The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work [Paperback]

 

 

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Something about Alain de Botton's writing captivates me. Though great chunky paragraphs of this photo essay are taken up with things which are banal on the surface like detailed descriptions of how biscuits are manufactured or the workings of electricity lines, the author's pithy observations about the individuals involved and his asides about the nature of being are engrossing. This author investigates an eclectic range of professions such as tuna fishing, career counselling, painting and accountancy. He begins the book by pondering the complex network of work involved which delivers to us goods in our everyday lives and how we are largely blithely unaware of these goods' origins. He then investigates a series of professions as a base point, engaging with the professionals involved in order to try to understand how this labour relates to their place in the world. The result is a sort of travelogue, each section containing a large amount of photographs to accompany the text, created with the help of photographer Richard Baker. Many of these pictures are beautiful and poignant in themselves, adding an even greater depth and understanding to the text which runs alongside them.

Many of the people the author encounters are treated with a good deal of sympathy and one feels his observations to be largely accurate based on his personal impressions of them. I grew to feel admiration, respect and envy for people who are emphatically engaged in their professions and passionate about the importance of their labour. However, at some points de Botton's prose lapse almost too far into a novelistic approach so that individuals he meets are fitted into the author's schematic understanding of certain workers' reality. Thus he might make presumptions about real people by speculating about their consciousness and how they feel about their position in the world. For instance, he summarizes the end of the day for an employee from an accountancy's advisory services and concludes how this man contemplates what has been "difficult, unnecessary and regrettable" about the effort of his labour for that day. The author doesn't specify whether he gleaned this understanding of this individual's inner-existence from a revealing interview or following him home to unobtrusively observe his private life. But one can't help but feel some liberties were taken. This makes me wonder why this author who is so brilliant at investigating the liminal spaces of our existence and the most crucial issues of our lives doesn't write more novels like his first published works.

The author also touchingly interjects elements of himself in the book. This might include finding a likeness of his father in a portrait of the president of the Maldives or a melancholic mood he falls into following the launch of a satellite into space. However, though always taking himself and his enquiries seriously, one can feel a great deal of humour laden in his emphatic pondering especially when he relates this to people he encounters. At one point he desperately asks a girl working on a document about brand performance why "in our society the greatest sums of money so often tend to accrue from the sale of the least meaningful things" and at another point in the Majove desert implores the groundskeeper of an airfield populated by dilapidated airplanes to grant him closer access out of his "preoccupation with the remnants of collapsing civilisations." What is so engaging about de Botton's style is how evidently immediate and crucial the concerns he writes about are to the author himself. Yet, at the same time, he understands that life shouldn't be taken too seriously. This makes the book very personal and enjoyable as well as including profound thoughts about the nature of being. Life is full of questions and, even if no satisfactory answers can be found, Alain de Botton is bravely determined to at least explore the meaning of it all with great eloquence and wit.

This is a great book, well written and thoughtful. Alain raises points that have certainly gone through my mind at various times. What I found good about Alain's book is that he manages to take all of these points, discuss them, bond them and cohere them into a meaningful observation on modern day working life. It is compelling reading if you work for a large organisation.

I should explain maybe that I'm a professional engineer, so maybe see some of his points from a different perspective to other potential readers. I've lent the book to my dad now (retired, used to work as a finance auditor for the Council) and he's reading it avidly too - and he NEVER reads books!

Hope this review is useful to you.

Easily Alain De Botton's best book so far, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is a collection of essays examining the minutiae of work and the satisfaction - or otherwise - it brings to each of us. De Botton starts with a detailed look at logistics; how the things we consume come to be, and how they get to us. He revels in the majesty of an unsung industry and challenges the reader to pause for a moment 'the next time one is confronted by an object that has been transported mysteriously and at an implausible speed halfway round the planet.'

The book goes on to look at an eclectic mix of workplaces; everything from a Belgian biscuit factory, to an aviation trade fair, to a guy who runs the pylon appreciation society. Alongside probing questions as to why each profession should exist, the common thread throughout the book is our relationship with work - why we do it, the challenges / benefits of endless professional specialisation, and what purpose can be found in our lives from what we do. Along the way De Botton joins us in realising his own obsessions, weaknesses and failures in the profession he has chosen, yet at the same time he helps the reader to define for themselves the meaning of what it is that they do.

Throughout, De Botton mixes an intellectual - yet accessible - approach with laugh out loud humour. My favourite line coming late in the photo essay that has traced a tuna from being caught in the Maldives all the way through to it's purchase from Sainsbury's fish counter; "... [she] stops and picks up some tuna steaks for her family's supper. The photographer and I stand up and explain our story. We tell her about our journey and about Karl Marx's theory of alienation as defined in his economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. We ask if we might follow her home. She calls her husband for a second opinion."

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2.0 out of 5 stars Quite disappointing
I have read quite of few of de Botton's books, but found this very disappointing. In fact I have been trying to finish it for the last few months; it is quite a hard slog... Read more

Published 16 days ago by LKTOTNES

2.0 out of 5 stars Hoping for more
Not particularly philosophical or insightful; I was hoping for a bit more original thought. Basically just a narrative of other people's work whom he has 'shadowed' whilst... Read more

Published 9 months ago by P. Spencer

4.0 out of 5 stars A book to savour, read slowly...
I admit I have a love/hate relationships with De Botton's literature, in the main, with the exception of his excellent Status anxiety I find his content ambling and off topic in a... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Den

5.0 out of 5 stars The best de Botton I have read so far
I read this a month or two ago and found it absolutely captivating. I have read Essays in Love (which is wonderful), Consolations of Philosophy (pretty good) and Status Anxiety (a... Read more

Published 13 months ago by greenamber83

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual approach, still great reading
I am a big Alain de Botton fan and have read a number of his books, I looked forward to reading this one and was not disappointed. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Marie

4.0 out of 5 stars DJJ
I am a fan of ADB's books and count "the Architecture of Happiness" and "Status Anxiety" as amongst my favourites. Read more

Published 13 months ago by DJJ

5.0 out of 5 stars `All societies have had work at their centre; ..
.. Ours is the first to suggest that it could be something much more than a punishment or a penance. Read more

Published 14 months ago by J. Cameron-Smith

4.0 out of 5 stars Observations on society
In the Pleasures and Sorrows of work Alain de Botton gives us his insights into a number of jobs. He spent considerable time immersing himself in each and has had access to a... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Finger on the button

4.0 out of 5 stars A pleasure to read
I really enjoyed this book and I particularly liked the photography and text combination. Neither element would be as good without the other. Read more

Published 20 months ago by Alison

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicate, profound, comforting
Alain de Botton's writing are like the cool hand of a mother passing comfortingly across a fevered brow. Read more

Published 22 months ago by Self-help junkie

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