“CAN TOLSTOY SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE?”

“CAN TOLSTOY SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE?” The headline of an article by Alain de Botton in the Wall Street Journal (December 18/19) asked: “Can Tolstoy Save Your Marriage?” I am a big fan of Alain de Botton. One Christmas we gave several friends copies of his book which asked a similar question: CAN PROUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE? De Botton believes that there is wisdom in great literature. When I was young, a friend told me that she had told some coworkers that she only read non-fiction, and they had reacted strongly. How, they asked, could she learn about the world and about life if she didn’t read fiction. I was as surprised by this reaction as she was, but we talked about it and wound up agreeing with it. De Botton’s article describes some of the courses at the school he has founded in London—“The School of Life”—and gives some examples of the courses at the school. Thus, ANNA KARENINA and MADAME BOVARY “are assigned in a course on understanding the tensions of marriage instead of in one focused on narrative trends in 19th-century fiction.” Here is the home page for The School of Life.