On Love: A Novel | 
|  | | | Title: | On Love: A Novel | | Author: | Alain de Botton | | Publisher: | Grove Press | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 06 January, 2006 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0802142400 / 9780802142405 | | List Price: | $13.00 | | You Save: | $2.60 | | Amazon Price: | $10.40 | |
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Product Description
The best-selling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life and The Art of Travel revisits his utterly charming debut novel, On Love. The narrator is smitten by Chloe on a Paris–London flight, and by the time they’ve reached the luggage carousel he knows he is in love. He loves her chestnut hair, watery green eyes, the gap that makes her teeth Kantian and not Platonic, and her views on Heidegger’s Being and Time — but he hates her taste in shoes. Plotting the course of their affair from the initial delirium of infatuation to the depths of suicidal despair, through a fit of anhedonia — defined in medical texts as a disease resulting from the terror brought on by the threat of utter happiness — and finally through the terrorist tactics employed when the beloved begins, inexplicably, to drift away, On Love is filled with profound observations and useful diagrams, examining for all of us the pain and exhilaration of love.
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Customer Reviews:
• Didnt Love It 10 August, 2007
Dragged on too much for me. Lost him too many times. I was looking for that moment where I would say "yesss.." but no unfortunately.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3KW4T1GJB7FB2
• A Good Idea - Almost There. 15 February, 2008
Well, I'm a big fan of Alain de Botton and I love the fact that he's trying to incorporte some of the great ideas of philosophers and great writers into daily life. I like this book because also has thoughts of "every day" people however i my opinion at times it looks a little "forced" when we puts all the ideas in the mix leaving you with empty-hands. There are great lines and in a very simple lenguage that can be read and understood by anybody. If your subject is simple and plain love ( boy/girl ) this is a good book to read. I can't think of another book similar to this...thanks.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3MO49KG063GGD
• Painfully Shallow 02 December, 2007
I first read this book just over 10 years ago, right after a Korean translation came out. Back then, it seemed, well, an impossibly smart book for a 23-year old boy to pen. Wow, look at all these super-witty references to philosophy, literature, architecture, religion, painting, music, pop culture, and what-not, woven into an irresistably gentle, meditative, prose! And how very smart of him to think of the 'essay' as the proper form for exploring the idiosyncrasies involved in the univeral phenomenon of love? This is pretty much what I thought upon the first reading of de Botton's first novel.
I had an occasion to re-read it recently, and I was appalled by the shoddiness lurking, on almost every page, behind the witty-looking sentences. All the excursions to art and culture are just so very superficial, at times verging on abuse/misuse, and they are superficial because, I think, there was not much genuine passion to understand them in the first place. I have read a few more titles by de Botton since this book, and I suspect that he doesn't really care about understanding things and people deeply. Struggling with varying ways to get to them. His chapter on Nietzsche in Consolations of Philosophy may be a case in point. His reading (if you can call it that) of Nietzsche is so shallow you feel pained and cannot finish it.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A36Y2UJIH0L3E2
• The Other Side 12 June, 2006
I know not everyone will like this book.
A friend of mine laughed heartily, relating to the scene over dinner with the issue of chocolate and dessert and altering your likes/dislikes to win someone over at first. There are too many moments in this book that people can identify with...the stupid rationalisations, finding the way someone bites their lip or makes a face unconciously when they are thinking as so endearing...the fights,the pain and the insanity of it all. I was shocked at how real a lot of this is. It was interesting to see things from a man's point of view...as well as a little insight into how romantic and idealistic men can be as well.
If you are interested in hearing one mans' view of how the inner workings of a relationship are played out from start to finish in all honesty,comedy,passion,mundaneness and tragedy then you should have no problem.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1O2T6JQOUEFB0
• Easy To Read Novel-but One That Includes Factual Information 10 January, 2007
I enjoy Alain de Botton's novels in general. In my opinion this is not a book about a love story but it is about the phases of a relationship. Many factors influence relationships and the characters in the book go through pretty much all of them. During the process, the author describes why we do the things we do even though sometimes we may know that it is not the best thing for us to do. I usually don't like reading novels. So, the reason why I enjoyed this one so much is that it includes factual information about human psychology.
The content is not "deep" but if you are looking for a good book to read in just a few days to relax your mind and to learn a little, then this one is a great choice.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A247BOBLYPSGQQ
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