How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
(translated from the French by Jeffrey Mehlman – Granta, 2007)
Boring Books by Louis Theroux (The Idler-Issue 10 -July/August 1995)
Pierre Bayard’s book is a columnists dream. Here we have the paradox of a professor of literature in Paris proposing non-reading as a legitimate academic strategy.This isn’t as whacky as it first sounds.
It’s an undeniable fact that even the most erudite scholar can only scratch the surface of the world’s literature. In our short lifetimes there are only so many books it is possible to read.It follows that we will often find ourselves in situations when we are called upon to express an opinion on works we have only a scant knowledge of, or in extreme circumstances haven’t even heard of.
The problem with Bayard’s book (which I have read – although I skimmed in places) is that it is really a good article stretched out into a book length through some shameless padding. This is done mainly by including chunks of plot description that may easily have been lifted directly from Wikopedia.
So, we have to plough through lengthy synopsises of Graham Greene’s ‘The Third Man’,Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’, the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ plus David Lodge’s ‘Small Worlds’ and ‘Changing Places’ before we get to the point he is making.
It is curious that he should feel the need to give such detail since this is the kind of information a non-reader would not have. It also contradicts one of the book’s chief claims that such detail is not vital when talking about books.
Bayard makes the assertion that observations about unread books are often more original and more incisive even that an author’s own comments. The reason for this is that writers are too close to their own works to give an objective viewpoint and dilligent readers are too clouded with facts to make a clear judgement.
One of Bayard’s key observations is that “rather than any particular book it is [the] connections and correlations that should be the focus of the cultivated individual“.
In other words it is mostly enough to know where to place a book in the world’s vast library in order to make intelligent comments on it.
This is better for instance than speed reading which just makes for a superficial reader’s digest style experience, (like when Woody Allen quipped that he had speed read ‘War And Peace’ which enabled him to observe “it’s about Russia“!)
Bayard uses the following indications – “UB book = unknown to me; SB book = I have skimmed it; FB book = I have forgotten it”. This annotation reminded another set of abbreviations in the book review section in an old copy of The Idler magazine (MDA’s Book Notes: Issue 19 – Summer 1997):
R = the reviewer read the book in question
OC = the reviewer just skipped through the opening chapter
IDTP = the reviewer ignored due to prejudice
CG = the reviewer decided to sacrifice a proper review in favour of a cheap gag.
Searching back through back copies of The Idler actually proved doubly fortuitous. I came across a great article by Louis Theroux which offers another perspective on how to approach what he calls “dull but worthy books“
Theroux’s piece contains more wit and wisdom in two pages than Bayard has in the whole book. I quote at length to give you the flavour:
“But it does happen that a book which you know to be good – I mean ‘good’ in a good way – and worth the slog of breaking in, turns out to be cover to cover misery. It starts spinach, and it’s spinach all the way through. What do you do? In spite of the agony you force yourself on. Is there a passage you can’t read without your mind wandering? Read it and re-read it, read it aloud if necessary, until you’ve shoe-horned it into your brain. Failing that, memorize the words so that you become more intelligent at some future date, you will understand it retroactively. Consider the book from the side. Look how far into it you are! Almost halfway, and the pages you have read are stained and rumpled with the struggle. Rifle the pages! Go on! You’ve earned it.
Allow yourself a judicious peek ahead. What you’ve read so far is tough stuff- the rest of the book is acres of white spongecake”
I would hazard a guess that Bayard would relate to Theroux’s struggles. I certainly can!
Bayard is right to say that we should not be ashamed to admit to not having read ‘great’ books. I would add that we should be prepared to speak out against books that are overrated and, contrariwise, big up the underdogs that don’t get enough press.
Ultimately,Bayard’s book is short(185 pages), sharp ,easy to read but lightweight.
In deliberately adopting the extreme postion of an unrepentant non reader, Bayard risks reducing the act of reading to a game of cultural face saving or even one-upmanship. In doing so he denies the joy and self knowledge we can get from books.
Theroux’s piece reminds us that the pleasure of reading is not always to be gained from ‘classic’ works but this does not mean we have to go to the extreme of extoling the virtues of non reading.
You can save time for other more enlightened (and funnier) books by some creative skimming Bayard’s book.
I reckon you can gain all the knowledge you need from it by reading just the preface and epilogue.
