{"id":9527,"date":"2016-10-06T10:58:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T17:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9527"},"modified":"2016-10-06T10:58:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T17:58:01","slug":"of-books-and-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/of-books-and-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Books and People"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Talk About Books You Haven\u2019t Read<\/em>, by Pierre Bayard<\/p>\n

When I first looked at the title of this book which I was required to read and discuss, the irony was almost too perfect.\u00a0 In fact, I half expected that this was one of those books you find in novelty stores that have a presumptuous title but are blank inside (see What Men Know About Women, <\/em>Fergusson, 2011).<\/p>\n

Instead, I discovered an engaging collection of stories knit together by a brilliant French literary critic who turned up his nose at intellectuals who read books for narcissistic purposes.<\/p>\n

If there is any doubt that the author is serious about his premise, you should go no further than the story of the Musil\u2019s librarian who exclaims \u201cIf you want to know how I know about every book here, I can tell you! Because I never read any of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bayard_pierre\"<\/a>

Pierre Bayard<\/p><\/div>\n

A surface reading of this text may cause one to ask \u201cso, what is the point?\u201d\u00a0 It helps to know that Pierre Bayard is not only an author and a professor of French literature, but is also a psychoanalyst.\u00a0\u00a0 It is easy to see that Bayard is drawing from all three of his professions in this book.<\/p>\n

As an author, he resists the temptation to think that his readers will hang onto every work which he pens.\u00a0 In fact, he clearly states that many who will talk about his books may have never read them.<\/p>\n

As a literary professor, Bayard gives his readers insights into his world. The fact that several of the stories in the book relate to members of higher education point us to his life situation.\u00a0 As a professor of literature at a prestigious university, Bayard himself is expected to have read just about every book of substance, both old and new.\u00a0 This is virtually impossible.\u00a0 Like a magician revealing his secrets, Bayard gives us insights into how he can effectively speak to books that he simply has no time to read.<\/p>\n

It is Bayard\u2019s third profession, as a psychoanalyst, that interests me the most.\u00a0\u00a0 More than any discipline of psychiatry, psychoanalysis places much of its emphasis on the unconscious.\u00a0\u00a0 As I reflect on How to Talk About Books You Haven\u2019t Read<\/em>, I wonder if Bayard views books the way that he views people.\u00a0 There are some people whom you can identify by sight, and that is all.\u00a0 There are others whom you know trivial things about, but no more.\u00a0 Still, there are fewer people in our lives whom we know intimately.\u00a0 This is not only permissible but favorable.\u00a0 It is not possible to have a deep, transparent relationship with everyone we meet.\u00a0 Yet, even casual relationships can add value to our lives.\u00a0 Our relationships shape our subconscious, even casual ones.<\/p>\n

I think that this is Bayard\u2019s point.\u00a0 While there may be some with an attitude of \u201cdo not start to read a book unless you are committed to finishing it in its entirety,\u201d Bayard encourages us to discover for ourselves what a book has in store for us.\u00a0 By viewing books the way we view people, we can make the decision as to how much investment that we want to give to that \u201crelationship\u201d with no apologies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stu Cocanougher<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Talk About Books You Haven\u2019t Read, by Pierre Bayard When I first looked at the title of this book which I was required to read and discuss, the irony was almost too perfect.\u00a0 In fact, I half expected that this was one of those books you find in novelty stores that have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"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":[796],"class_list":["post-9527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lgp7","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9527","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\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}