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4 out of 5
by
Lazarus
from
Littlehampton, H9, The United Kingdom | Mar 14, 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.
4 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
madeline
from
Brooklyn, NY | Apr 10, 2009
While unexpectedly delayed in Heathrow, I used leftover Euros to by this, the latest Artemis Fowl, and some gin.
"In older, more hierarchical societies, an individual's fate had largely been decided by the accidents of birth; the difference between success and failure had not hung on a proficiency with the declaration 'I can move mountains.'
However, in the meritocratic, socially mobile modern world, one's status might now well be determined by one's confidence, imagination and ability to convince others of one's due - a possibility of advancement which shone a less flattering light on philosophies of advancement and resignation. It seemed that one might squander one's life chances because of a high-handed disdain for books with titles such as 'The Will to Succeed,' believing that one was above their shrill slogans of encouragement. One might be doomed not by a lack of talent, but by a species of pessimistic pride.'
2 people found this review helpful
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3 out of 5
by
Daniel
from
Croydon, 07, Australia | Apr 3, 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.
5 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
David
from
San Francisco, CA | May 22, 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.
6 people found this review helpful
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2 out of 5
by
Katherine
from
New York, NY | May 2, 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.
1 people found this review helpful