes on a tour of electrical pylons and waxes poetic about the power and beauty of these giant machines, lamenting with his companion the inability of people to see beyond the traditional beauty of the natural landscape. Which one is it, buddy? Nature or science?
Ultimately, de Botton makes his reader (most of whom likely have jobs that aren't "fulfilling" in this sense of purpose he seems to equate with a meaningful life) feel inadequate and depressed, as though spending a life working for a living equates to wasting your talents in a soul-sucking vacuum of misery and stupidity. Too bad we can't all spend our days traveling the country, gaining people's trust and then judging them, write a book about it and consider ourselves some kind of expert.
I read non-fiction to learn new things. This book taught me one thing--never to read another book by de Botton.
Beyond the misogyny, I doubt de Botton's ever had a "real job" in his life, and his quest to learn more about the world of work seems like a way for him to look down on all of us working drones. I read the book expecting to find out more about the unique aspects of these people's lives and careers in rocket science, accounting, painting, electrical engineering--wouldn't it be interesting to know what the daily routines of a rocket scientist are??
However, de Botton fills the book with overblown metaphors about the meaning of life and spends the rocket science chapter simultaneously poking fun at Japanese television and the desolate landscape of a poverty-stricken South American country. He watches a rocket launch in awe, then talks about how society has fallen prey to worshiping the false gods of science and technology over nature...when mere pages later, in the electrical engineering chapter, he goes on a tour of electrical pylons and waxes poetic about the power and beauty of these giant machines, lamenting with his companion the inability of people to see beyond the traditional beauty of the natural landscape. Which one is it, buddy? Nature or science?
Ultimately, de Botton makes his reader (most of whom likely have jobs that aren't "fulfilling" in this sense of purpose he seems to equate with a meaningful life) feel inadequate and depressed, as though spending a life working for a living equates to wasting your talents in a soul-sucking vacuum of misery and stupidity. Too bad we can't all spend our days traveling the country, gaining people's trust and then judging them, write a book about it and consider ourselves some kind of expert.
I read non-fiction to learn new things. This book taught me one thing--never to read another book by de Botton.
February 26, 2017
وقتی از دوباتن پرسیده میشه جرقه ی این کتاب چطور خورد جواب میده اگر یک مریخی به زمین می آمد و میخواست با خوندن ادبیات بداند مردم چکار میکنند به این نتیجه میرسه که مردم وقتشان را صرف عاشق شدن, جر و بحث با اعضای خانواده و گاهی کشتن یکدیگر میکنند. اما ما سر کار میرویم و با این حال در آثار هنری به ندرت به "کار" پرداخته میشود.
دوباتن چشممان را به زیبایی, پیچیدگی و وحشت دنیای کار باز میکند. و توجهمان را به جزییاتی جلب میکند که شاید هر روز با آن سرو کار داریم اما بی توجه از کنارشان عبور میکنیم.
قسمتی از کتاب
به نظر می رسد هر چقدر جامعه پیشرفته تر باشد علاقه اش به چیزهای ویران بیشتر است چرا که در آن چیزهایی میبیند که به طرزی جدی و رستگاری بخش یادآور شکننده بودن دستاوردهای خودش است. ویرانه ها حماقت متورم ما را در پیگیری جامع و دیوانه وار ثروت سوراخ میکنند. ص 330
دوباتن چشممان را به زیبایی, پیچیدگی و وحشت دنیای کار باز میکند. و توجهمان را به جزییاتی جلب میکند که شاید هر روز با آن سرو کار داریم اما بی توجه از کنارشان عبور میکنیم.
قسمتی از کتاب
به نظر می رسد هر چقدر جامعه پیشرفته تر باشد علاقه اش به چیزهای ویران بیشتر است چرا که در آن چیزهایی میبیند که به طرزی جدی و رستگاری بخش یادآور شکننده بودن دستاوردهای خودش است. ویرانه ها حماقت متورم ما را در پیگیری جامع و دیوانه وار ثروت سوراخ میکنند. ص 330
November 15, 2013
بین چند کتاب ترجمه شده� دوباتن به نظرم بهترین و پختهتری� کتابش هست. براش واقعا زحمت کشیده شده. خود کتاب عکاس اخثصاصی داشته که همراه نویسنده بوده و کلی عکس معرکه گرفته (که ای کاش کتاب رنگی بود.) کسایی که قبلا کتابی از دوباتن خونده باشن میدون� فضای کتاب چطوری هست. اما این بار نثر نویسنده خیلی زیباتر شده؛ تشبیههای� که به کار برده اونقد� ناب و دوستداشتن� هستن که آدم گاهی مسیر اصلی خود بحث رو رها میکن� و به همین تشبیه فکر میکن�. کلی نقلقو� خوب هم توی کتاب هست و باز هم مثل همیشه نویسنده داره تلاشش رو میکن� تا توجه کنیم به همه� اون چیزهایی که خیال میکنی� ارزش ندارن مورد توجه قرار بگیرن.
January 29, 2025
صفر.
«مرکز جهان دیدن خودمان و زمان حال را قله� تاریخ انگاشتن، اهمیت بیحدوحسا� دادن به ملاقاتها� پیش رویمان� نادیده گرفتن درسها� گورستان، خست در مطالعه، احساس فشار ضربالعجلها� پرخاش به همکاران، باز کردن راهما� به کنفرانسهای� که در برنامهشا� نوشته شده: «۱۱:۰۰ - ۱۱:۱۵ صبح: پذیرایی با قهوه»، با بیاعتنای� و حریصانه رفتار کردن و سپس به خشم آمدن در دعوا، شاید همه� اینه� نهایتاً در کار نشان زیرکی باشند. احترام زیادی برای مرگ قایل میشویم� مرگی که با تجویزهای حکیمانه خودمان را برایش آماده میکنی�. بگذار وقتی در حال حمل خمیر چوب در دریای بالتیک هستیم، وقتی سر ماهی تن را میکنیم� تنوع تهوعآور� از بیسکویته� تولید میکنیم� به مشتری نصیحت میکنی� شغلش را عوض کند، ماهوارها� شلیک میکنی� که با آن قرار است نسلی از دخترمدرسهایها� ژاپن را اغفال کنیم، از درخت بلوط در مزرعه نقاشی میکشیم� خط برق میکشیم� به حسابوکتابه� میرسیم� فشاری دئودورانت را اختراع میکنیم� یا برای هواپیمای مسافربری لولهها� کویل تقویتشد� میسازیم� غافلگیرمان کند. بگذار مرگ ما را در حالی بیابد که به آمدنش معترضای�. اعتراضی که در برابر امواجش به خانه� شنی میمان�.
اگر میتوانستی� شاهد سرنوشت نهایی هر یک از پروژههایما� باشیم هیچ انتخاب دیگری نداشتیم جر اینک� تسلیم فلج آنی شویم. آیا کسی که عزیمت لشکر خشایارشاه برای فتح یونان را تماشا میکرد� یا تاج چان اهک را که فرمان میدا� معابد طلایی کانکوئن را بسازند، یا مباشران استعماری بریتانیا را که نظام پُستی هند را افتتاح میکردند� جرئت داشت این بازیگران پرشور را از سرنوشت نهایی تلاشهایشا� باخبر کند؟
کارمان دستک� حواسما� را پرت خواهد کرد، حباب بینقص� برایما� خواهد ساخت که در آن بر امیدمان به تکامل سرمایهگذار� کنیم، دغدغهها� بیشمارما� را بر چند هدف نسبتاً کوچک و دستیافتن� متمرکز خواهد کرد، حس استادی و مهارت را به ما خواهد داد، ما را بهشد� خسته خواهد کرد، غذا روی میز خواهد گذاشت، ما را از دردسر بزرگتر� دور خواهد داشت.»
خطوطی که خواندید، مونولوگی در باب زندگی و کار است که «آلن دو باتن» کتاب درخشان و کمنظی� «خوشیه� و مصایب کار» را با آن تمام میکن�.
یک.
همانطو� که احتمالاً از خطوط بالا متوجه شدهاید� نثر کتاب کمی سخت و نیازمند تمرکز است؛ کتاب دارای جملاتی طولانی، استعارههای� زیاد و اشارههای� فراوان به نامهای� است که برای خواننده� فارسیزبا� کمی نامأنوسند. با این وجود، مترجم و ناشر از پس کار به خوبی برآمدهان� و به نظر من با ترجمه� یکدس� و واقعاً قابلقبول� مواجهیم.
دارم پیش از کتاب، به موضوع ترجمه و نسخه� فارسی کتاب میپرداز� که کار کمسابقها� است. لااقل رویه� من این است که هنگام صحبت در مورد یک کتاب، نکات مربوط به ترجمه� آن در قسمتها� پایانی یادداشت میآین�. چند خط دیگر با من همراه باشید تا دلیلش را متوجه شوید...
کتاب توسط خانم مهرناز مصباح به عنوان مترجم و نشر چشمه به عنوان ناشر، چاپ شده است. این ترجمه برخلاف بسیاری دیگر از ترجمهها� کشور ما، با حفظ حق کپیرای� انجام شده و حتی مترجم یک مصاحبه� اختصاصی با نویسنده کرده است که نکات جالبی دارد، و علاوه بر آن به نکاتی منحصراً برای خوانندگان ایرانی اشاره شده است؛ از جمله صحبت در مورد ایران و فرهنگ و مردمش، صحبت در مورد کاراکترهای ایرانی که در کتاب به آنه� اشاره شده است و ... شاید در یک دنیای عادی و در یک زندگی نرمال، اینه� چیزها� ساده و پیشپاافتادها� باشند، اما این مسئله برای من قابل توجه و ارزشمند بود و حس خوبی را منتقل میکر�. این تلاش مترجم و ناشر از دید من جای تشکر دارد. دمتان گرم... بیش باد...
دو.
در مصاحبه� آمده در انتهای کتاب (حالا فهمیدید میخواست� چه استفادها� بکنم از نکته� فوق که در ابتدا آوردمش؟!)، آلن دو باتن نکتها� را میگوی� که فلسفه� پشت نوشتن این کتاب را به بهترین شکل مشخص میکن�: «اگر امروز یک مریخی به زمین میآم� و فقط براساس مطالعه� آثار ادبی منتشرشده میخواس� بفهمد آدمه� چه کار میکنن� به این نتیجه� استثنایی میرسی� که همه� آنچ� که مردم وقتشا� را صرف انجام آن میکنن� عاشق شدن، جروبحث کردن با اعضای خانواده، و گاهی هم کشتن یکدیگر است. اما قدر مسلم کاری که ما میکنی� این است که به سر کار میروی�... با این حال همین «کار» بهندر� در آثار هنری بروزی دارد. در صفحات اقتصادی روزنامهه� اثری از آن دیده میشو� اما عمدتاً به چشم یک پدیده� اقتصادی و نه یک پدیده� وسیعت� «انسانی». بنابراین خلاصه کنم، من میخواست� کتابی بنویسم که چشمان ما را به زیبایی، پیچیدگی، پیشپاافتادگی� و وحشت هرازگاه دنیای کار باز کند و این کار را با نگاه کردن به ده صنعت مختلف انجام دادم، و عمداً هم طیفی گلچینشد� را برگزیدم از حسابدار� تا مهندسی، از تولید بیسکویت تا لجستیک.»
کتاب مجموعها� از یادداشتهاس� در مورد ده گروه شغلی مختلف، و شامل جزئیاتی در مورد هر یک از این مشاغل که آلن دو باتن، فیلسوف زندگی روزمره،م� را به دقت در آنه� و اهمیت آنه� و زیبایی آنه� و ... دعوت میکن�. آلن دو باتن با آن جزئینگر� همیشگیا� در هر فصل به یک عنوان شغلی میپرداز� و در خلال آنه� عقاید مختلفش را در باب کاپیتالیسم، فلسفه� حیات، ملال، فسفه� کار و کسب درآمد و ... مطرح میکن�. برخی از نکات، در عین ساده و بدیهی بودن، تسلیبخ� هم هستند و شنیدنشان از زبان دو باتن چیز شبیه این به ما میگوی� که عمده� مسائل و مشکلاتی که در حال تجربه کردنشان هستیم، منحصراً مصایب ما نیستند و تقریباً همه� مردمان دیگر جهان هم با آنه� دستبهگریبانن�.
شاید عنوان کتاب ذهن را به این سمت ببرد که کتاب قرار است شغلها� مختلف را صرفاً با خوبیه� و بدیهایشا� معرفی کند، اما اصلاً اینطو� نیست. کتاب بعضی از جنبهها� کارهای مختلف را جلوی چشم خواننده میآور� و در موردشان نکاتی میگوی�. این نکات لزوماً خوشی یا مصیبت نیستند.
س.
دو نکته از هزاران:
سه-یک. اعترافی دقیق، دردناک و قابل توجه: «ما تمایل داریم باور کنیم تمام کیفیات انسانی باید با هم هماهنگ باشند، که باید در عینحا� هم زیبا باشیم هم متفکر، هم هوشیار هم آرام، بااستعداد و متوازن، اما به نظر روشن میآم� سرباب [یک تاجر موفق که چند صفحه قبلت� در موردش صحبت شده است] با وجود انرژی و دستاوردهای قابل تحسینش لزوماً همسر یا پدر خوشایندی نیست.»
سه-دو. «فلسفه� مدرن امیدش را شدیداً بر آن دو عنصر مهمی استوار کرده است که گمان میرو� حامل شادی باشند: عشق و کار. اما پس این اطمینان و تضمین بزرگوارانه که هر کسی اینج� به رضایت دست خواهد یافت، خشونت بهشد� نسنجیدها� محتاطانه پنهات است. اینطو� نیست که این دو عنصر همواره در ارائه� رضایتمندی� ناکارآمد و ناتوان باشند. فقط مسئله اینجاس� که تقریباً هیچگا� چنین کاری نمیکنن�. و وقتی یک استثنا بهجا� قاعده معرفی میشود� بداقبالی فردی ما بهجا� اینک� در نظرمان بخشی از جنبهها� اجتنابناپذی� زندگی بیاید همچون نفرینی خاص بر ما سنگینی خواهد کرد.»
چار.
آلن دو باتن ما را دعوت میکن� که به صنعت جدید، شغله� و محلها� کار ظاهراً خشک و پیشپاافتاده� با همان عینکی بنگریم که هنگام بازدید از یک کلیسای جامع در ایتالیا بر چشم میگذاری�.
پنج.
خواندن این کتاب واقعاً مفید است. اگر از لایه� منفعلانها� که در ظاهر نوشتهها� آلن دو باتن دیده میشو� گذر کنی، خواندن این کتاب به شکل جدیا� کمک میکن� به زندگی روزمره دقیقت� شوی و بیشتر دوستش داشته باشی. نسبت به جایگاهت در زندگی نگاه بهتری پیدا کنی. بااطرافیانت با حس همدلی بیشتری رفتار کنی و دیگران و خودت را ارزشمندت� از آنچ� عموماً تصور میشود� بدانی و اینگون� عزتنفس� بهشکل� شاید غیرمستقیم بهبود پیدا میکن�.
شش.
در کنار مراحل نگارش، یک پروژه� عکاسی هم در جریان بوده است و عکسها� فوقالعادها� در کتاب وجود دارد که از انسانها� حالات و مکانهای� که آلن دو باتن در حال صحبت در موردشان است، گرفته شدهان�. ابن مسئله درجه یک است. فقط یک مشکل وجود دارد و آن چاپ عکسه� با کیفیتی نسبتاً پایین و به صورت سیاه و سفید است. این مسئله البته راهکار� دارد: عکسها� این پروژه با کیفیت مناسب در وبسای� عکاس مجموعه آورده شدهان�. در برنامهها� پیشروی� دارم که در زمانها� مختلف به این مجموعه عکسه� سر بزنم و دقایق یا حتی ساعتهای� تماشایشان کنم. لینک را برای دسترسی خودم و شما دوستان عزیز که تا اینجا� ریویو همراه بودهاید� میگذار�! :)
هفت. (بیرب� به کتاب)
آلن دو باتن در مصاحبها� از تأثیر گرفتن و علاقها� به دو نویسنده میگوی�: رولان بارت و آرتور شوپنهاور.
هشت. (بیرب� به کتاب)
کمالگرا� درون، دست از سرم بردار! میدون� که این روزها با چه جدیتی، حتی بیشت� از قبل، در حال زیر نظر گرفتن حرفه� و رفتارهات هستم و دارم تلاش میکن� باهات به شکل جدی بجنگم. پس این یادداشت رو همین شکلی که هست منتشر میکن� و به این گفته� تو که «خیلی بهتر و بیشتر باید بنویسی!» توجه نمیکن�. از این یادداشت همینشکل� که هست راضی و احتمالاً خوشحالم و شاید حتی خودم رو بابتش تحسین کنم.
«مرکز جهان دیدن خودمان و زمان حال را قله� تاریخ انگاشتن، اهمیت بیحدوحسا� دادن به ملاقاتها� پیش رویمان� نادیده گرفتن درسها� گورستان، خست در مطالعه، احساس فشار ضربالعجلها� پرخاش به همکاران، باز کردن راهما� به کنفرانسهای� که در برنامهشا� نوشته شده: «۱۱:۰۰ - ۱۱:۱۵ صبح: پذیرایی با قهوه»، با بیاعتنای� و حریصانه رفتار کردن و سپس به خشم آمدن در دعوا، شاید همه� اینه� نهایتاً در کار نشان زیرکی باشند. احترام زیادی برای مرگ قایل میشویم� مرگی که با تجویزهای حکیمانه خودمان را برایش آماده میکنی�. بگذار وقتی در حال حمل خمیر چوب در دریای بالتیک هستیم، وقتی سر ماهی تن را میکنیم� تنوع تهوعآور� از بیسکویته� تولید میکنیم� به مشتری نصیحت میکنی� شغلش را عوض کند، ماهوارها� شلیک میکنی� که با آن قرار است نسلی از دخترمدرسهایها� ژاپن را اغفال کنیم، از درخت بلوط در مزرعه نقاشی میکشیم� خط برق میکشیم� به حسابوکتابه� میرسیم� فشاری دئودورانت را اختراع میکنیم� یا برای هواپیمای مسافربری لولهها� کویل تقویتشد� میسازیم� غافلگیرمان کند. بگذار مرگ ما را در حالی بیابد که به آمدنش معترضای�. اعتراضی که در برابر امواجش به خانه� شنی میمان�.
اگر میتوانستی� شاهد سرنوشت نهایی هر یک از پروژههایما� باشیم هیچ انتخاب دیگری نداشتیم جر اینک� تسلیم فلج آنی شویم. آیا کسی که عزیمت لشکر خشایارشاه برای فتح یونان را تماشا میکرد� یا تاج چان اهک را که فرمان میدا� معابد طلایی کانکوئن را بسازند، یا مباشران استعماری بریتانیا را که نظام پُستی هند را افتتاح میکردند� جرئت داشت این بازیگران پرشور را از سرنوشت نهایی تلاشهایشا� باخبر کند؟
کارمان دستک� حواسما� را پرت خواهد کرد، حباب بینقص� برایما� خواهد ساخت که در آن بر امیدمان به تکامل سرمایهگذار� کنیم، دغدغهها� بیشمارما� را بر چند هدف نسبتاً کوچک و دستیافتن� متمرکز خواهد کرد، حس استادی و مهارت را به ما خواهد داد، ما را بهشد� خسته خواهد کرد، غذا روی میز خواهد گذاشت، ما را از دردسر بزرگتر� دور خواهد داشت.»
خطوطی که خواندید، مونولوگی در باب زندگی و کار است که «آلن دو باتن» کتاب درخشان و کمنظی� «خوشیه� و مصایب کار» را با آن تمام میکن�.
یک.
همانطو� که احتمالاً از خطوط بالا متوجه شدهاید� نثر کتاب کمی سخت و نیازمند تمرکز است؛ کتاب دارای جملاتی طولانی، استعارههای� زیاد و اشارههای� فراوان به نامهای� است که برای خواننده� فارسیزبا� کمی نامأنوسند. با این وجود، مترجم و ناشر از پس کار به خوبی برآمدهان� و به نظر من با ترجمه� یکدس� و واقعاً قابلقبول� مواجهیم.
دارم پیش از کتاب، به موضوع ترجمه و نسخه� فارسی کتاب میپرداز� که کار کمسابقها� است. لااقل رویه� من این است که هنگام صحبت در مورد یک کتاب، نکات مربوط به ترجمه� آن در قسمتها� پایانی یادداشت میآین�. چند خط دیگر با من همراه باشید تا دلیلش را متوجه شوید...
کتاب توسط خانم مهرناز مصباح به عنوان مترجم و نشر چشمه به عنوان ناشر، چاپ شده است. این ترجمه برخلاف بسیاری دیگر از ترجمهها� کشور ما، با حفظ حق کپیرای� انجام شده و حتی مترجم یک مصاحبه� اختصاصی با نویسنده کرده است که نکات جالبی دارد، و علاوه بر آن به نکاتی منحصراً برای خوانندگان ایرانی اشاره شده است؛ از جمله صحبت در مورد ایران و فرهنگ و مردمش، صحبت در مورد کاراکترهای ایرانی که در کتاب به آنه� اشاره شده است و ... شاید در یک دنیای عادی و در یک زندگی نرمال، اینه� چیزها� ساده و پیشپاافتادها� باشند، اما این مسئله برای من قابل توجه و ارزشمند بود و حس خوبی را منتقل میکر�. این تلاش مترجم و ناشر از دید من جای تشکر دارد. دمتان گرم... بیش باد...
دو.
در مصاحبه� آمده در انتهای کتاب (حالا فهمیدید میخواست� چه استفادها� بکنم از نکته� فوق که در ابتدا آوردمش؟!)، آلن دو باتن نکتها� را میگوی� که فلسفه� پشت نوشتن این کتاب را به بهترین شکل مشخص میکن�: «اگر امروز یک مریخی به زمین میآم� و فقط براساس مطالعه� آثار ادبی منتشرشده میخواس� بفهمد آدمه� چه کار میکنن� به این نتیجه� استثنایی میرسی� که همه� آنچ� که مردم وقتشا� را صرف انجام آن میکنن� عاشق شدن، جروبحث کردن با اعضای خانواده، و گاهی هم کشتن یکدیگر است. اما قدر مسلم کاری که ما میکنی� این است که به سر کار میروی�... با این حال همین «کار» بهندر� در آثار هنری بروزی دارد. در صفحات اقتصادی روزنامهه� اثری از آن دیده میشو� اما عمدتاً به چشم یک پدیده� اقتصادی و نه یک پدیده� وسیعت� «انسانی». بنابراین خلاصه کنم، من میخواست� کتابی بنویسم که چشمان ما را به زیبایی، پیچیدگی، پیشپاافتادگی� و وحشت هرازگاه دنیای کار باز کند و این کار را با نگاه کردن به ده صنعت مختلف انجام دادم، و عمداً هم طیفی گلچینشد� را برگزیدم از حسابدار� تا مهندسی، از تولید بیسکویت تا لجستیک.»
کتاب مجموعها� از یادداشتهاس� در مورد ده گروه شغلی مختلف، و شامل جزئیاتی در مورد هر یک از این مشاغل که آلن دو باتن، فیلسوف زندگی روزمره،م� را به دقت در آنه� و اهمیت آنه� و زیبایی آنه� و ... دعوت میکن�. آلن دو باتن با آن جزئینگر� همیشگیا� در هر فصل به یک عنوان شغلی میپرداز� و در خلال آنه� عقاید مختلفش را در باب کاپیتالیسم، فلسفه� حیات، ملال، فسفه� کار و کسب درآمد و ... مطرح میکن�. برخی از نکات، در عین ساده و بدیهی بودن، تسلیبخ� هم هستند و شنیدنشان از زبان دو باتن چیز شبیه این به ما میگوی� که عمده� مسائل و مشکلاتی که در حال تجربه کردنشان هستیم، منحصراً مصایب ما نیستند و تقریباً همه� مردمان دیگر جهان هم با آنه� دستبهگریبانن�.
شاید عنوان کتاب ذهن را به این سمت ببرد که کتاب قرار است شغلها� مختلف را صرفاً با خوبیه� و بدیهایشا� معرفی کند، اما اصلاً اینطو� نیست. کتاب بعضی از جنبهها� کارهای مختلف را جلوی چشم خواننده میآور� و در موردشان نکاتی میگوی�. این نکات لزوماً خوشی یا مصیبت نیستند.
س.
دو نکته از هزاران:
سه-یک. اعترافی دقیق، دردناک و قابل توجه: «ما تمایل داریم باور کنیم تمام کیفیات انسانی باید با هم هماهنگ باشند، که باید در عینحا� هم زیبا باشیم هم متفکر، هم هوشیار هم آرام، بااستعداد و متوازن، اما به نظر روشن میآم� سرباب [یک تاجر موفق که چند صفحه قبلت� در موردش صحبت شده است] با وجود انرژی و دستاوردهای قابل تحسینش لزوماً همسر یا پدر خوشایندی نیست.»
سه-دو. «فلسفه� مدرن امیدش را شدیداً بر آن دو عنصر مهمی استوار کرده است که گمان میرو� حامل شادی باشند: عشق و کار. اما پس این اطمینان و تضمین بزرگوارانه که هر کسی اینج� به رضایت دست خواهد یافت، خشونت بهشد� نسنجیدها� محتاطانه پنهات است. اینطو� نیست که این دو عنصر همواره در ارائه� رضایتمندی� ناکارآمد و ناتوان باشند. فقط مسئله اینجاس� که تقریباً هیچگا� چنین کاری نمیکنن�. و وقتی یک استثنا بهجا� قاعده معرفی میشود� بداقبالی فردی ما بهجا� اینک� در نظرمان بخشی از جنبهها� اجتنابناپذی� زندگی بیاید همچون نفرینی خاص بر ما سنگینی خواهد کرد.»
چار.
آلن دو باتن ما را دعوت میکن� که به صنعت جدید، شغله� و محلها� کار ظاهراً خشک و پیشپاافتاده� با همان عینکی بنگریم که هنگام بازدید از یک کلیسای جامع در ایتالیا بر چشم میگذاری�.
پنج.
خواندن این کتاب واقعاً مفید است. اگر از لایه� منفعلانها� که در ظاهر نوشتهها� آلن دو باتن دیده میشو� گذر کنی، خواندن این کتاب به شکل جدیا� کمک میکن� به زندگی روزمره دقیقت� شوی و بیشتر دوستش داشته باشی. نسبت به جایگاهت در زندگی نگاه بهتری پیدا کنی. بااطرافیانت با حس همدلی بیشتری رفتار کنی و دیگران و خودت را ارزشمندت� از آنچ� عموماً تصور میشود� بدانی و اینگون� عزتنفس� بهشکل� شاید غیرمستقیم بهبود پیدا میکن�.
شش.
در کنار مراحل نگارش، یک پروژه� عکاسی هم در جریان بوده است و عکسها� فوقالعادها� در کتاب وجود دارد که از انسانها� حالات و مکانهای� که آلن دو باتن در حال صحبت در موردشان است، گرفته شدهان�. ابن مسئله درجه یک است. فقط یک مشکل وجود دارد و آن چاپ عکسه� با کیفیتی نسبتاً پایین و به صورت سیاه و سفید است. این مسئله البته راهکار� دارد: عکسها� این پروژه با کیفیت مناسب در وبسای� عکاس مجموعه آورده شدهان�. در برنامهها� پیشروی� دارم که در زمانها� مختلف به این مجموعه عکسه� سر بزنم و دقایق یا حتی ساعتهای� تماشایشان کنم. لینک را برای دسترسی خودم و شما دوستان عزیز که تا اینجا� ریویو همراه بودهاید� میگذار�! :)
هفت. (بیرب� به کتاب)
آلن دو باتن در مصاحبها� از تأثیر گرفتن و علاقها� به دو نویسنده میگوی�: رولان بارت و آرتور شوپنهاور.
هشت. (بیرب� به کتاب)
کمالگرا� درون، دست از سرم بردار! میدون� که این روزها با چه جدیتی، حتی بیشت� از قبل، در حال زیر نظر گرفتن حرفه� و رفتارهات هستم و دارم تلاش میکن� باهات به شکل جدی بجنگم. پس این یادداشت رو همین شکلی که هست منتشر میکن� و به این گفته� تو که «خیلی بهتر و بیشتر باید بنویسی!» توجه نمیکن�. از این یادداشت همینشکل� که هست راضی و احتمالاً خوشحالم و شاید حتی خودم رو بابتش تحسین کنم.
April 9, 2009
Having enjoyed a few of Botton's other books, I was keen to pick up his latest. The overarching theme of all of his work is an examination of the values of modern life that often go unquestioned.
It makes sense, then, to focus on work, but this book does not live up to the promise of its title. It is probably his least focused. A more appropriate - but still hubristic - title would be 'The Pleasures and Sorrows of Modern Life'. The business surrounding work receives at least as much attention, if not more so, than the notion of work.
He has received criticism from some reviewers about writing about working class toil as he is the son of an extremely wealthy Swiss financier (although he elects to live off the earnings of his writing). Most thinkers throughout recorded history have come from a position of affluence so it is not a relevant criticism unless it affects their work, which it tends to here. Some of his conversations with people in their workplace come across as aloof, inappropriate and arrogant.
Botton writes with clarity and beauty and has some compelling and illuminating insights, but as with a disappointing undergraduate essay, if you don't address the topic, you don't get a good mark.
It makes sense, then, to focus on work, but this book does not live up to the promise of its title. It is probably his least focused. A more appropriate - but still hubristic - title would be 'The Pleasures and Sorrows of Modern Life'. The business surrounding work receives at least as much attention, if not more so, than the notion of work.
He has received criticism from some reviewers about writing about working class toil as he is the son of an extremely wealthy Swiss financier (although he elects to live off the earnings of his writing). Most thinkers throughout recorded history have come from a position of affluence so it is not a relevant criticism unless it affects their work, which it tends to here. Some of his conversations with people in their workplace come across as aloof, inappropriate and arrogant.
Botton writes with clarity and beauty and has some compelling and illuminating insights, but as with a disappointing undergraduate essay, if you don't address the topic, you don't get a good mark.
October 28, 2022
Daha önce Felsefenin Tesellisi ve Seyahat Sanatı adlı kitaplarını okuyup felsefe, sağduyu ve nüktedanlığı harmanlayan tarzını çok beğendiğim Alain de Botton, bu kitabında da çalışmanın ve insanın doğasına yönelik tespitlerini hem popüler (muhasebecilik), hem akla pek gelmeyen meslek gruplarının (bisküvi yapımı) üzerinden yapıyor. Kitap, insan hayatının büyük bölümünü işgal eden mesleğin seçimi ve bu seçime bağlı olarak kişinin kendine yabancılaşması süreci, bilincin iş seçiminde ne derece rol oynadığı, bir işi ruhsal olarak yıkıcı yapan şeyin kişinin kendini tanıma seviyesi kadar o mesleğin hayatın kendisinden kopuk bir absürtlükte olmasıyla da alakası olabileceği, ruh sağlığı için çok yönlü yapısını ve doğal yeteneklerini korumak isteyen insan ile onu her zaman tek bir kalıba sokmak isteyen kapitalizmin mücadelesi gibi meselelere yoğunlaşıyor.
En farkedilmeyen, en ehemmiyetsiz görünen şeyleri dahi felsefi bakış açısıyla farkedilebilir kılan ve zeki, komik yaklaşımıyla da bunları okuyucuya geçirebilen De Botton; felsefenin aslında hayatın her bir parçasında olduğunu ve ruhsal sağaltımın en önemli ilacı olduğunu hissettiriyor.
**
Yazarın kitapları kadar Youtube kanalı The School of Life'ı da tavsiye ediyorum.
En farkedilmeyen, en ehemmiyetsiz görünen şeyleri dahi felsefi bakış açısıyla farkedilebilir kılan ve zeki, komik yaklaşımıyla da bunları okuyucuya geçirebilen De Botton; felsefenin aslında hayatın her bir parçasında olduğunu ve ruhsal sağaltımın en önemli ilacı olduğunu hissettiriyor.
**
Yazarın kitapları kadar Youtube kanalı The School of Life'ı da tavsiye ediyorum.
July 7, 2023
حين تقرّر السفر بالسيارة عشر ساعات
وتتمنّى في لحظة ما أحاديث ذكية وطريفة
عن جمال وغرابة الوظائف والأعمال المعاصرة
أحاديث تتحلى بمستوى متواضع من العمق واللباقة
فإنّ ما تبحث عنه، هو هذا الكتاب على وجه التحديد
.
بعد التحليل الجيّد في كتابه: قلق السعي نحو المكانة
وباقي كتبه التي تشاغب قيم الحداثة وتقدّم الحلول المقترحة
يأتي هذا الكتاب الخفيف كقطعة بسكويت مع كوب شاي
.
يحاول بوتون لفت الانتباه بطريقة مضحكة .. جدًا
في أكثر الأشياء مللًا وحساسية ورتابةً مثل بيئات العمل
.
الأعمال، التي كانت مجرّد مصدر دخل مرهق للروح
ثمّ صارت مصدرًا للسعادة، والإشباع، والانتماء الاجتماعي
وتطوير الهوايات والميول، وتكوين العلاقات الوثيقة، والحب
وصارت وجهةً للبحث عن الشغف والمعنى، لا عن المال فقط
ولا يوجد حديث كافٍ عنها، لا بدراسة ظواهرها، ولا بالضحك عليها
هذه المفارقة، تقود بوتون لكتابة هذا الكتاب الذي يمرّ عدّة قطاعات
من اللوجستيات، والإرشاد المهني، والمحاسبة، وصناعة البسكويتات
والصواريخ، والطيران، والهندسة الكهربائية، والرسم وريادة الأعمال
.
كتاب ممتع لمن لم يرفع سقف توقعاته الفكريّة والدبلوماسيّة
وتتمنّى في لحظة ما أحاديث ذكية وطريفة
عن جمال وغرابة الوظائف والأعمال المعاصرة
أحاديث تتحلى بمستوى متواضع من العمق واللباقة
فإنّ ما تبحث عنه، هو هذا الكتاب على وجه التحديد
.
بعد التحليل الجيّد في كتابه: قلق السعي نحو المكانة
وباقي كتبه التي تشاغب قيم الحداثة وتقدّم الحلول المقترحة
يأتي هذا الكتاب الخفيف كقطعة بسكويت مع كوب شاي
.
يحاول بوتون لفت الانتباه بطريقة مضحكة .. جدًا
في أكثر الأشياء مللًا وحساسية ورتابةً مثل بيئات العمل
.
الأعمال، التي كانت مجرّد مصدر دخل مرهق للروح
ثمّ صارت مصدرًا للسعادة، والإشباع، والانتماء الاجتماعي
وتطوير الهوايات والميول، وتكوين العلاقات الوثيقة، والحب
وصارت وجهةً للبحث عن الشغف والمعنى، لا عن المال فقط
ولا يوجد حديث كافٍ عنها، لا بدراسة ظواهرها، ولا بالضحك عليها
هذه المفارقة، تقود بوتون لكتابة هذا الكتاب الذي يمرّ عدّة قطاعات
من اللوجستيات، والإرشاد المهني، والمحاسبة، وصناعة البسكويتات
والصواريخ، والطيران، والهندسة الكهربائية، والرسم وريادة الأعمال
.
كتاب ممتع لمن لم يرفع سقف توقعاته الفكريّة والدبلوماسيّة
March 21, 2019
This is not one of Botton's best--mostly because it is very unstructured and meandering. However, like most of his other books, there are several really enlightening observations and wise words about the nature of work. Basically, we are told to find meaning in work, but much of the modern work economy is meaningless. He talks about the biscuit factory for example and how much of their time is spent not making biscuits, but making clever ads about their biscuits. But he's not judgmental about it. He asks how different that is than a tribe of hunters and gatherers chasing a boar to eat--it's survival in a way. I enjoy Botton's musings, but this is just basically a book about his musings. For a more structured approach to the same topic, pick up David Graeber's Bullshit jobs.
December 10, 2009
Pressed upon me by the unsuspecting morning mailman (I marvelled at how little did he wonder: that within the contents of my parcel an author could be about to unpack all the futility of his public service endeavours) de Botton's latest fetched up, with it's newly-minted, freshly-printed, straight-from-the-creative-oven aroma and literally spine-breakingly creaking with words.
One subject at a time de Botton is gradually unpicking the stitching of the modern age. On the heels of travel, architecture, and our anxieties about status, work makes the perfect topic; after all, all of us use buildings but few of us seem bothered enough to form an opinion about them: not so work. Thanks to bourgeois mores and the need for a stable workforce we have all been conditioned with an expectation of locating happiness in our working lives (along with love inside our marriages).
So like the ship-spotters who improbably manage to find beauty alongside the cargo-docks that line the Thames and with admirable originality de Botton sets out to discover what might be meaningful in our daily toil amongst the artists, the accountants, the aeronautics industry. And logistics: sometimes refrigerated.
Someplace in the Midlands spectres haunting warehouse car parks night-lit by hissing halogen street lamps load 10,000 pre-packed prawn cocktail sandwiches together with out-of-season strawberries onto supermarket lorries. The horror of homogenized lunchbox logistics contains a troubling truth: an acknowledgement of our childish incapacity to defer our gratifications to the seasons.
In a seductively silky patter de Botton occasionally lets slip a statement which, as much as we might all want to nod our heads, comes unbuttressed by any supporting argument, for example: the causal relationship between a disenfranchised working class and binge drinking. Perhaps a more academic study would have found a place to deal with this in depth. In the section devoted to the painter (of the stretched canvas variety rather than a decorator) he seems to disappointingly rely on a Romantic notion of the artist living in poverty and driven by tragedy without considering that many people working in the visual arts may find their jobs mundane on a daily basis.
So nearing the time for clocking-off, appropriately enough as Eliot's 'violet hour' approached, it seemed proper to ask myself: what had I learnt?
Implausibly that in our modern age "Biscuits are nowadays a branch of psychology". Apparently Freud would have had a field-day (or at the very least a field trip: no doubt out to the home of United Biscuits in Hayes: described in deadpan prose as "surprisingly" devoid of charm).
If our present attitudes to work give any indication then we have reached the tepid teatime of our species: an age in which our sweetmeats are advanced by sub-commitees and subject to focus-groups. So much so that their very (insubstantial) pleasures seem in inverse proportion to the efforts of their planning. Yet this state of affairs characterizes so many of our efforts. As humans we add nothing to our previous achievements and we're doing it in triplicate, rubber-stamped by hollow city-suits sat in increasingly impersonal air-conditioned environments. It is with the determined risk aversion of the corporate accountant, the middle-management bureaucrat, and the Health & Safety officer that Man hedges ever closer towards extinction.
One subject at a time de Botton is gradually unpicking the stitching of the modern age. On the heels of travel, architecture, and our anxieties about status, work makes the perfect topic; after all, all of us use buildings but few of us seem bothered enough to form an opinion about them: not so work. Thanks to bourgeois mores and the need for a stable workforce we have all been conditioned with an expectation of locating happiness in our working lives (along with love inside our marriages).
So like the ship-spotters who improbably manage to find beauty alongside the cargo-docks that line the Thames and with admirable originality de Botton sets out to discover what might be meaningful in our daily toil amongst the artists, the accountants, the aeronautics industry. And logistics: sometimes refrigerated.
Someplace in the Midlands spectres haunting warehouse car parks night-lit by hissing halogen street lamps load 10,000 pre-packed prawn cocktail sandwiches together with out-of-season strawberries onto supermarket lorries. The horror of homogenized lunchbox logistics contains a troubling truth: an acknowledgement of our childish incapacity to defer our gratifications to the seasons.
In a seductively silky patter de Botton occasionally lets slip a statement which, as much as we might all want to nod our heads, comes unbuttressed by any supporting argument, for example: the causal relationship between a disenfranchised working class and binge drinking. Perhaps a more academic study would have found a place to deal with this in depth. In the section devoted to the painter (of the stretched canvas variety rather than a decorator) he seems to disappointingly rely on a Romantic notion of the artist living in poverty and driven by tragedy without considering that many people working in the visual arts may find their jobs mundane on a daily basis.
So nearing the time for clocking-off, appropriately enough as Eliot's 'violet hour' approached, it seemed proper to ask myself: what had I learnt?
Implausibly that in our modern age "Biscuits are nowadays a branch of psychology". Apparently Freud would have had a field-day (or at the very least a field trip: no doubt out to the home of United Biscuits in Hayes: described in deadpan prose as "surprisingly" devoid of charm).
If our present attitudes to work give any indication then we have reached the tepid teatime of our species: an age in which our sweetmeats are advanced by sub-commitees and subject to focus-groups. So much so that their very (insubstantial) pleasures seem in inverse proportion to the efforts of their planning. Yet this state of affairs characterizes so many of our efforts. As humans we add nothing to our previous achievements and we're doing it in triplicate, rubber-stamped by hollow city-suits sat in increasingly impersonal air-conditioned environments. It is with the determined risk aversion of the corporate accountant, the middle-management bureaucrat, and the Health & Safety officer that Man hedges ever closer towards extinction.
October 26, 2015
We are all descended from a long line of hunter gatherers who didn't survive unless they continued to consistently hunt and gather. Today we call it work. And except for the fortunate few born with wealth, we all are required to spend a significant portion of our lives working in order to survive. Which raises the question, should we expect a sense of fulfillment from our work, or is it a burden to suffer in order to survive?
This is a book of essay-like musings about work in its various forms, and with a mixture of humor and serious questions explores the meaning of it all. The author tags along with a variety of workers and artisans and successfully conveys the fact that our civilization runs on millions of different obscure jobs performed by millions of people who are highly skilled at their various tasks. Meanwhile we all keep living on the fruits of a global economy oblivious to the complexity of it all.
If this book provides conclusions or answers to the meaning of it all, I missed it.
This is a book of essay-like musings about work in its various forms, and with a mixture of humor and serious questions explores the meaning of it all. The author tags along with a variety of workers and artisans and successfully conveys the fact that our civilization runs on millions of different obscure jobs performed by millions of people who are highly skilled at their various tasks. Meanwhile we all keep living on the fruits of a global economy oblivious to the complexity of it all.
If this book provides conclusions or answers to the meaning of it all, I missed it.
July 12, 2009
Botton's lyric and philosophical essays on the modern landscape of productivity is less about individual occupations than it is about the aesthetics of the factory, the office building, and the shipyard. Botton is indifferent to the specific tasks and ideas of his subjects, and instead meditates on what the spaces and organizations of our multinational economies could imply about the legacy of our civilization.
A lofty topic, no doubt, and occasionally burdened by Botton's indulgence in his own moods and discomforts, which he makes no attempt to disentangle from the themes of the book; in fact, he states at one point the most successful people may very well be those who have the most difficultly becoming comfortable. So we get endearing tales of his insomnia in suburban hotels, his innermost opinions on biscuits, and the fact the photo of third-world president reminds him of his father.
Despite the plentiful chapters dedicated to engineering topics, such as logistics, rocket science, and aeronautics, Botton evinces no interest in these fields beyond superficialities. He gleefully recites facts, figures, dates, and terminologies, without really looking at one of theses fields from within its own rules, history, and major practitioners. What we are left with is a sense of drifting, of a journalist who wanders among the feet of titans without ever looking up at them in the eyes.
The sense of alienation wells up over the course of the book, becoming palpable and sublime, particularly in his chapter on the career councilor, where Botton neatly deconstructs the tautological absurdity of "becoming who you are". And throughout, he supplements his philosophic melancholy with Romanticism, largely in the form of (slightly creepy) studies of women in the workplace who inevitably serve as symbols of unattainable sensuality and the fleeting nature of accomplishment. Yet the narrative's chronic inability to relate intimately to its subjects is neither naive and childlike, nor juvenile and subversive. It is a deliberate and effective literary strategy which constantly draws the reader's imagination inward, as if transfixing on a whirlpool. The artist-as-outsider trope is presented so seductively and so skillfully, at times the book reads like poetry.
A lofty topic, no doubt, and occasionally burdened by Botton's indulgence in his own moods and discomforts, which he makes no attempt to disentangle from the themes of the book; in fact, he states at one point the most successful people may very well be those who have the most difficultly becoming comfortable. So we get endearing tales of his insomnia in suburban hotels, his innermost opinions on biscuits, and the fact the photo of third-world president reminds him of his father.
Despite the plentiful chapters dedicated to engineering topics, such as logistics, rocket science, and aeronautics, Botton evinces no interest in these fields beyond superficialities. He gleefully recites facts, figures, dates, and terminologies, without really looking at one of theses fields from within its own rules, history, and major practitioners. What we are left with is a sense of drifting, of a journalist who wanders among the feet of titans without ever looking up at them in the eyes.
The sense of alienation wells up over the course of the book, becoming palpable and sublime, particularly in his chapter on the career councilor, where Botton neatly deconstructs the tautological absurdity of "becoming who you are". And throughout, he supplements his philosophic melancholy with Romanticism, largely in the form of (slightly creepy) studies of women in the workplace who inevitably serve as symbols of unattainable sensuality and the fleeting nature of accomplishment. Yet the narrative's chronic inability to relate intimately to its subjects is neither naive and childlike, nor juvenile and subversive. It is a deliberate and effective literary strategy which constantly draws the reader's imagination inward, as if transfixing on a whirlpool. The artist-as-outsider trope is presented so seductively and so skillfully, at times the book reads like poetry.
June 18, 2013
Work+ Love (I'm not sure about the order) = happiness, said Freud. De Botton looks at the first half of the equation as experienced by so many of us and one can only hope that the love part will somehow tilt the balance. Oh, the things we do to make a living. Which wouldn't be so bad, we have to eat, but do we have to take what we do so damn seriously? Do we have to get colitis and ulcers over what our boss says? Do we need to worry about what Jerry in the next cubicle did? Must we lie awake at night imagining that meeting where our brilliance will be on full display? Do we have to rehearse our sales pitch in front of the mirror? De Botton takes you through ten enterprises and somehow, with wit and melancholy, lets you see the toll that our industrial, technological, immensely multifaceted commercial world takes on us - on our souls. There is humor and sarcasm, tons of subtle irony and much needed kindness in the way he writes. What makes a job worthwhile? Delight and meaning, he says is what a person yearns for in a job. "Meaning" being something that helps, betters, comforts, makes this world if even just a tiny bit better. We are meaning seeking creatures. God only knows why because things would be easier sans this uncomfortable longing. But there it is. If what gives us joy is work that delights and has meaning, do you see why for most of us, the work we do is so hard, such a drain on the spirit, so often a wasteland? Don't expect a lot of abstract thought from De Botton. What he does is paint you pictures of people and places and things and activities and absences you rarely stop to consider. Be prepared to smile and chuckle and shake your head and maybe even do some soul searching.
November 14, 2014
ستاره کتاب در اصل چیزی بین سه و چهار است. کتاب مجموعها� از ده مقاله با موضوع ده شغل است. نویسنده همراه این شغله� و آدمه� شده و هر چیزی را که به ذهنش رسیده نوشته است. بیشتر برای فهم بهتر کار، چیزی که بیشتر زندگی ما به آن میگذر� و لزوما مایه خوشبختی و شادی نیست. کتاب را با کمی سختی خواندم ، البته نه با زجر. یکی به خاطر نوع نثرش که به قول نویسنده شعر منثور است و من از این جور نثر خوشم نمیآی�. یکی دیگر هم به خاطر اینک� وسط کتاب بارها از خودم میپرسید� چه چیزی تو را و خواننده های دیگر را ترغیب کرده که فکرهای بلند بلند یک آدم دیگر را بخوانید؟ چی میشو� که تو انتخاب میکن� وقتت را بدهی و روزنوشته� و حرفه� و برداشتها� شخصی یک آدم را بخوانی؟ حالا گیرم این آدم آلن دوباتن باشد یا یک وبلاگ نویس. به صرف مشهور بودن که یک نویسنده نمیتوان� این حق را برای خودش قایل بشود که من نوشته هایش را بخوانم ... و خب من چندان نمیتوان� با حرف های آقای دوباتن ارتباط برقرار کنم و همین است که چندان دلم نمیخواه� بقیه کتابهای� را هم بخوانم. ترجیح میده� بروم یک وبلاگی را بخوانم که نوشتهه� برایم نزدیکت� باشند.
اما در کل ایده کتاب حالب است و آن وسطه� نکات جالبی هم پیدا میشو�. بهخصو� من از مقاله کارآفرینی و نکته ای که دوباتن دربارها� میگوی� خوشم آمد.
اما در کل ایده کتاب حالب است و آن وسطه� نکات جالبی هم پیدا میشو�. بهخصو� من از مقاله کارآفرینی و نکته ای که دوباتن دربارها� میگوی� خوشم آمد.
May 14, 2014
خیلی خوب بود بخصوص فصول پایانی اش... یه قرابت عجیبی بین فضای فکری خودم و دوباتن احساس میکنم ... این که سعی داره در برخورد با هر پدیده ، شی ء ، آدم و ... هرچند خشک و بی روح و مرده و جامد ، یک سیر تاریخی و یک حیات ، در پیش ذهن بیاورد که از کجا بود و چگونه به اینجا رسید و به کجا خواهد رفت ... همان حسی که همیشه در برخورد با درختان کهنسال دارم و آن اینکه این درختان در طی سالیان عمرشان چه آدمیانی با چه داستانهای متفاوتی را در حال عبور از زیر سایه شان نظاره گر بوده اند... و یا خانه های متروکه و مخروبه ای که چه بسا در انتظار تخریب و تبدیل شدن به یکی از نمادهای جامعه ی متراکم مدرن ، تنها طاقچه ای از آن ها باقی مانده و کیست که بداند چه افرادی با چه آرزوها ، حب و بغض ها ، دلنشینی ها و نفرت انگیزی هایی ، سالیان دراز در این مسکن سکنی گزیده بودند و حال اثری و نشانه ای از آن ها نیست... بد نیست خیام را نیز به این جمع نزدیک النظران بیفزایم! آنجا که کوزه ای سفالین دید و گفت :
این کوزه چو من عاشق زاری بوده ست
در بند سر زلف نگاری بوده ست
این دسته که بر گردن او می بینی
دستی ست که بر گردن یاری بوده ست
این کوزه چو من عاشق زاری بوده ست
در بند سر زلف نگاری بوده ست
این دسته که بر گردن او می بینی
دستی ست که بر گردن یاری بوده ست
September 18, 2020
Εγώ τον Αλέν ντε Μποτόν στη "Μικρή φιλοσοφία του έρωτα" τον λάτρεψα. Τύπου θέλω-να-ξαναδιαβάσω-το-βιβλίο-χθες. Το τι απογοήτευση ήταν αυτό το βιβλίο δεν λέγεται.
Η έξυπνη ματιά και γραφή του κάπου εξαφανίζεται. Ενδεχομένως θα είχε ενδιαφέρον να έπαιρνε συνέντευξη από κάποιον σχετικό για τα 10 (κάπως περίεργα) επαγγέλματα που εξετάζει.
Πολύ πληροφορία άνευ σημασίας τελικώς, κάθως κάπου μέσα στην πληροφορία για τον κατασκευαστή μπισκότων χάνεται αυτό που θέλει να πει εξ αρχής ο Μποτόν.
Να του δώσω άραγε και τρίτη ευκαιρία του Μποτόν; Προβληματίστηκα.
Η έξυπνη ματιά και γραφή του κάπου εξαφανίζεται. Ενδεχομένως θα είχε ενδιαφέρον να έπαιρνε συνέντευξη από κάποιον σχετικό για τα 10 (κάπως περίεργα) επαγγέλματα που εξετάζει.
Πολύ πληροφορία άνευ σημασίας τελικώς, κάθως κάπου μέσα στην πληροφορία για τον κατασκευαστή μπισκότων χάνεται αυτό που θέλει να πει εξ αρχής ο Μποτόν.
Να του δώσω άραγε και τρίτη ευκαιρία του Μποτόν; Προβληματίστηκα.
July 8, 2009
I enjoyed this book and really wanted to give it at least 4 stars, but I couldn't because it was so blatantly mistitled. It's name implies a kind of comprehensive view of work when in fact it is collection of essays. The name also suggests that the book is more trite and boring that it actually is...i almost didn't read it for this reason.
The book is not about work, as much as it is about human productivity, innovation, consumption and the modern psychology that has evolved around these subjects. It covers a range of subjects that aren't directly connected, but give you very piercing view of the modern world through a series of snap shot essays. I would also be hard pressed to find a title for this collection.
What I admire most about de Botton's work is the writing itself. He doesn't have any agenda and approaches his research as a kind of personal adventure... and so can describe the paradoxes of human production so well...for instance how the critical systems of the globalized western world are purposely designed to be invisible, docks, shipping and transportation hubbs, airports, and industrial production plants. We are so far distanced from the production of the objects we consume and yet they are purposely branded to seem familiar and appeal to appeal to our emotions. I will reread one day.
I really enjoyed his work and insight and will be looking into other books.
The book is not about work, as much as it is about human productivity, innovation, consumption and the modern psychology that has evolved around these subjects. It covers a range of subjects that aren't directly connected, but give you very piercing view of the modern world through a series of snap shot essays. I would also be hard pressed to find a title for this collection.
What I admire most about de Botton's work is the writing itself. He doesn't have any agenda and approaches his research as a kind of personal adventure... and so can describe the paradoxes of human production so well...for instance how the critical systems of the globalized western world are purposely designed to be invisible, docks, shipping and transportation hubbs, airports, and industrial production plants. We are so far distanced from the production of the objects we consume and yet they are purposely branded to seem familiar and appeal to appeal to our emotions. I will reread one day.
I really enjoyed his work and insight and will be looking into other books.
September 7, 2022
يركز دو بوتون دائمًا على السؤال الأهم: “مت� تقدم الوظيفة معنى؟�
يعطينا إجابة مختصرة في جملة واحدة: “عندم� تسمح لنا بإثارة البهجة أو تقليل المعاناة لدى الآخرين�. إن قول هذا أسهل من فعله بالطبع، ويبدو كنظرة مثالية بشدة. بالنسبة لمُنظر يُحَصل رزقه عن طريق تأليف الكتب وإعطاء المحاضرات، ويُمَكِنه هذا الدخل من السفر والكتابة عن “ف� السفر”� من السهل عليه قول ذلك فيما يطر الكثيرون للعمل في وظائف لم يحلموا بها أو لا يحبذونها حتى لأنهم بحاجة لتوفير قوت يومهم وقوت عوائلهم. كما يتغاضى ’د� بوتون عن كل الوظائف التي لا يرغب بها أحد ولكنها ضرورية لسير المجتمع المعاصر، مثل أعمال الصرف الصحي والنظافة والتنقيب وغيرها، لو فكر الجميع بنظرة المؤلف المثالية فمن سيقوم بكل هذه الأعمال؟
وهذه مشكلة الكتاب في الحقيقة- هذه اللهجة المتعالية التي يتحدث بها ’د� بوتون عبر مجمل الكتاب.
المراجعة في الأساس على
يعطينا إجابة مختصرة في جملة واحدة: “عندم� تسمح لنا بإثارة البهجة أو تقليل المعاناة لدى الآخرين�. إن قول هذا أسهل من فعله بالطبع، ويبدو كنظرة مثالية بشدة. بالنسبة لمُنظر يُحَصل رزقه عن طريق تأليف الكتب وإعطاء المحاضرات، ويُمَكِنه هذا الدخل من السفر والكتابة عن “ف� السفر”� من السهل عليه قول ذلك فيما يطر الكثيرون للعمل في وظائف لم يحلموا بها أو لا يحبذونها حتى لأنهم بحاجة لتوفير قوت يومهم وقوت عوائلهم. كما يتغاضى ’د� بوتون عن كل الوظائف التي لا يرغب بها أحد ولكنها ضرورية لسير المجتمع المعاصر، مثل أعمال الصرف الصحي والنظافة والتنقيب وغيرها، لو فكر الجميع بنظرة المؤلف المثالية فمن سيقوم بكل هذه الأعمال؟
وهذه مشكلة الكتاب في الحقيقة- هذه اللهجة المتعالية التي يتحدث بها ’د� بوتون عبر مجمل الكتاب.
المراجعة في الأساس على
July 6, 2013
It made me think, and laugh, and cringe at times.
There are beautiful vignettes about different types of work and the people who do them, though too many were marred by the author being too clever at the expense of people who granted him time and access. (I can't imagine anyone agreeing to an interview in the future!)
Still, the book has stuck with me. And some of the prose is thought-provoking and beautiful.
There are beautiful vignettes about different types of work and the people who do them, though too many were marred by the author being too clever at the expense of people who granted him time and access. (I can't imagine anyone agreeing to an interview in the future!)
Still, the book has stuck with me. And some of the prose is thought-provoking and beautiful.
December 29, 2018
I am a big fan of Alain de Botton's work but this book did not live up to my expectations. It lacked his regular philosophical analysis.
I am glad that this was not his first book that I had picked. If it was, I would have never read him again.
I am glad that this was not his first book that I had picked. If it was, I would have never read him again.
June 2, 2013
In his always brain-stretching way, de Botton reminds us that we make up a privileged workforce, not often recognizing how we've arrived at our situation and perhaps stuck in jobs without meaning or sense of connection. This may not be of our own making, but of the generations before us who didn't quite realize what they were giving up in the name of what they considered progress.
"[W]e have become, after several thousand years of effort, in the industrialised world at least, the only animals to have wrested ourselves from an anxious search for the source of the next meal and therefore to have opened up new stretches of time � in which we can learn Swedish, master calculus and worry about the authenticity of our relationships, avoiding the compulsive and all-consuming dietary priorities under which still labour the emperor penguin and the Arabian oryx.
Yet our world of abundance, with seas of wine and alps of bread, has hardly turned out to be the ancestors in the famine-stricken years of the Middle Ages. The brightest minds spend their working lives simplifying or accelerating functions of unreadable banality. Engineers write these on the velocities of scanning machines and consultants devote their careers to implementing minor economies in the movements of shelf-stacking and forklift operators. The alcohol-inspired fights that break out in market towns on Saturday evenings are predictable symptoms of fury at our incarceration. They are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the alter of prudence and order--and of the rage that silently accumulates beneath a uniquely law-abiding and compliant surface." p 45-46
Although not an easy read, my copy is thoroughly highlighted and I found myself wanting to share something on almost every page. If you're interested in how to improve your own work life or that of people around you, I encourage you to read this and enjoy!
"[W]e have become, after several thousand years of effort, in the industrialised world at least, the only animals to have wrested ourselves from an anxious search for the source of the next meal and therefore to have opened up new stretches of time � in which we can learn Swedish, master calculus and worry about the authenticity of our relationships, avoiding the compulsive and all-consuming dietary priorities under which still labour the emperor penguin and the Arabian oryx.
Yet our world of abundance, with seas of wine and alps of bread, has hardly turned out to be the ancestors in the famine-stricken years of the Middle Ages. The brightest minds spend their working lives simplifying or accelerating functions of unreadable banality. Engineers write these on the velocities of scanning machines and consultants devote their careers to implementing minor economies in the movements of shelf-stacking and forklift operators. The alcohol-inspired fights that break out in market towns on Saturday evenings are predictable symptoms of fury at our incarceration. They are a reminder of the price we pay for our daily submission at the alter of prudence and order--and of the rage that silently accumulates beneath a uniquely law-abiding and compliant surface." p 45-46
Although not an easy read, my copy is thoroughly highlighted and I found myself wanting to share something on almost every page. If you're interested in how to improve your own work life or that of people around you, I encourage you to read this and enjoy!
January 1, 2023
تنبت الفكرة في رأس آلان دو بوتون فيخرج من حدودها المرسومة بخطوط جلية ويعيشها على أرضية صلبة من العالم الخارجي الحقيقي.
هذا ما بتّ أنتظره في كل مرة أقرأ له، قصصا عادية عن مواقف مألوفة حُكيت وحيكت بطريقة بوتونية غير تقليدية.
ينطلق آلان دو بوتون في رحلة جديدة، يحمل معه وعينا المبتهج والمستيقظ ويتنقل بنا من مدينة إلى مدينة ومن عالم إلى آخر، لندرس معا هذه المرة "مباهج وشجون العمل" وبأسلوبه الرشيق اللطيف يجعل من كل ما يحكيه أهم قضية في العالم.
بعد حديث مطوّل عن موانئ العالم والخدمات اللوجستية وحتى صناعة البسكويت والعوامل الإنسانية النفسية المؤثرة باختيار اسمه وغلافه، ثم علم الصواريخ والأقمار الصناعية، وخطوط نقل الكهرباء، والطيران وريادة الأعمال وغيرها من الأعمال التي نقرأ عنها بحيادية محضة، أُقحمنا بإرداتنا الخاصة داخل تفاصيلها ومراحل القيام بها، ثم التقينا عن كثب بالعاملين والصانعين والملهمين والمدراء والوكلاء والمروجين. قبل أن نصل المحطة الأخيرة التي سيقول فيها آلان دو بوتون: "على الأقل، عملنا يلهينا ويوفر لنا "فقاعة" ممتازة نعلّق عليها أملا في حمايتنا. وهو يركّز مخاوفنا وأسباب قلقنا الكبيرة على أهداف صغيرة نسبيّا، قابلة لأن تتحقق، فينعم علينا هذا بحسّ الإتقان والسيطرة."
أحتاج الآن أن أدخل فقاعتي الخاصة _كما سماها الكاتب_ حاملة حقيبتي المحتشدة بأدوات الرسم الزيتية وأنطلق إلى العالم الحقيقي باحثة عن أفضل زاوية أتمكن من خلالها رصد السماء ثم أنتظر قدوم رياح محملة بذرات المياه المتكاثفة وأشهد تشكل غيمة بكر منذ البداية، أحفظ طريقها الذي قدمت منه، البقعة اليابسة التي عبرت عنها في سبيل الوصول، روائح العطر التي ارتفعت مع بخار الماء المسيّر مع حركة الهواء، وحين تبدأ فرشاة عملاقة بضرب اللون الرمادي على أطراف السماء، سأضرب معها بفرشاتي الصغيرة من الأرض، سنبدأ معا، ولا أعلم متى ننتهي.
هذا ما بتّ أنتظره في كل مرة أقرأ له، قصصا عادية عن مواقف مألوفة حُكيت وحيكت بطريقة بوتونية غير تقليدية.
ينطلق آلان دو بوتون في رحلة جديدة، يحمل معه وعينا المبتهج والمستيقظ ويتنقل بنا من مدينة إلى مدينة ومن عالم إلى آخر، لندرس معا هذه المرة "مباهج وشجون العمل" وبأسلوبه الرشيق اللطيف يجعل من كل ما يحكيه أهم قضية في العالم.
بعد حديث مطوّل عن موانئ العالم والخدمات اللوجستية وحتى صناعة البسكويت والعوامل الإنسانية النفسية المؤثرة باختيار اسمه وغلافه، ثم علم الصواريخ والأقمار الصناعية، وخطوط نقل الكهرباء، والطيران وريادة الأعمال وغيرها من الأعمال التي نقرأ عنها بحيادية محضة، أُقحمنا بإرداتنا الخاصة داخل تفاصيلها ومراحل القيام بها، ثم التقينا عن كثب بالعاملين والصانعين والملهمين والمدراء والوكلاء والمروجين. قبل أن نصل المحطة الأخيرة التي سيقول فيها آلان دو بوتون: "على الأقل، عملنا يلهينا ويوفر لنا "فقاعة" ممتازة نعلّق عليها أملا في حمايتنا. وهو يركّز مخاوفنا وأسباب قلقنا الكبيرة على أهداف صغيرة نسبيّا، قابلة لأن تتحقق، فينعم علينا هذا بحسّ الإتقان والسيطرة."
أحتاج الآن أن أدخل فقاعتي الخاصة _كما سماها الكاتب_ حاملة حقيبتي المحتشدة بأدوات الرسم الزيتية وأنطلق إلى العالم الحقيقي باحثة عن أفضل زاوية أتمكن من خلالها رصد السماء ثم أنتظر قدوم رياح محملة بذرات المياه المتكاثفة وأشهد تشكل غيمة بكر منذ البداية، أحفظ طريقها الذي قدمت منه، البقعة اليابسة التي عبرت عنها في سبيل الوصول، روائح العطر التي ارتفعت مع بخار الماء المسيّر مع حركة الهواء، وحين تبدأ فرشاة عملاقة بضرب اللون الرمادي على أطراف السماء، سأضرب معها بفرشاتي الصغيرة من الأرض، سنبدأ معا، ولا أعلم متى ننتهي.
September 25, 2010
This book had high highs and low lows. The photography is beautiful and is a nice compliment to the book - it has a sense of anonymous observation that seems appropriate to de Botton's tone and to the subject matter, which is the work lives of people, with an eye to the experiences of people in specific professions: aviation, accounting, the manufacture of biscuits, among others. But that makes the subject of the book seem far more concrete than it really is. The author is a philosopher and it shows. Sometimes that's good - the discussion of people gathering in a bar at the end of a trade show or an accountant returning to an empty apartment where his towel from the morning is still strewn over the couch have more resonance than you might expect written as de Botton writes about them. But sometimes the writing just comes off as pretentious or abstract for no good reason, which can be trying. And most of all de Botton seems to be suprisingly distant from the very people doing the jobs in which he takes so much interest. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to others, but it made me think a bit -- both about the subject matter and about the writing/de Botton's approach -- and so I am glad I read it.
March 16, 2014
Let me be blunt: I once loathed Alain de Botton. I thought his Consolations of Philosophy a perversion of my trade. As a philosopher, I saw him as patronising, superficial and simply wrong.
Nearly ten years later, I’ve given Consolations of Philosophy as a gift to friends and relatives. I happily defend his work to shopkeepers and colleagues.
Watching his influence on my family, I realised that the Swiss-born, Cambridge-educated author was sincere, civilised and helpful. It didn’t matter whether or not I agreed with him on Epicurus or Nietzsche. What was important was his gift for inspiring and informing. In his distinctive, well-crafted prose, de Botton gets readers thinking.
Perhaps his ideas are old hat to professional philosophers. But to countless book-buyers, his works are an intimate introduction to scholarship and art. And they entertainingly examine the knots of modern life.
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is a good example of this. In generous, gregarious prose, de Botton charts the diverse character and significance of employment � ‘its extraordinary claim,� he writes, ‘to be able to provide us, alongside love, with the principle source of life’s meaning.�
- from The Big Issue (Australia), April 2009
Nearly ten years later, I’ve given Consolations of Philosophy as a gift to friends and relatives. I happily defend his work to shopkeepers and colleagues.
Watching his influence on my family, I realised that the Swiss-born, Cambridge-educated author was sincere, civilised and helpful. It didn’t matter whether or not I agreed with him on Epicurus or Nietzsche. What was important was his gift for inspiring and informing. In his distinctive, well-crafted prose, de Botton gets readers thinking.
Perhaps his ideas are old hat to professional philosophers. But to countless book-buyers, his works are an intimate introduction to scholarship and art. And they entertainingly examine the knots of modern life.
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is a good example of this. In generous, gregarious prose, de Botton charts the diverse character and significance of employment � ‘its extraordinary claim,� he writes, ‘to be able to provide us, alongside love, with the principle source of life’s meaning.�
- from The Big Issue (Australia), April 2009
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