For all the reasons evoked in this book, I shall, for my part, continue, without allowing criticism to divert me from my path, to speak consistently and serenely about books I haven’t read.
Were I to proceed otherwise and again join the mob of passive readers, I would feel that I was betraying myself by being unfaithful to the milieu from which I came; to the path among books I have been obliged to take in order to create; and to the duty I feel today to assist others in overcoming their fear of culture, and in daring to leave it behind to begin to write.
List of Abbreviations
Op. cit. work cited
Ibid. ibidem
UB book unknown to me
SB book I have skimmed
HB book I have heard about
FB book I have forgotten
++ extremely positive opinion
+ positive opinion
- negative opinion
-- extremely negative opinion
A Note on the Author
PIERRE BAYARD is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII and a psychoanalyst. He is the author of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and of many other books.
JEFFREY MEHLMAN is a professor of French literature at Boston University and the author of a number of books, including Emigré New York. He has translated works by Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, and other authors.
A Note on the Author
PIERRE BAYARD is a professor of French literature at the University of Paris VIII and a psychoanalyst. He is the author of Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? and of many other books.
JEFFREY MEHLMAN is a professor of French literature at Boston University and the author of a number of books, including Emigré New York. He has translated works by Derrida, Lacan, Blanchot, and other authors.
Praise for How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
“As a teacher of literature, [Bayard] seems to believe that his ultimate goal is to encourage creativity. ‘All education,’ he writes, ‘should strive to help those receiving it to gain enough freedom in relation to works of art to themselves become writers and artists.’ It’s a charming but ultimately terrifying prospect—a world full of writers and artists. In Bayard’s nonreading utopia the printing press would never have been invented, let alone penicillin or the MacBook. I seriously doubt that pretending to have read this book will boost your creativity. On the other hand, reading it may remind you why you love reading.”
—Jay McInerney, New York Times Book Review
“I probably shouldn’t bring any of this up, but Mr. Bayard holds that one of the best reasons for reading a book is that it allows you to talk about yourself. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read is an amusing disquisition on what is required to establish cultural literacy in a comfortable way. Lightly laced with irony, the book nonetheless raises such serious questions as: What are our true motives for reading? Is there an objective way to read a book? What do we retain from the books we’ve read?”
—Joseph Epstein, Wall Street Journal
“He has redeemed French comic literature, because his book is very funny, in a tricky sort of way.”
—Jane Smiley, Los Angeles Times
“We read to understand ourselves; we share our reading with others to understand them. Yet, in Pierre Bayard’s view, reading books and not reading but discussing them, anyway, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In this half-serious, half-mischievous treatise on what reading means, non-reading becomes another form of reading. In quintessential French fashion, Bayard has devised a felicitous methodology to permit one to converse intelligently about books without shame: there’s skimming; reading reviews; making up stuff about what one has read and forgotten; and then, if one has completely run out of things to say about the book in question, Bayard suggests talking about oneself. Beneath his wry commentary (reminiscent of Alain de Botton’s philosophical books on travel and architecture), Bayard views reading as one component of a larger social discourse with the world; to be able to chat about books via second-hand means is neither duplicitous to others nor demeaning to the author, who, after all, really only wants to know that one likes his book.”
—Steve Shapiro, Rainy Day Books (reviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition)
“One of those witty guides to thinking about books that long will linger in the minds of booklovers.”
—Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune
“A subversive, insouciant ‘meditation on this forbidden subject,’ the literary act of faking it . . . Like Harry G. Frankfurt’s sleeper 2005 essay book, On Bullshit, part of the pleasure of Bayard’s work is arguing with it . . . Entertaining.”
—Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Witty and charming and often fun.”
—Sam Anderson, New York
“In this work of inspired nonsense—which nevertheless evokes our very real sense of insecurity about the gaps in our cultural knowledge— reading is not only superfluous, it is meaningless. Our need to appear well-read is all.”
—Sarah Gold, Chicago Tribune
“How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read is delightful—and even insightful. We need not have read Hamlet to know it’s a Shakespeare story about a vacillating prince. Thanks to Bayard, ‘To read or not to read?’ will never seem as primitive or stupid a question as it once did. And the charming professor, in disarming his own knowledge of books, as well as Wilde’s, Valery’s, and Montaigne’s, makes us more comfortable with our petty arsenal . . . For those in the rising generation who still believe in art, Bayard’s prescription should be read, mused over, laughed through, and surrendered to memory’s fade.”
—Garin K. Hovannisian, National Review
“Provocative and charming . . . Contrary to its attention-grabbing title, Bayard’s slim book isn’t a glib instruction manual aimed at philistines hungry for quick tips to impress their more literate friends at cocktail parties. Instead, it’s a thoughtful, often humorous, meditation on the myriad ways in which we encounter the written word and how the process by which we interact with text not only shapes our perceptions of an author’s work but also ultimately transforms our inner lives in a true act of creativity . . . Bayard’s book may strike some as a subversive, even dangerous, work. Still, I doubt avid readers—a category I trust describes most subscribers to this publication—are likely to forsake any time soon the elemental pleasure that attaches to the simple act of curling up with a good book.”
—Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness
“Bayard (Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?), a professor of French literature at the University of Paris openly (if not entirely convincingly), confesses to having neither the time nor the inclination to do much reading. Yet he is all too aware that in his profession, one is often expected to have read the literature one is teaching or talking about with colleagues. In this extended essay, a bestseller in France, Bayard argues that the act of reading is less important than knowing the social and intellectual context of a book. He is so convinced of this that he claims there is great enjoyment—and even enlightenment—in discussing a book one has not read with someone equally unfamiliar with it. Despite appearances, Bayard’s volume is not a self-help book or a bluffer’s guide to great literature, but instead serves to warn people not to try to impress others with how much they have read. The truth is, most of the time they’re fibbing and there are many gradations between total reading and complete non-reading, he declares, including hearing about a book, skimming it and forgetting its contents. A little too much impenetrable psychoanalytic jargon sometimes threatens to overwhelm Bayard’s argument, but Bayard’s at least partly tongue-in-cheek argument about not reading is well worth reading.”
—Publishers Weekly
“In this hilarious and elaborate spoof, Bayard proves once again that being almost ridiculously erudite and screamingly funny are by no means mutually exclusive. In grand Swiftian style, the author offers a staunch pseudo defense of the art of what he calls ‘non-reading,’ in which one must claim
as all but divine the right to hold forth about books that one has skimmed, forgotten, or failed to read at all. With tongue firmly in cheek, he argues that it’s more than enough—indeed, preferable in virtually all respects—to be familiar with a book’s reputation and in particular to understand its place in the bibliographic pecking order. What percentage of commentators, after all, has actually read Proust’s novel? Paul Valery certainly hadn’t, as Bayard notes, but it didn’t stop him from discoursing upon it at length. There’s a whiff of the gleeful perversity of French deconstruction theory here, but the book’s true angel is Oscar Wilde, whose witticism provides Bayard with a mock rallying cry: ‘I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.’ ”
—Booklist
“I read and adored Pierre Bayard’s book. It’s funny, smart, and so true— a wonderful combination of slick French philosophizing and tongue-in-cheek wit, and an honest appraisal of what it means, or doesn’t mean, to read.”
—Clare Messud, author of The Emperor’s Children
“A survivor’s guide to life in the chattering classes . . . evidently much in need.”
—New York Times
“With rare humor, Bayard liberally rethinks the social use [of literature] and the position of the reader . . . Read or skim How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Or simply listen to what people say about it so that you can talk about it with ease. In either case, you may not be able to forget it.”
—Les Inrockuptibles
“Booksellers are familiar with the baffling yet flattering assumption on the part of some customers that they’ve read every book in the store. Why ruin the illusion? This brilliant, vibrant, and hilarious book asserts that knowing where a book is situated in the larger world of literature, knowing people’s reactions to it, and just plain shamelessness are all you need. Bayard (who happens to be a professor of French literature at the University of Paris) clearly values reading, but less typically he also values gut reactions, improvisation, and uninformed opinions. He sees talking about books as a way of expressing yourself and your ‘inner book.’ I joyfully read every word of How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, and yet will never feel obligated to do so to any other book again!”
—Audrey Brockhaus, Schuler Books & Music Okemos
Copyright © 2007 Les Editions de Minuit
English translation copyright © 2007 by Jeffrey Mehlman
Foreword copyright © 2007 by Francine Prose
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury
USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATAM
Bayard, Pierre, 1954–
[Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus? English]
How to talk about books you haven’t read / Pierre Bayard; translated from
the French by Jeffrey Mehlman.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59691-469-8 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59691-469-6 (hardcover)
1. Literature—History and criticism—Theory, etc. 2. Books and reading.
I. Title.
PN45.B34413 2007
809—dc22
2007027178
Originally published in French as Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus?
by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 2007
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2007
This e-book edition published in 2010
E-book ISBN: 978-1-59691-714-9
www.bloomsburyusa.com
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read Page 15