Review of Alain de Botton's "Pleasures and Sorrows of Work"

My review of Alain de Botton's Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is in the New York Times Book Review of 28 June 2009. I'm afraid I wasn't crazy about it. As it happens, though, I wrote favorably about de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life in a round-up of Proust news published in Lingua Franca almost exactly a decade ago.

Comments

[Jolie]

So maybe I should put it this way: Authors keeping their traps shut is not about turning the other cheek. It's about protecting themselves from loss of dignity.

[Susan Orkin]

Jolie, loss of dignity depends on the audience's reaction. I completely agree that we should return to an age of civility. But if a critic is completely uncivil, I wonder if it's then the duty of the author to be totally civil back. This is a big philosophical question!

[Jolie]

I won't pretend to be an authority on other people's duty, but I'll speak for myself: I hope I personally would have the restraint not to respond in kind to a rude book reviewer. Of course I'm guilty of behaving this way in other situations, but if my career and professional image were on the line, I hope I wouldn't approach the discussion as if it were a squabble with my little sister.

This is an ongoing problem for authors who use blogs and social networking. They want to interact with the reading/writing community, but they have to be careful. It must be hard to maintain boundaries.

[Susan Orkin]

Jolie, I agree, it must be hard to maintain boundaries. I feel sorry for de Botton, clearly he must have been driven incandescent with rage - and wanted to find some way of hitting back. It's propably not very wise to let your feelings show in public - though the perplexing thing is whether this sort of site is public. I see it as a sort private-public space and would hate my words here to treated like something printed in a newspaper. But I can see that's the confusing thing. What a sorry mess. I know from my own experience that I sometimes lose my temper and god help us all the day that every tiny little outburst or piece of bad behaviour becomes 'news'. Frightening....

[larry]

Reviewers should be held accountable for atrocious crap such as this. It's that simple.

[Sextus Empiricus]

If you can destroy a writer's book with a review, then it's fair enough for the author to point this out. Interestingly, literary editors NEVER realise this. For them, it's all a game, and they enjoy a dust up. Critics don't realise it either, they just want to fill a page and move on. But for authors, they are left destroyed, their businesses in deep trouble. Think about how a hasty restaurant review in the NY Times can shut a restaurant or bring the curtain down on a broadway show. It's crazy we ever gave that paper so much power..

[Anna]

Since when do reviewers have to be painstakingly polite, even if they do not like a book? Mr. Crain's statements are clearly his own opinion, and as one can see from the above responses, this will (perhaps unfortunately) certainly not keep away de Botton's readers.

It is hard not to trust Mr. Crain completely, in any case, judging by Mr. de Botton's shockingly childish response. What disgusting vanity. And thuggish--am I the only one who detects a threat in his words? Thank you, Mr. Botton, you've saved me from ever wasting money and time on you. I'll save it for Mr. Crain's books.

[larry]

There is opinion, and then there is idiocy. If Crane was a lawyer he'd lose his license for such shoddy work. You look silly defending him.

[The Magic Monkey]

I was given a proof copy of de Botton's book and read it on the train home - I've never read a book in 40 minutes before, as it seems to me that if someone can spend so much time writing a book we owe it to the author to spend a bit of time reading it - and I can honestly say that I agree with every single word of the intellectually empty (hence reading it in under an hour), the tone is as mentioned arrogant, condescending and pompous. None of the various jobs de Botton sneers at have any relevance to each other or anything else. OK so at a biscuit manufacturer there's a man who could achieve more than devoting his life to biscuits. Arguably there is, somewhere in the world, the son of a Swiss billionaire who could write something useful rather than patronising everyone and jetting to the Maldives to track a tuna (what does any of that have to do with work? If it was a book on food systems I would understand). I work in a bookshop - I'm not going to name it because de Botton knows it - and was sorely tempted to hide this under piles of something else that deserved more attention than this predictably overhyped nonsense would get. If that is Alain posting above, I now wish I had.

[The Magic Monkey]

Which should read:

"I agree with every single word of the review. Not only is the book lazy and intellectually empty blah blah blah..."

[Lady T]

Having not read the book in question and just finished reading Mr. Crain's review,it appears to me that Mr. de Botton confirmed everything that was said about his elitist attitude and tone in that book with his pompous and infantile response here.

Many struggling writers are cautioned to not take criticism of their work personally and I think it behooves the so-called "professional" authors out there to do the same.

[Sextus Empiricus]

The Magic Monkey, you're repeating in your comments exactly the sort of tone that Caleb used in the review - and for the same shoddy reasons. De Botton's book is genuinely very interesting. I'm an amazon top thousand reviewer, I know my books very well, and though you may not like, it's an interesting work of art. What I disliked about Caleb's review is that it never gave the guy a chance, it started from a premise that this man was evil and continued from there. As for de Botton's book being over-hyped, it wasn't hyped at all. It's published by a small literary imprint and was on track to sell a modest amount. As for your mention of de Botton's background, I can't help but feel that here is the origin of your and Caleb's problem. Enough said!!

[Susan Orkin]

I think it's interesting that whenever people defend Caleb, they haven't read the book in question. Here's an interesting exercise that people like Lady T should carry out. Read the book, read the review - and ask yourself honestly, without prejudice, whether the review by Caleb is anything other than shoddy in the extreme. It's all very well saying, 'authors should behave', but it all depends how critics are behaving. If critics are being completely crazy and vindictive, there comes a point when the artist may well just take off the gloves. I don't think that writers should just lie down and 'take' criticism when it's shoddy and badly structured. This kind of passivity has led to the decline of reviewing as an art. A well structured, incisive review is a wonderful thing - and that's my real objection to Caleb (who seems to be modelling himself on Dale Peck). By all means criticise de Botton's book, but do it with its real flaws in mind, not with some absurd prejudice about him being 'arrogant'. Of course he's not arrogant, have you seen the guy, he's a sweet looking uber nerd. I think Caleb, Lady T and The Magic Monkey are falling prey to a weird American weakness we folk go in for when faced with a European with a fancy name; we imagine he's grand, has a castle and wants to patronise us. Caleb is showing some sort of status anxiety here. Let's collectively get over it. This is a nerd from London who happens to have a weird name but otherwise seems normal.

[Sextus Empiricus]

Lady T: What's wrong with a bit of elitism? Think of the elitism of Nabokov, or Truman Capote - or more plausibly John Lanchester or Michel Houellebecq? I'm not comparing de Botton with them as writers, but I am saying that to call someone 'elitist' is a really strange charge that says more about you than about the person. What do you mean by elitist? That de Botton wouldn't vote? That he's undemocratic? That he believes in feudalism? Or that he thinks he might be more intelligent than you are!?

[Caleb Crain]

Folks: Thanks for all your comments. A broad range of opinions have been expressed, and I'm going to close comments on this post now. all best wishes, Caleb