The Course of Love

Writing about love (the Greek Eros, the love between partners for life) is as difficult as the subject is. Alain de Botton writes about love by means of a concrete love story, a maturing relationship between two people. As a professional philosopher, he still analyses nevertheless, almost in forensic detail, what happens in a typical relationship in the 21st century. But his analysis is not cold, on the contrary, it is warmhearted and compassionate. His deep-digging considerations aim at helping his 21st century readers develop another view on the things that may torment them in daily life. I can imagine that many people like myself, seek comfort in his wise books, with the sole purpose of releasing themselves from the unfeasible expectations our culture imposes on us.

The author pinpoints some contradictions in our romantic view on love. The unreasonable importance we assign in our culture to the early moments of love, whereas we somehow ignore the romance of later life. There is also the role of coincidence and freedom in the establishment of a relationship, which is somehow contrary to the idea of “a good match” and the heavy commitment we make when we get married.

Another problem is the fact that we don’t recognise sufficiently the glory of the daily duties of family life (“spoon yoghurt into small mouths”). When also children come into play, it is clear that the expectations on husband and wife, two totally different, vulnerable creatures, can become cruel and unbearable. In his ironic style, the author comes to the conclusion that our romantic view on love is actually a recipe for disaster. “Coping” with the cruelties of everyday life is in the end the only realistic basis for a maturing relationship.

I marked a few sentences to remember, the ones about children were particularly hilarious.

1. “An ability not to care too much is a critical aspect of unruffled and successful pedagogy.”
2. “It is a wonderful thing to live in a world where so many people are nice to children. It would be even better if we lived in one where we were a little nicer to the childlike sides of one another.”
3. "…, if they weren’t his own children, they would strike him as being unremarkable, so much so, that were he to meet them in a pub in thirty years’ time, he might prefer not even to talk to them. The insight is unendurable.”
4. “…children, a class of beings constitutionally uninterested in the daily satisfactions of those who created them.”

Vulnerability and acceptance are keywords in relationships. Alain de Botton comforts the tormented modern citizen, who can’t stop feeling hurt by the daily triumph of the fools around him.

Other comforting books from the same author are:  Status Anxiety, De Troost van de Filosofie and Ode aan de Arbeid (the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work). I also refer to Time and Energy in Households.