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How Proust Can Change Your Life
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
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How Proust Can Change Your Life
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Summary
For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letters, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.
Here, tendered in prose almost as luminous as its subject’s, is advice on cultivating friendships, suffering successfully, recognising love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on the first date. And here, too, is a generously perceptive literary biography that suggests that the master is as relevant today as he was in fin de siècle Paris.
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What listeners say about How Proust Can Change Your Life
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 12-04-17
Really good
Amazon won't let me leave this page until I give some sort of forced opinion.
I liked this book.
Are you happy now, Amazon??
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lord Copper
- 11-01-17
Prose at its most elegant, beautifully performed
If you could sum up How Proust Can Change Your Life in three words, what would they be?
Witty, elegant, affecting
What did you like best about this story?
Of all the audiobooks I have downloaded, this is the one I return to again and again. It's a clever book, written by a master of supremely elegant yet unnaffected prose, enhanced by its competent and non-irritating narrator. It isn't a self-help book in the true sense, thank goodness, although it encourages one to reflect on how one lives. I also learnt a lot about Proust the writer and the man, and I wish that I could go back in time and spend an evening in his evidently delightful company. Bravo Mr de Botton.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- William
- 23-09-19
Sensitive and perceptive
An elegantly written perusal of aspects of Proust's writings and life. Lots of intelligent observations about how we may learn to enjoy life more and suffer less. Relaxed and chatty in style, with plenty of curious details if his life.
One anecdote I found particularly interesting was the brief meeting between Proust and Joyce. A cold, indifferent exchange with no engagement from either man.
Maybe a more appropriate title would be How What Proust Wrote Can Change Your Life. His life has contributed a work of stunning perception on a huge range of human predicaments, yet his life is not one many would choose to emulate, or rather suffer. Great sensitivity comes at a high price.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Welsh Mafia
- 20-11-13
Life before finishing Proust
An entertaining adjunct to my current extended soirée into all things Combray. With some time to kill when not able to hunker down and give it my all, I decided to get to bottom out de Botton in more or less one sitting of just over five hours.
This seems to be self-help with a helping hand from a wide ranging reading of Proust and the ancillary of luminaries who enlighten as to what it all might mean. Great fun to be in the book looking out at someone looking in.
Will Proust change my life? He has....certainly to the extent that I got a trouble free holiday out of it. Will this? No.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael
- 12-12-17
A little dry but worthwhile
Some good points but Proust hasn't changed my life. Certainly, there is not enough room made for wisdom or philosophy in the world today.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- "mhca"
- 22-10-17
well worth a listen
I really enjoyed this thought provoking book. A good insight to Proust. If like me you have not read his famous book, this gives you an insight to who he really
was.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 06-02-20
good intro to Proust's work
a lot of anecdotes from Proust's life but not quite life changing. few chapters speak to Proustiam philosophy of life.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Asp
- 19-05-20
A book about a French author
This is a book about a French author. Surely you could have found a reader able to pronounce French.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Ms
- 23-03-17
Zzzzz
Disappointingly dull. I fell asleep every time I listened to this. I've given it 2 stars because I was grateful that it alleviated my insomnia for a while.
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2 people found this helpful