![\"mcin-190\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/mcin-190.jpg\")
onse to the title of Pierre Bayard\u2019s book– \u201cHow to talk about books you haven\u2019t read<\/em>\u201d\u2014was to think it was a joke. The author couldn\u2019t intend for us to feign\u00a0knowledge we don\u2019t possess, could he? \u00a0That response got to the heart of what I found interesting as well as uncomfortable about this book.<\/p>\nThe author, Bayard, a French, post-modern professor and psychoanalyst has a very different grasp on language, values, and behavior than I do. Bayard presents non-reading as such a commonplace transgression that it can\u2019t possibly be considered a transgression; furthermore, he insists it\u2019s only the na\u00efve that enter into literature and actually read it. Unless I\u2019m to presume this entire book unfolds as a satire\u2014and if that\u2019s what it is, it\u2019s done amazingly well\u2014then this is a great example of a post- modern perspective on how knowledge of a subject is relative to, or rooted in, the individual, and how consideration of morals in an absolute form is discouraged.<\/p>\n
Bayard encourages speaking in ambiguous language when it comes to talking about books you haven\u2019t read. In such a conversation, the transgression would be asking clear questions, or making factual statements. If you\u2019re in fact feigning a knowledge, the author suggests you lean into what you know about the author, or the genre of literature. If, on the other hand, you\u2019re talking to the presumed book expert then you mustn\u2019t ask precise questions; your version of reality might not jibe with the presumed expert\u2019s virtual reality. I find this a bit amusing: the author presents tips and ideas about conversations between two individuals talking about something that neither has read! How is this possible? Well these conversations about books specifically and culture broadly can be characterized as making use of one\u2019s \u201cvirtual library\u201d or entering into each others own personal subjective reality.<\/p>\n
Imagine, for example, Jane has read some articles on social media, she has her perceptions of it from television, and a month ago she opened a Twitter account. This is the extant of Jane\u2019s inner reality on this matter or her virtual library on the field of social media. In reality, she is an expert in social work but mistakenly goes to a world-class conference on social media. With her virtual library on social media, according to Bayard, there is no reason that Jane can\u2019t engage with conferees if not lead a workshop on social media. If she can stay ambiguous enough, and if conferees don\u2019t seek clarity, or aren\u2019t concerned with reality broader than or more specific than what Jane can communicate \u2013 all will be well.<\/p>\n
If this is post-modern scholarship, I guess I\u2019ll stay in in modernity! That said, I did find many things insightful and helpful, such as the need to understand a broad base of literature in a field and find the book you\u2019re reading in it\u2019s literary context. Also this: the reality that once we\u2019ve starting reading, we\u2019ve started forgetting; something I\u2019m well acquainted with. Forgetting challenges the position that you actually read the book in the first place, which is an interesting idea. As Bayard mentions, it\u2019s more accurate to talk about our approximate recollections of books.<\/p>\n
Throughout the book, Bayard stresses the importance of our frame of reference, our understanding of a book, or a culture.\u00a0\u00a0 I believe this is one of the values of postmodernity: it takes into an account that my perception of reality may be very different from the person I\u2019m talking to, so our realities are very pliable, very subjective. Another important point is that books and specific knowledge on a subject do seem to get absorbed into the conversation around it. In that sense, it\u2019s the conversation that matters and the book becomes virtual or transparent.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m glad to have read Bayard\u2019s book about \u201ctalking about books you haven\u2019t read\u201d and I believe it deserves a sequel, \u201ctalking about books that do actually exist, that are actually read, in a post-modern culture\u201d. \u00a0But no one would read it. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My first response to the title of Pierre Bayard\u2019s book– \u201cHow to talk about books you haven\u2019t read\u201d\u2014was to think it was a joke. The author couldn\u2019t intend for us to feign\u00a0knowledge we don\u2019t possess, could he? \u00a0That response got to the heart of what I found interesting as well as uncomfortable about this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"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":[479,2,476],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bayardrowntree","tag-dminlgp","tag-pierre-bayard","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2124,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions\/2124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}