Mar 25, 2009
DE BOTTON TO THE BOTTOM
Alain de Botton doesn’t know this, but I have a relationship with him. I talk and think about him so often, in fact, that I habitally habitually call him “AdeB” (all one word). Sometimes I’ll refer to him like that in normal conversation, expecting people to know who I’m talking about. They never do.
There’s nothing strange or obsessive about my relationship with AdeB. It’s simply that, when you’re writing a popular philosophy book, it’s impossible to avoid talking about him. This is particularly so in the case of the book I’m writing, because it’s a mix of fiction and non-fiction, just like AdeB’s Essays in Love. When people ask me what I’m writing, most of the time it’s easier for me to go “well, do you know Alain de Botton?” than try and explain from scratch. Rather incredibly, he’s shorthand for a whole genre.
I’m a fan of AdeB’s, but not an uncritical one. Over time, I’ve grown to find his schtick quite irritating. To my mind, this has also coincided with a decline in the quality of his books (at least since the heights of How Proust…). Lynn Barber’s excellent interview with him on Sunday captured my attitude exactly:
Is Alain de Botton the biggest pseud and poseur of all time, or a brilliant writer who asks intriguing questions? … The weird thing is I find it possible to hold both views about de Botton almost simultaneously - I can flip between the two while reading just one paragraph of his writing.
The interview also touched on the question of de Botton’s confidence. He says that he hasn’t felt confident until recently (he’s 39), which seems a bit strange. Essays in Love (which was his first book) is astonishingly confident, both in form and content. Every line smacks of self-assurance - almost to the point of irritation.
But then, we can all be highly confident in one area but still feel that we lack confidence in general. Perhaps this was what attracted AdeB to Socrates, whose take on self-confidence he looked at in The Consolations of Philosophy (video). De Botton admired Socrates’s devotion to rigorous rational inquiry (words by David Rogers):
If you work out for yourself why you believe (or not) something - whether its in God, your ability to cook a meal or whether a person likes you - then it gives you confidence to stand up for that belief. If your belief is simply based on following everyone else (or the opinions and beliefs of parents, peers, teachers or others) then its not so trustworthy.
The trouble is - and this is always the trouble with de Botton - is that one can’t quite help but feel that for him this is all an intellectual game. He ignores the criticism of this approach: that there are no answers to be found by looking inside, at least not in the way Socrates suggests. Instead, there’s only an endless, circuitous discussion, in which every opinion rests on another one, and the whole thing is built on foundations of sand.
The fact is: in most circumstances, questioning of Socrates’s sort is actually unheplful. De Botton must know this, I feel. Perhaps when he wrote Consolations it didn’t quite seem right to point it out. And certainly holding back has made him very successful. But I’d love to see him really go for it, just the once: to resolve that conflict we have about him, instead of letting it lie. After all, isn’t that what philosophy’s about…?
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Dear Rowland,
I’m confused by your line of argument. I should reassure you that I’m entirely uninterested in intellectual games. For me, writing is an utterly sincere pursuit, where I try to gain insights into certain areas and also cogently capture feelings.
Of course I don’t do it well reliably or always - but my ambitions are genuine.
Lynn Barber dramatises a question all of us face most of the time: namely, Am I OK? Do I deserve to exist? And of course we wobble over the answer.
Feel free to contact me if you would like to say more.
Alain
Alain! Well I must say I didn’t expect this. Now I’m reading over my post thinking how poorly I expressed myself. The perils of rapid publication, I suppose.
I think I expressed myself particularly poorly by eliding the line between you and your books. “One can’t quite help but feel that for him this is all an intellectual game” is too strong. What I meant - what I should have said - is that “there is something about his books that can give the impression that de Botton is playing an intellectual game”. That probably doesn’t sound that different to you; it wouldn’t to me. But I hope it conveys the distinction I see between the writer and his various texts. I’ve spent too much time enjoying your books to dismiss you so glibly. My apologies.
Yet while I don’t doubt your intentions, I stand by the general point. Because it does seem to me that there is something about your work, both in form and content, that can - however unintentionally - come across as insincere.
What I mean is this: that the founding principle of your work - you as the wise but eternally innocent everyman wandering in the fields of human activity - has worn slightly thin in recent works. Perhaps this is simply what happens when an author is read over the course of many years (I stopped reading Paul Auster for a similar reason). But it seems to me that there is something particular both to your style and content that creates this impression.
This is starting to feel awfully presumptuous. But I might never get another chance to speak to you directly - and like I say, I have spent a lot of time thinking about your books. You made a decision early on (after Essays in Love, I’m guessing, although the desire is clearly evident there) to efface the authorial personality in your work. Instead of speaking directly to the reader, you speak through the great texts of philosophy. This works brilliantly when there is a guiding personality or personalities to unite the work (Proust is my particular favourite). But when you’re looking at a broad subject, as in Status Anxiety, it can come across as a bit disingenuous. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I feel a tremendous intellect behind your writing, but one that insists on hiding itself. Over time, this modesty can become frustrating, until the penetrating generalisations seem more like non-statements. “He must have more of an opinion than that”, I think. Because, you see, I know it’s you - I’ve met you before, as it were. And I want a bit more from you than you’re giving.
There I go again, erasing the distinction between author and work. But the relationship between writer and reader is a personal one. In that sense, I regard you as a longstanding friend who steadfastly refuses to get involved in discussions about their more deeply-felt emotions. With a friend, I would withdraw, and give them less of myself in turn. Perhaps that’s what I’ve done with you. Of course, these are books, not friends. To phrase the complaint in a literary way: do you ever feel that your persona is a bit too everyman, that you have exchanged charm and likability for critical judgement? Philosophy is personal. Speaking personally, I would like to hear less “it could be said that” from you, and more “it is”.
It’s not easy, this stuff - if I didn’t know that before, I certainly do now. There’s a fine line to tread between encouraging the reader to identify with the narrator and being vapid and non-commital. I’m trying to get around this in just the same way you did in Essays in Love: by introducing a narrative. Hopefully that will give the ideas a human context, as well as pushing the reader through. We’ll see. If I can do it half as well as you, I’ll be well pleased.
I’ll stop there (although, unbelievably, I could say more). I’d love to ask you about Flaubert’s Parrot as a route for popular philosophy. Or about where you got the inspiration for Essays (were the numbered paragraphs Wittgenstein?). But this has got long enough, and you are no doubt tired of my opinions.
Thanks again for your reply,
Very best,
Rowland
Personally I’m always confused by Rowls’ line of argument. Sorry Rowls, I had to. It’s meant, almost, in jest.
But Rowls’ if you’d like to hear more ‘it is’ perhaps you should steer away from the genre of popular philosophy. Surely it is the questions, uncertainties and potentialities that make life, thought and most certainly creativity what it is. How dull to hear always ‘it is’ rather than what could or might be.
Speaking of which, ‘it is’ dull in the office today. But thinking of how it could be different is a joyful remedy. AdeB, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this at the National next week. Rowland, as a dedicated creative, it is imperative that you join.
Heh, AdeB obviously googles himself.
(I was googling ‘Alan de Botton irritating’, btw.)
quite alot of ‘hits’ on that one…