Essays in Love

Alain de Botton, Essays in Love

Alain de Botton is a Swiss English writer whose philosophical thinking has been appearing in several different genres, ranges from Essays to fiction and non-fiction; his work also appear regularly in several English newspaper columns like The Independent on Sunday. In Essays in Love, his first fictional work that published in 1993, de Botton tries to analyze people’s behaviors in a love relationship. The word Love then is restricted to a narrower sense, indicates solely the ones that belong to couples. In his attempt to demystify “Love” and those who are in love, de Botton uses the relationship between a man and a woman as the target sample, from which much of his philosophical thinking derives.

While the book discusses the relationship between two individuals, the author only allows readers perspective of the protagonist, who, despite his occasional attempts in speaking from the other’s point of view, inevitably falls into prejudiced and sometimes stereotypical assumptions. Readers are likely to find fault in the book’s lack of another perspective and second account. Moreover, as de Botton endeavors to reveal his philosophical insights in each single step the couple takes, he unexpectedly turns his protagonist into a paranoid skeptic who tends to overanalyze everything. His sentimentality, while pushes the theories further, only becomes tedious and annoying in the end.

The format that de Botton chooses to take in constructing the book may be the one reason that distinguishes Essays in Love from all the other works that share the same idea, yet at the same time it is also this very same frame that at moments dissuades readers from pursuing the plot line. The articles, with its witty phrases or theories as titles, bring about ideas in a proper sequence with much clarity, but as the readers are introduced to one title after another, we could not help but gradually find the body of work preachy and self-proclaiming.

De Botton may be a well-informed writer as he incorporates ideas from many great thinkers throughout the work and, at the same time, manages to present sensible ideas in most of the essays; however, his efforts fail to meet the readers’ expectations from a title that promises so much. As readers, we expect the author to put down some philosophical truth that can be universally acknowledged, solutions that clear our shared doubts, but unfortunately, de Botton manages only to disappoint the reader by restricting everything under a one-sided, biased tale with an irritating protagonist who cannot arouse in readers compassion nor interests. Eventually, Essays in Love fails to educate the readers, who have been expecting ever so eagerly, and hoping still, for some wise man to teach them the wisdom within so great a mystery we call love.