How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read
by Pierre Bayard,
English Translation published by Bloomsbury USA
Reviewed by Ian Thorpe
http://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Books-Havent-Read/dp/1596914696
The American mindset tends to take things more literally that that of most Europeans, especially British and French minds, both of which are equally existential and fascinated with wordplay and irony, thus the idea of talking about books we have not read may seem, to an American commentator, nonsensical. Before reviewing How To Talk About Books We Have Not Read by Pierre Bayard, a French Literary Academic, I must first explain the wholly British concept of talking bollocks (it is only British in that the French have their own name for it.) to help readers understand the concept.
Bollocks is not a word that has currency in the U.S.A. It means literally "small balls" and in modern usage refers to components of the male anatomy. It is not however a "bad word". Although religious types may deem any reference to parts of the human body between the navel and upper thigh socially unacceptable, the first recorded use of the word bollocks is ecclesiastical. One of King Henry I's spies, sent to Canterbury to get the dirt on Thomas a Becket noted in a report to the king, "The Dean and Chapter walked past chanting plainsong and playing with their bollocks." Without doubt he was referring to rosary beads.
Bollocks is usually used to describe something that fails to meet expectations, as in "That novel was a load of bollocks," or "I don't listen to politicians, they all talk bollocks. A meal that is bollocks is on the inedible side of mediocre. On the other hand, something that is "the dogs bollocks" is surpassing good.
As well as "talking bollocks" referring to someone who talks through their bum-hole, it also describes an artform. Talking about books in an intellectual way is an aspect of this art, in fact I have a degree in talking bollocks about books, a.k.a English Literature.
This then was how I came to feel confident in dissing psychologist Ian Kerner's sexual self help books without having read them.
We have all told porkies* about reading, claiming to have read books we have not so much as opened. Usually we do this to impress somebody. I wonder how many red blooded men (and maybe a few women) in New York have claimed to have read Oscar Wilde or the French Romantic poets to impress a certain stunning brunette who worked as a bookseller? (Hi MM, I wonder if you and I are the only people who will read this thread who know Rimbaud was not a Sly Stallone movie?)
Pierre Bayard acknowledges that his interest in Talking About Books He Has Not Read is professional, as an academic and teacher in a University he is often required to comment on books he has not read. There are far too many books extant in any major language for one person to have read them all. This led Bayard to understand there is a difference between simple absence of reading and the act of not reading as a cultural activity.
The distinction the author makes is more noticeable in France perhaps, where intellectualism is still prized, than in the English speaking world where dumbing down and rampant capitalism have conspired to turn intellectuals into distrusted outsiders to our materialistic, home-owning democratic societies.
"Not Reading" as opposed to simply not reading is more than just laziness or lack of interest in reading, it implies an interest in literature. The true reader, the book claims, is one who loves to reflect on literature and to hold an opinion on the ideas that are the essence of any book. In this he is thinking along the same lines as Oscar Wilde who believed the critic relies neither on author or text. Wilde was saying that a reader must be creative, must interpret the text and therefore be as much a part of the creative process as the writer. To read it is necessary to interpret and to interpret is to write. Wilde would certainly not have felt his not having read a book constrained his right to express an opinion.
The central theme of Talking about Books We Have Not Read stems from the philosophical works of Jaques Derrida. The text focuses on objects and the systems that support them. Here books are these systems, only important in society in that they are the vehicles for ideas; their real importance to society lies in the conversations they generate and the exchange of ideas that take place in those conversations.
"Relations between ideas are much more important than the ideas themselves," Bayard asserts.
To put this in perspective we need to reflect on how subjective our interpretations of the events in daily life are and compare that with the subjectivity of our interpretations of the books we read.
In illustrating his point, the author repeatedly misrepresents vital plot elements in books by Umberto Eco, John Updike, Graham Greene and others. If challenged, he informs us, he will simply say that he was telling a subjective truth.
In that joke Bayard sums up the tone of his work, it is playful and tongue in cheek, as if he has played a deliciously naughty trick on more serious minded intellectuals.
Culture, he tells us, is 'a theatre charged with concealing individual ignorance'.
He could be right, but what price would we pay for tearing down that theatre. Are we already paying that price as we bulldoze cultural centres to make way for shopping malls and other Temples of Mammon.
How To Talk About Books You Have Not Read has a deliciously French feel to it, indeed it could probably only have been written by a French author. The tone is witty and thought provoking but underlying all the intellectual trickery is a serious point,
"We must transform our relationship with books and with ideas."
Often however, when he uses the word "book" it could easily be substituted by "experience" and to prove he is not a charlatan he offers insightful analysis of writers such as Proust, Balzac and Shakespeare as well as a critique of Grounhog Day.
Though prone to complicate the obvious he should never be taken at face value, Pierre Bayard is truly multi layered. But of course that is my subjective interpretation of the book. You must judge for yourselves. How To Talk About Books We Haven't Read is well worth a read.
True to the spirit of Pierre Bayard's book Ian Thorpe reviewed it without having has so much as a butcher's* in the book store.
Rhyming Slang definitions:
butcher's: contraction of butcher's hook = look
porkies: abbreviation of pork pies = lies
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Comments: 62
It used to be called Philosophy in ancient Greece :-)
You'll get used to me Paul.
To the credit of many authors and interns working at publishers, I find many 'online' book reviewers find the books much like is written on the back cover and front material of the book.
Wow, huh?
On this side of the pond, it would seem, many people are more concerned with owning the next best new book than actually reading it.
I can't tell you how many time, after someone's told me book is great, I ask: What's it about? and get a quote from Oprah or a blurb from the back cover.
Dozens of people -- and I'm not making this up -- when I asked what it was about, told me The Da Vinci Code "Even if you don't believe the theory, it's a damn good mystery story!"
Now, Ian, I'm not a believer in memes infecting society, a cascading virus of thought-forms, but this was really spooky.
Either that or the people didn't get past the back cover.
That is what the book I reviewed is about.
Those Da Vinci types were just non readers. I can say after reading only the back cover, "The Da Vinci Code is at one level a straightforward thriller but on another is an expoloration of the idea that Christianity has its roots in European Paganism rather than Palestinian goat-god worship.
The theory that Mary Magdalene is the trye messiah is as old as the Christian faith itself but the notion that the Holy Grail is a symbolic vagina may come as a shock to some.
Which is yet another example of talking bollocks about books :-)
"Have her, and when you do, think of me."
Back in the 60's, at one of those teen parties we use to have where someone's crazy uncle showed up with wild tales about anything, the crazy uncle had this girl with him, a lithe pixie in flowing course-weave robes, a daisy behind her right ear, captivated us with a tale of Jesus escaping to what is not Europe with this wife, Mary.
The gospel of Mary Magdalene is pretty cool and I can see why the Church Fathers at the council of Trend ran screaming from it.
I'm not a Christian of any flavor, nor am I a pagan or ever a Playgon.
My students are tending to spell it bollox, these days - ah, the dumbing down....!!!!
That's 'andsome of yer, pleasure to get a rating off someone who knows how to Lambeth about books wot they haven't read.
Well would you Adam and Eve it, the trouble and strife has made a Ruby Murray and she's about to put it on the Clarke Gable. Goot oppit.
Don't they know its not an x rated word.
Being a pagan is very misunderstood, mostly thanks to Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons.
If you're a proper pagan like me all you have to do is celebrate the flesh. I'm well up for celebrating the flesh.
Yes, you would do well in Britain or France - or Ireland, they are the world champions at talking bollocks.
As a bit of background, my monthly bookclub (not what you think - meets in a library sans chardonney, unfortunately) read, or was supposed to read, and discuss "Reading Lolita in Tehran" last month. For whatever reason, our usual group of 15 or so dwindled to 5, including our librarian leader, for this particular meeting. Out of that 5, only 2 of us had actually read the entire book, myself and another woman. The other three, INCLUDING THE LIBRARIAN (*gag*), justified their utter laziness by stating that the book was "too heavy", "got into too much academic discussion of literature", "was not really fun to read". I was aghast, to say the least. This book was fantastic! Besides opening up the world of Iran, both during and post-revolution, through the eyes of a group of women, it was an incredibly fascinating analysis of why it is extremely important for people to read good literature, done through the analysis of specific works by Austen, Fitzgerald, Nobokov, etc.
While we were discussing the reasons why it is so important for people to read good literature, I mentioned the results of a recent study by The National Endowment for the Arts that I had come across which showed that teenagers were reading drastically less books and were now unable to focus on anything for more than 9 minutes. I offered my opinion that not only were their abilities to focus impaired by non-reading, but their level of empathy and ability to make intellectual relative connections between and among important concepts are also being impaired.
Now, get this- the LIBRARIAN said that she was not at all worried about younger generations not reading as they were busy on the internet and reading there. Had I had a glass of chardonney in my hand, I would have thrown it in her face. All I could say was, "But, you're a friggin' LIBRARIAN! If you don't care if kids read, who is going to?"
Alas, I am beyond dismayed. I know what you have presented here is in the spirit of humor, but having had that recent experience, I do find it rather discouraging that someone would write a book about not reading books. There are some very interesting points here, though.....I must try to fit them into my muddled musings and see what comes of it.
I did, however, thoroughly enjoy your history of the term "bollocks".
I love and miss reading books. I find that I spend way too much time reading on the computer when I have so many pick me up when you wannas and put me down when you wannas without having to turn anything on except my mind.
Sharp mind and sharp wit.
I've seen this point of view right here on Gather more times than I can remember. It seems to come up a lot in discussions about facts.
of course not, he was a Leonardo DiCaprio movie -- "Total Eclipse" (oh, how appropriate, synchronistically).
I do often have opinions on books I haven't read, though. As in, "I started reading it, but after the seventh factual error or clearly nonsensical character action in the first 20 pages, I had to close the book." Example, Patriot Games. Or, too much "thesaurus writing" (i.e. clearly looking up more interesting synonyms for common words without understanding their meanings). Or, more succinctly, "Yuck!"
On the other hand, I don't generally read book reviews either. I know what I like. And, if I like it, I'll probably read it over and over...
This was great, Ian. Have you read it, by the way?
I think I've gotten lost in your multiple layers of meaning.
But this is what I, personally, get from reading your clever piece:
1. The meaning of a book is created somewhere between the mind of the author and the mind of the reader. This is because it must flow through the intermediary of words, which are "decoded" in the mind of the reader. For each person reading a book, the meaning will be different.
2. When a book is reviewed, another layer of words is added-- the reviewer uses words to tell you what the book meant to him or her. So, the meaning of the review will also be different to everyone who reads it.
3. By the time the information from the book reaches the reader of the review, it's been so interpreted and edited that it may bear little resemblance to what was in the author's mind when he or she wrote the book.
4. Therefore, distortion/interpretation of the book's content will occur whether you read the book, or skip the book and just read the review. (Although, it's likely that the book's major themes and messages will still be present in the review)
5. So, why not just skip the book?
Now I finally understand why you English Lit majors were having so much fun in college, while those of us in the sciences were cloistered in the lab and classroom. I was jealous then, and I'm jealous now!
Oh gawd, the problem with living five time zones away I whenever I write a popular article I have a huge bunch of comments to respond to. Here we go:
I haven't read the book but will recommend it to everyone I meet this week. Thanks for choosing a book that isn't genre limited.
I hope you mean you will recommend they DON'T read it ;-)
I knew I could rely on you to be familiar with this incredibly useful word. You're the dog's bollocks mate :-)
In your disappointment about the book club I think you missed Bayard's point that I highlighted, that we have to be true lovers of literature to be able to talk about books we have not read, rather than people who do not read.
He is saying good books are about ideas. A good example of a novel that shares Bayard's philosophy of reading is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow of the Wind:
Shadow of the Wind - Reading group guide
In the story, the central character Daniel tells his girlfriend of a book by a forgotten writer; "…
this is a story about books."
"About books?"
"About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind."
As the plot unfolds it becomes apparent Daniel is part of the life of that charcter in the novel. Maybe I should review it properly.
However if you are half the girl I think you are, you will set be a challenge (I can't resist a challenge)and ask me to review "Reading Lolita In Tehran" so you can take it to your reading group. That should be fun.
There are many pleasures to be had from reading, one is being introduced to new ideas and invited to play with them in the very personal playpen of our minds.
The internet, for all its immediacy lacks that safe zone. Whatever we post is available to the world.
Great to welcome a newcomer to my threads.
We can all say we have read books we haven't and when asked for an opinion simply shrug and say "I didn't rate it."
Read Bayard's book and you are equipped to have whole conversations about books you have not read. And so we revive the dying art of conversation.
As immanuel Kant said; "Objects exist in reality but only a human mind can surround them with time and space.
The famous British editor CP Scott said "Comment is free, but facts are sacred.
Anyone can have an opinion which is all we can ever have about a book and I think that is the point Bayard is making. But I know what you mean about the deconsecration of facts. Concluding "Truth is what I want it to be and my truth is as good as anybody's" is a common mistake people when they read existentialist philosophers without having the right background to grasp the concept of abstract argument.
Your comment was really funny
You could turn that comment into the first chapter of "The Life and Times of a Bookseller." I promise you a great review but I can't promise to have read the book :-)
Now,
You'd rather date and idiot than a phoney? Duh well Michelle, yeah, book. I got some of dose. Dey is mighty useful for proppin up der bed coz a rat run off wid one of der legs. Wot you doin tonite?
Ooer, I hpe that doesn't sound too Irish, I'll be in trouble with the PC Police.
Love your anorexic gymnasts, but as they are prone to osteoporosis wouldn't they break if they tried sexual gymnastics?
Your name may be Bollocks but you are the dog's bollocks mate.
You are wise not to read book reviews, unlike me most reviewers do not even bother to find out about their subject but offer a precis of the publisher's press release.
Talking bollocks or abstract debate as academics insist on calling it does serve a useful purpose though. At school I learned the important skill of arguing both sides of a case. You are a scientist so you must constanlty form opinions that cannot be based on a full examination of a body of evidence. There simply is not enough time.
How to talk about books we haven't read is about an intellectual exercise. As I said above, conversations can easily grow out of a remark made about a book.
I have not read "How to talk about books you haven't read."
That would have been cheating.
When I brought this up to the document caretakers, they noted that I was the only one who noticed.
I get into trouble all the time by reading what is presented and then asking difficult questions like where it came from. Did I mention my overwhelming popularity?
The benefit of reading a book lies in what ideas we gain from it or how our own ideas are modified by interaction with the author. So up until point 5 you were spot on.
But if you do skip the book totally, you cannot talk about it wheras it is possible to be aware of books without having read either text or reviews. I could hold a long conversation on the Da Vinci Code so long as nobody asked me to explain specific events. I have absorbed the main plot devices by a process of osmosis and am very familiar with the settings and the myth references.
I could not discuss Labyrinth by Kate Mosse in any more detail despite having read it. It is the ideas and our interpretation of them that is important, not the plotline.
So now tell me us lit. students were just having fun. Bear in mind though I have gathered 35 years life experience since obtaining that meaningless bit of paper.
I have not read the book but I did have a fling with a westernised muslim girl whose Iranian father had fled Iran to get away from the Reza regime. Trust me.
Your replies are going to fast for me.
I would not read a book with that title simply because knowing what I do of Islamic culture I know the Lolita thing make the book irrelevant. It would not mtter in Iran that the girl is underage, having sex with a forty year old would be viewed the same way. What I will do is ask an opinion from my friend Mick, a thoroughly English Englishman with a PhD in theoretical physics who, realising that theoretical physics is bollocks, converted to Islam and decided to devote his life to the religion.
Then I will read some extracts and reviews.
And then I will produce an entertaining and original review.
That's a promise.
Thanks.
You have mentioned your popularity :-)
Reiewing documents on which safety depends is a world away from holiding social conversations about books intended for entertainment.
I think it sdpeaks volumes about the communications abilities of scientists and engineers if you read into the document some way before realising every other page was missing. Are their documents really so garbled?
Poor you, having to read that stuff for a living. I do really sympathise, I was successful in Information Technology not because I was a great techie (I'm not) but because I was a great communicator with computer experience. I made it easy for the people who held the purse strings to understand the benefits of investing in new technology.
Some of the documents I had to decipher and report on were brainbusting in the ineptitude of their language.
Now that's scary, Stephanie!
So how do you, personally, decide whether you will:
a. Read a book
b. Read only a review of the book
c. Avoid the book altogether
I have no wish to shut you up dear, but when one of these threads takes off I go into my old stand up comic mode. The responses are totally unpredictable.
Hey the strategy is working, have you seen those points building. A long month and a holiday in march, we should hit that magic 3000.
Instinct, pure instinct. But I'm not always right. I recently bought a book that looked really promising but only got to page 5 before throwing it aside with the words "what sadist published this gobshite."
What's the last good book you (really) read?
Don't let C.A. the fundie on my Kind and loving God thread know I'm just being a points ho. Seeing as its that time of year I am just winding him up ready for a crucifixon. I give you some tips in the next couple of days, I nned to ease back and get ready for a big month in March.