He has followed the blood-soaked journey of a tuna fish from the Indian Ocean in the Maldives to a dinner table in London for his book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.
And this summer, he got himself a desk at Heathrow's Terminal Five to people-watch and chronicle the modern travel experience for A Week at the Airport.
Not unusual tasks for Alain de Botton who has written novels that are not just novels and non-fiction that's more than just reporting and commentary.
The Swiss writer's books have connected Madame Bovary to sex and shopping (The Romantic Movement), found poetry and philosophy in warehouses (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work), stoicism and Seneca in architecture (The Architecture of Happiness).
He has pointed out that most of us are still working at jobs that were chosen for us by our 16-year-old selves. He has explained how a little-read writer could help you find the right doctor (How Proust Can Change Your Life); or how a dose of Epicurus could cure you of the envy that sets in when your neighbor buys the BMW you've always dreamt of (The Consolations of Philosophy).
Little wonder, then, that most bookstores in India are still confused about where exactly to place a de Botton. You'll find him sitting smugly among a Keats and a Byron, coyly between a Princess Daisy and a Georgette Heyer, or, slightly embarrassed, in the self-help section.
The writer, however, prefers to defy labels and tells sify.com that he considers himself an essayist first and foremost.
In an interview with Sarita Ravindranath, Alain de Botton speaks about his fascination with airports, his hopes for the next decade, his views on success, and on reviews that hit hard. Excerpts:
This has been a busy year for you. Two books, The School of Life, a highly-viewed and talked-about TED talk...Your long-time fans would detect your unseen presence even in an Indie movie - (500) Days of Summer! How does it feel? Do you consider this your most productive year?
Every year feels pretty busy.
I'm haunted by an awareness of death. Most members of my family appear to die rather suddenly at quite young ages - and that keeps me working with a certain frantic energy.
Also, as I approach 40, I've gradually been able to make use of experiences learnt over the last two decades in the media and publishing business - and exploit these to my advantage.
Most fittingly, I am slowly seeing interest in my work grow in countries that I haven't been read in before. I'm thinking of India, but also the Philippines, South Korea, Brazil, and Iran.
How do you react to criticism that you dumb down philosophy? Do you consider yourself a philosopher first, or as a writer who interprets philosophy for the modern world?
I consider myself an essayist first and foremost, that is someone who can speak in a personal way, saying I - and referring to himself - while roaming freely and wildly across the landscape of knowledge.
The models for writing for me are people like Virginia Woolf, in her non-fiction work, Cyril Connolly, Montaigne, Stendhal, Roland Barthes - all vagabond writers in many ways.
I like to dive into a new area of knowledge (religion say, or architecture) and risk myself against the authority of all that people have said on these subjects before.
When I wrote a book about certain philosophers that I love (Nietzsche, Epicurus, Seneca...), certain academics did say, 'Who is he to write this sort of book?' He doesn't have a PhD in the subject. But this is a hopeless sort of comment to make.
Writing isn't like engineering: qualifications aren't an imperative and don't guarantee quality, or its absence. I think we have to leave it to individual readers to decide. I do my best and hope that readers won't be put off my lack of a doctorate.
Does it annoy you when people refer to you as a "pop philosopher", a "highbrow writer" or a "self-help author"?
My artistic ambition is to be an extremely serious writer who nevertheless manages never to write a sentence that is unnecessarily complicated or unreadable.
So I am interested in communication, in the same way that a writer like Voltaire was.
The idea that this means that one is a 'popular philosopher', as if this was a kind of plague, is regrettable.
The ability to talk to a big audience can be an advantage. I would love to see a world where serious writers took their responsibilities as communicators more seriously.
Part of one's job is to seduce readers and never let them get bored.
How long did it take for you to research The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work? Which of the chapters did you enjoy writing, and researching, the most?
The book took me two years to research and one to write. The chapter I most enjoyed was probably the one on tuna fishing, in which I followed a fish from the warm waters of the Maldives all the way to a British supermarket.
I talked to everyone who handled the fish along the way - it was an attempt to show the complexity of the chains in which our work connects us. We trade with so many more people than in the past, yet we know so little about them.
My book was an attempt to understand bits of this giant financial machine we're involved in - but from a human rather than an economic point of view.
You left a rather vicious comment on Caleb Crain's blog after he wrote an unfavorable review of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work in the New York Times. Any regrets? Do reviews really hurt that bad?
I do think it's acceptable for writers who receive ad hominem reviews to complain - but in the internet age, they should always write their complaint on a postcard.
Right from Essays in Love, references to airports have always cropped up in your writing. What was the one big discovery you made while writing A Week at the Airport?
I had a wonderful time writing a book about life at Heathrow this summer. The real problem with airports is that we tend to go there when we need to catch a plane - and because it's so difficult to find the way to the gate, we tend not to look around at our surroundings.
And yet airports definitely reward a second look - they are the imaginative centers of the modern world.
It's here you should go to find, in a concrete form, all the themes of modernity that one otherwise finds only in an abstract forms in the media.
Here you see globalization, environmental destruction, runaway consumerism, family breakdown, etc in action.
Your TED talk, A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success, made many of the points your books and essays have made. But will we be seeing a more detailed version of the ideas that you spoke of?
My TED talk was very much based on my book Status Anxiety, which discussed ideas of meritocracy - particularly the way that capitalism puts forward the idea that we should create a utopian 'meritocracy' where everyone gets a fair chance to succeed. In other words, the American dream.
I point out that though this sounds great in theory, the danger is that if the world is meant to be 'fair' what happens if one doesn't succeed?
The penalties are harsher than in a world which recognizes that things are more random and bad things happen to good people.
I was arguing for a more humane way of looking at professional and business failure - and also a more skeptical way of looking at success.
I've been amazed by the response to the talk, it's been downloaded a million times since it went on the site (incidentally, many many of these have been from India).
Back to the movie, (500) Days of Summer. Your book, The Architecture of Happiness features in two scenes. But why do I feel that you had some role in the script of the movie? Even if it's just the feeling that your first two books influenced the writers? Any comments?
I'm embarrassed to say that I had nothing at all to do with the film and haven't yet even seen it. But it does seem that there was some influence from my books.
Then again, I know as a writer that I pick up influences from so many places - so I can't hold it against the filmmakers. It is in fact a form of genuine flattery and generosity on their part.
You stress on the consolations of pessimism and stoicism in an age where everyone expects to be happy all the time. Do you think we would ever get too busy or too impatient to devote time to reflection?
As Philip Larkin once wrote, life is always teaching us reasons to be serious. In other words, though life has its frothy commercial dimension, as people experience more of life, it is impossible not to come away with a rather tragic vision - as the Ancient Greeks had, or the Buddhists have.
This doesn't mean that every day has to be sad. Indeed, it can lead to that passionate intensity of feeling that comes from knowing the sheer preciousness of every instant.
Reflecting carefully and well about our experiences is being recognized more and more as part of a fulfilled life. There is what one could call an emotional literacy which didn't exist a generation ago.
Men and women are learning to talk to one another. Parents are starting to listen to children, even the rich to the poor. So there is ground for hope that even our impatient world is remembering to reflect.
You're part of London's School of Life that offers courses and ideas for everyday living. How do you think such a school, and Bibliotherapy (Use of Literature as therapy) can help people lead better lives?
Yes, I am confident that what we are doing at the School of Life is of genuine value. This has been a wonderful experiment which is working artistically and commercially.
We're often told that society is getting ever more dumbed-down, but there's plenty of evidence that people are in fact, against many odds, trying to brain-up like never before.
Attendances at literary festivals are at record levels, sales of serious books are growing at an exceptional pace and increasing numbers of us are getting together on a regular basis to discuss what we're reading in book groups.
The school has been set up by a group of writers and artists with an unusually strong belief in making learning more relevant.
The School's big claim is that it is offering courses in the important questions of everyday life. Whereas most colleges and universities chop up learning into abstract categories ('agrarian history' 'the 18th century English novel'), The School of Life titles its courses according to things we all tend to care about: careers, relationships, politics, travels, families.
An evening or weekend on one of its courses is designed to get you to reflect on such matters as your moral responsibilities to an ex-partner or how to resolve a career crisis.
Aside from lectures, the school has a division offering psychotherapy for individuals, couples or families - and it does so in a completely stigma-free way.
For the normally reserved British, it must be a first to have an institution that offers therapy from an ordinary high street location and moreover, treats the idea of having therapy as no more or less strange than having a haircut or pedicure, and perhaps a good deal more useful.
In a culture where anyone who attempts a serious conversation is at once accused of belonging to the 'chattering classes' and where anything too intellectual is in danger of being called pretentious, one has to applaud a place that attempts to put learning and ideas back to where they should always have been - right in the middle of our lives.
Where do you go to for consolation when you're down and out?
I love listening to the music of J S Bach. I'm not Christian, his music obviously is, but it's wonderfully consolingly melancholic. His cello concertos and cantatas are particular favourites.
As a writer and philosopher, what do you think was the biggest change or trend you observed in this decade? And what do you expect from the next?
The two big trends are firstly, scepticism about capitalism following the economic collapse in the big western economies.
And secondly, real suspicion about how the human race is going to curb its demand for harmful CO2 emissions.
So economic politics have combined with environmental activism to force us to fundamentally rethink our ideas of how the success of a country should be measured.
I think the straightforward 'golden' era of capitalism is over. We are moving towards a far more socially and environmentally responsible kind.
Have you started work on your next book? What will it be about?
I am writing a book about what good role religion might play in an atheist's life.
Are you familiar with Eastern philosophy? Any plans to visit India to promote your books?
I'm very familiar with Buddhism, which I've been fascinated by for many years. I'd love to visit India to promote my books.
I'm rather hoping that someone will read this and invite me!
First published in sify.com on December 2010
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