Bayard, he blows…or further notes on an academic buccaneer

“But Maman, I want to be a pirate!”

“No, Pierre, you are a small French boy, you cannot be a pirate!”

“You’ll see Maman! Someday I will, I will!”

Against all odds Pierre kept the faith. He grew up to shuffle the dry halls of academe amid the other bookish drones but choosing his moment, he donned his freshly laundered flouncy shirt, put his hair up into tight little pigtails, dusted off the parrot and raising his own flag sallied forth into the great beyond. Now, the terror of true readers and book clubs alike, Pierre Bayard is that scourge of the seas that seems to be sighted quite regularly these days despite the fact that his plunge took place some time ago.

This week the New York Times made available the first chapter of his book How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. This is good for us castigators since so far I’ve only been able to hurl invective based on his interview. It would prove his point a little too well if I denounced him on texts I haven’t read.

If many cultivated individuals are non-readers, and if, conversely, many nonreaders are cultivated individuals, it is because non-reading is not just the absence of reading. It is a genuine activity, one that consists of adopting a stance in relation to the immense tide of books that protects you from drowning. On that basis, it deserves to be defended and even taught.

To the unpracticed eye, of course, the absence of reading may be almost indistinguishable at times from non-reading; I will concede that nothing more closely resembles one person not reading than a second person not reading either. But if we watch as these two people are confronted with a book, the difference in their behavior and its underlying motivation will be readily apparent.

In the first case, the person not reading is not interested in the book, but book is understood here both as content and location. The book’s relationship to others is as much a matter of indifference to him as its subject, and he is not in the least concerned that in taking an interest in one book, he might seem to disdain the rest.

In the second case, the person not reading abstains, like Musil’s librarian, in order to grasp the essence of the book, which is how it fits into the library as a whole. In so doing, he is hardly uninterested in the book — to the contrary. It is because he understands the link between content and location that he chooses not to read, with a wisdom superior to that of many readers, and perhaps, on reflection, with greater respect for the book itself.

But Pierre, why publish full texts at all? Would it not suffice to publish titles and synopses, thouth titles are all you really need. Book clubs could discuss a number of titles at every gathering, arguing about what the potential book was really about and how much it was like another potential book. And why stop with books. Let’s do away with movies and simply watch trailors, and substitute menus for meals.

However it is in the last paragraph that Bayard reveals his true colours. As the pirate plunders the gains gathered by others, so he disdains to read because he knows the relationship between the book and other books. And how does he know this? On the backs of other readers, or more appropriately to link to my last posting, like a parasite, he feeds off the actual real knowledge of those who have actually read the books.

If Bayard had met his publisher counterpart it would have saved us this piffle. He would have had to concede that publishing his book would be absurd because no one need read it because to read it would be to place boundaries around its true nature.