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How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read

Omissions and admissions

by Pierre Bayard, translated by Geoffrey Mehlman
Granta, 176pp, ££12,

Philip Hensher

Wednesday, 9th January 2008

Philip Hensher reviews How to Talk about Books

Charmingly, Bayard appends to every book cited in the footnote a series of abbreviations, indicating whether he has properly read, merely skim-read, never heard of, only heard about or completely forgotten the book in question; and, in addition, what his general opinion of the book is. This leads to delightful, and one might have thought career-ending paradoxes for an academic, such as announcing that he doesn’t know of Vasari’s Lives of the Painters but nevertheless approves of them. All this is highly familiar to the committed reader. I once got it into my head that I was a great fan of Denton Welch and went about saying so. It was deeply embarrassing, on finally reading one of his books, to discover that, in fact, I couldn’t stick him at any price.

Amusing and interesting as Bayard’s book is, I can’t help feeling that he is really describing a social situation more prevalent in France than in England nowadays, and probably on the decline there as well. Fewer and fewer people seem to have any of the old embarrassment about not having read The Bostonians, or go to elaborate lengths to cover it up. If you ask many young people whether they have read even the most celebrated of classic novels, you are likely to be greeted with a shrug, a roll of the eyes at the absurdity of the question, and a suggestion that you were deeply uncool for even suggesting that such a thing were possible.

Bayard mentions David Lodge’s famous game of Humiliation whereby players gain points for naming books they haven’t read which the other players have — my regular winning entry is Far From the Madding Crowd. But could you play that with anyone under 40? The element of humiliation, of naming an immensely famous book you haven’t read, does seem to have disappeared from literary culture with its fragmentation and the academic abandonment of ‘the canon’.

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Paul Perry (Melbourne Australia)

January 11th, 2008 11:42pm

As someone who does not own a television, I regularly find myself discussing programs that I have never seen.The fact that I am never caught out, must say something about TV - or the people who watch it.

Noleen Wyatt-Jones

January 18th, 2008 11:17am

Having read Mr Henshers lengthy and compelling review of Pierre Bayard's masterpiece I found myself braving the weather in order to obtain a copy - I am sure he will be delighted to know the potency of his words. It is indeed a wonderful book and one which will grace my bookshelves for years to come and I am sure it will prompt much lively debate round the dinner table and who knows, one day I may even get around to reading it!!

Richard Wyatt-Jones

January 18th, 2008 4:21pm

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