How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (25 page)

Beyond all defensiveness, our discussion of unread books offers a privileged opportunity for self-discovery, akin to that of autobiography, to those who know how to seize it. In these conversations, whether written or spoken, language is liberated from its obligation to refer to the world and, through its traversal of books, can find a way to speak about what ordinarily eludes us.

Beyond the possibility of self-discovery, the discussion of unread books places us at the heart of the creative process, by leading us back to its source. To talk about unread books is to be present at the birth of the creative subject. In this inaugural moment when book and self separate, the reader, free at last from the weight of the words of others, may find the strength to invent his own text, and in that moment, he becomes a writer himself.

1
.Oscar Wilde,
Selected Journalism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 12, UB++.

2
. UB+.

3
. UB+.

4
. SB++.

5
. UB-.

6
. Wilde, op. cit., p. 12.

7
. Ibid.

8
. “The Critic as Artist,” The Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition,
http://www .ucc.ie/celt/online/E800003-007/text001.html
.

9
. Ibid., p. 121.

10
. Ibid., p. 126.

11
. Ibid., p. 127.

12
. Ibid., p. 133.

13
. Ibid., p. 137.

14
. Ibid., p. 138.

15
. Ibid.

16
. SB and HB++.

17
. “The Critic as Artist,” p. 139.

18
. Ibid., p. 140

19
. Ibid.

20
. Ibid., p. 146.

21
. Quoted in Alberto Manguel,
A History of Reading
(New York: Viking, 1996), p. 284, HB++. This remark is also attributed to the British writer Sydney Smith (1771–1845).

Epilogue

O
UR ANALYSIS OF
the delicate situations encountered in this book suggests that we have no other choice, in preparing to face such confrontations ourselves, than to accept a kind of evolution of our psychology. It is not enough for us simply to learn how to remain unflustered in these situations; we must profoundly transform our relationship to books.

To begin with, such an evolution implies extricating ourselves from a whole series of mostly unconscious taboos that burden our notion of books. Encouraged from our school years onward to think of books as untouchable objects, we feel guilty at the very thought of subjecting them to transformation.

It is necessary to lift these taboos to begin to truly listen to the infinitely mobile object that is a literary text. The text’s mobility is enhanced whenever it participates in a conversation or a written exchange, where it is animated by the subjectivity of each reader and his dialogue with others, and to genuinely listen to it implies developing a particular sensitivity to all the possibilities that the book takes on in such circumstances.

But it is equally necessary to make this effort to change so that we can listen to ourselves, without missing the private resonances that connect us to every work and whose roots go deep in our history. The encounter with unread books will be more enriching—and sharable with others—if the person undergoing it draws his inspiration from deep within himself.

This different mode of listening to texts and to oneself again recalls what may reasonably be expected from psychoanalysis, the primary function of which is to free the patient from his inner constraints and, by the end of a journey over which he remains the sole master, to open him up to all his creative possibilities.

To become a creator yourself: this is the project to which we have been brought by the observations drawn from our series of examples, and it is a project accessible only to those whose inner evolution has freed them from guilt completely.

These people know that talking about books you haven’t read is an authentically creative activity, as worthy—even if it takes place more discreetly—as those that are more socially acknowledged. The attention accorded to traditional artistic practices has resulted, in fact, in a certain neglect and even misperception of those others that by their nature transpire in a kind of secrecy.

How can one deny, however, that talking about books you haven’t read constitutes an authentic creative activity, making the same demands as other forms of art? Just think of all the skills it calls into play—listening to the potentialities of a work, analyzing its ever-changing context, paying attention to others and their reactions, taking charge of a gripping narrative—and you will surely find yourself convinced.

Furthermore, our new creativity may go far beyond our comments on unread books. At a higher level, any kind of creativity, whatever its object, entails a certain detachment from books. For as illustrated by Oscar Wilde, there is a kind of antinomy between reading and creating, since every reader runs the risk, lost as he is in someone else’s book, of distancing himself from his personal universe. And if commentary on books one hasn’t read is a kind of creation, the converse is also true: creation implies not lingering too long over books.

Becoming the creators of our own works is thus the logical and desirable extension of an apprenticeship in commenting on books we haven’t read. This creativity is one step along the path to self-conquest and to our liberation from the burden of culture, which may impede the existence of those who haven’t been trained in its mastery, and thus in the ability to bring life to their works.

If learning to talk about books you haven’t read is for many people their first encounter with the demands of creation, particular responsibility lies with those who teach. Given their position and personal experience, teachers are ideally placed to advance this practice among their students.

Although students are initiated during their education into the art of reading and are even taught how to talk about books, the art of talking about books they haven’t read is singularly absent from our curricula, as though no one had ever thought to question the premise that it is necessary to have read a book in order to talk about it. So why are we astonished by their distress when they are questioned on an exam about a book they don’t “know” and cannot find the wherewithal to reply?

Our educational system is clearly failing to fulfill its duties of deconsecration, and as a result, our students remain unable to claim the right to invent books. Paralyzed by the respect due to texts and the prohibition against modifying them, forced to learn them by heart or to memorize what they “contain,” too many students lose their capacity for escape and forbid themselves to call on their imagination in circumstances where that faculty would be extraordinarily useful.

To show them, instead, that a book is reinvented with every reading would give them the means to emerge unscathed, and even with some benefit, from a multitude of difficult situations. For knowing how to speak with finesse about something with which we are unacquainted has value far beyond the realm of books. As we have seen exemplified by numerous authors, the entirety of our culture opens up to those with the ability to cut the bonds between discourse and its object, and to speak about themselves.

The key, in the end, is to reveal to students what is truly essential: the world of their own creation. What better gift could you make to a student than to render him sensitive to the art of invention—which is to say, self-invention? All education should strive to help those receiving it to gain enough freedom in relation to works of art to themselves become writers and artists.

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

A Note on the Author

P
IERRE
B
AYARD
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.

J
EFFREY
M
EHLMAN
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

P
IERRE
B
AYARD
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.

J
EFFREY
M
EHLMAN
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.”