{"id":14378,"date":"2017-10-12T20:20:51","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T03:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=14378"},"modified":"2017-10-19T13:38:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T20:38:16","slug":"books-are-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/books-are-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Books are us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The first course of my university career was held on the sixteenth floor of the austere\u00a0Arts Tower<\/a> at Carleton University in Ottawa in fall 1983.\u00a0 Twentieth Century French Literature, or more accurately, \u201cLa litt\u00e9rature fran\u00e7aise du\u00a0xxe<\/sup>\u00a0si\u00e8cle\u201d,<\/em> was taught entirely in French, and even more intimidating to me at the tender age of 19 than the book list and attending lectures on the selected works of Sartre, Camus, Zola, and Beckett, was the fact I\u2019d have to write essays en fran\u00e7ais. <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0So, in reading Pierre Bayard\u2019s How To Talk About Books You Haven\u2019t Read, <\/em>I feel I got an early start.\u00a0 I probably understood 10% of those books, but I was able to write about them adequately enough to pull off a B in the course \u2013 a grade that shocked me on receipt for its liberal generosity.<\/p>\n

I mention this because in my read of Bayard this week, I had multiple flashbacks of that course.\u00a0 It read like a French book, embedded in that culture.\u00a0 The satire was cutting and obscene[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 The word games were delightful[2]<\/a>.\u00a0 The hyperboles used by the author were frequently hilarious[3]<\/a>.\u00a0 Reading this book also made me glad we know Jenn<\/a>, our resident French missionary who can say the alphabet backwards, and this gave me a twinge in my spirit that I, at one time, also aspired to the former, though not the latter.<\/p>\n

Ideas from Bayard will prove to be helpful to those of us in this doctoral program, if we would only crucify our egos and relish in our non-reading. \u00a0Here are a few suggestions inspired by the author:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Notes are blazes on the trail combatting amnesia<\/strong>[4]<\/a>: The author reminds us that we read and, after ten minutes, we forget. Some method of retaining and sorting information is essential if we intend to ransack the stacks of the library to fill out our bibliographies. \u00a0Bayard counsels, \u201cWhat we preserve of the books we read \u2013 whether we take notes or not, and even if we sincerely believe we remember them faithfully \u2013 is in truth no more than a few fragments afloat, like so many islands, on an ocean of oblivion.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Set adrift any shame<\/strong>[6]<\/a>: We all have gaps in our reading, and no one is able to retain or synthesize the library. We are students, and the position of a student is that of a learner.\u00a0 It is a place of humility, and there\u2019s no room for pride.\u00a0 The author states, \u201cTo speak without shame about books we haven\u2019t read, we would thus do well to free ourselves of the oppressive image of cultural literacy without gaps, as transmitted and imposed by family and school, for we can strive toward this image for a lifetime without ever managing to coincide with it.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Culture shapes reading<\/strong>: Just like the Tiv of Africa who brought new meaning to Hamlet<\/em> because of their values regarding death, leadership, and status in society[8]<\/a>, so our interpretations flow out of our cultural biases.\u00a0 Like Laura Bohannan discovered, the meaning of an author is not universally understood immediately, for it comes from a culture and is spoken into a culture.\u00a0 In reading we must discern the cultural orientation of the book to understand meaning.\u00a0 Further, it could be more specific than the broader cultural bias.\u00a0 Often the author\u2019s personal experience shapes the writing, and understanding her place of reference will be an aid in comprehension.<\/li>\n
  4. Read your inner book<\/strong>: In the exploration of meaning required for this program, my understanding of Bayard would suggest that we allow our personal history and perspectives to influence how we understand the works we read. \u00a0Knowing this, we approach learning cognizant of the need to listen to the subtext within our own souls.\u00a0 He states, \u201cThe book invented in any given context will be credible if it emerges from the truth of the subject and is inscribed within the elaboration of his inner universe\u2026.In the end, we need not fear lying about the text, but only lying about ourselves.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Unfailing self-assurance when you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about<\/strong>: Like Rollo Martins, who, like a bull in a china shop, rattles the crockery of the literary salons of Paris with his enthusiastic endorsements of Zane Grey[10]<\/a>, we too must know who has called us, why we are called, and to what we are called. If you believe God has led you to this place of study, and humbly walk forward with him, you can be bold and courageous to advance your way forward.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A final word.\u00a0 Books are us. What we read is who we are.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026[B]ooks serve to express us, but also to complete us, furnishing, through a variety of excerpted and reworked fragments, the missing elements of our personality.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 I recently built library shelves in our home and stained them honey brown.\u00a0 They embrace the fireplace, the hearth of our home.\u00a0 It brings me joy to look over those books \u2013 most of which I haven\u2019t read \u2013 and be reminded how they shaped me and the journey of learning I\u2019ve been on ever since the Arts Tower in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    __________________________<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Displaying a stereotypical French condescension towards the English, we witness Bayard\u2019s sucker punch at the Anglo-Saxon race, who believe, unlike the Tiv tribe, in zombies. Pierre Bayard, How To Talk About Books You Haven\u2019t Read<\/em>, (New York: Bloomsbury, 2007), 81.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Imagining discussing Zane Grey in a French literary salon. Bayard, 67.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> For example, the librarian who didn\u2019t read books. Bayard, 8.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Bayard, 52.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Bayard, 53.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Bayard, 128.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a> Bayard, 129-130.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a> Bayard, 76-78.<\/p>\n

    [9]<\/a> Bayard, 179.<\/p>\n

    [10]<\/a> Bayard, 69.<\/p>\n

    [11]<\/a> Bayard, p128.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The first course of my university career was held on the sixteenth floor of the austere\u00a0Arts Tower at Carleton University in Ottawa in fall 1983.\u00a0 Twentieth Century French Literature, or more accurately, \u201cLa litt\u00e9rature fran\u00e7aise du\u00a0xxe\u00a0si\u00e8cle\u201d, was taught entirely in French, and even more intimidating to me at the tender age of 19 than the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-14378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bayard","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14406,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14378\/revisions\/14406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}