How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

Just a few chapters into this book reflected both the scholarship and the creativity of the author. I expected it to be a little LESS "scholarly" for the Average Joe & Jane reader, but I found it (ironically) fun to read anyway.

SB--Skimmed book
It has some interesting, paradoxical insight, and it's mildly humourous, but in the end, I felt I wasted time reading it. I really don't like when a book is more than 50% summary of other books and lacks original writing. I was attracted to the book by the title, but was very disappointed.

Bayard's book is short and humorous but by the end you find out that all he's really doing is pushing the same old Derridean, deconstructionist claptrap that places the reader/critcic/theorist above and superior to the work of literature. (Since "texts" have no meaning because language is inherently indeterminate, it is much more fun and, for academics, profitable, to deconstruct literature while laughing all the way to the Guggenheim Foundation.) While this book is great fun, it reminded me of why I prefer to keep myself as far away as possible from literary theorists. (For a different view, try "Against Theory" written in the early 80s by a couple of Berkeley profs for a (still) refreshing and humorous slap in the face of Herrnstein-Smith, et. al.) Vituperative? You bet.

There is wisdom and subtle humor in this book. There are rewards for all levels of effort, from close scrutiny, through skimming, sampling excerpts referenced in other books, to just seeing what the title brings to mind. The author stands with us, facing the grim reality that we cannot read every book we value. And he helps us cope. These points are made in the finest tradition of How to Lie With Statistics and similar books which teach responsible intellectual habits while seeming tongue-in-cheek to undermine them.

By all means read this book. Then mention the title in a discussion with your friends over lunch. If your group is large enough, someone will swallow the bait and object loudly to the dishonesty of discussing an unread book. It will almost certainly be someone who has not read the book. You will enjoy the resulting discussion more if you have read this book and savored it.

Enjoy your lunch...

In spite of what some reviewers (both here and in the popular media) say, this is clearly NOT a book that recommends that we refrain from reading books. Nor is it a manual on how to maintain one's ignorance while pretending to have read a book. Readers who come to those false conclusions about this book have possibly done so because they skimmed it or read it very badly. It astonishes me to see how many reviewers here miss the point that this book is SATIRE. Bayard is satirizing foolish concepts of reading, cultural literacy, and shallow approaches to literary criticism.

Bayard DOES specifically say that we should as far as possible avoid trying to make sense out of what an author says. BUT HE IS KIDDING! How is the reader supposed to know that he is kidding? BECAUSE HIS RATIONALE FOR AVOIDING READING IS SO UTTERLY LAME. Do the authors of some of these reviews seriously believe that Jonathan Swift in his "Modest Proposal" was truly urging that his readers actually fatten up the undernourished children of the poor and feed them to rich landowners? Bayard is writing in a similar ironic fashion, and he does so brilliantly.

There are other hints that the book is primarily satire. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when the author cited one of his own books by saying something like, " ... a book that I myself wrote but have forgotten and of which I have a highly negative impression." If the author was being funny when he wrote that description, readers should consider the possibility that humor (in this case, irony) is likewise present in the surrounding text as well. In addition, although Bayard constantly says he almost never reads - and when he does read he almost always skims - he accurately quotes a dozen or so books in exhaustive detail, even repurposing some of them to make his points. One doesn't accomplish that by avoiding books or by skimming them.

Now here's the kicker: Irony is sometimes difficult to pick up - especially if the reader is skimming or reading the book with a predisposition to make the text confirm the reader's preconceived ideas.

Cultural literacy is a term that can be abused. Obviously, there is considerable value in being literate about one's culture, but numerous insipid, air-headed pseudo-intellectuals - including far too many teachers - have sought to inculcate a level of cultural literacy by simply compiling lists of key terms and requiring students to prepare for multiple-choice tests on these topics. This is a nonsensical approach, which trivializes the notion of cultural literacy. If culturally literacy consisted of knowing the titles and authors of as many books as possible, along with their placement in the library and perhaps even the color of each book's cover, then there are certainly better ways to accomplish this than by thoughtfully reading the books. But this is nonsense, and (as Bayard knows) the way to become literate about an author is to engage with the ideas of that author - in spite of the fact that this activity might divert the reader from the "more important" task of knowing how the book fits into the "wider curriculum" of insignificant trivia.

Along the way Bayard also points out how constructivist learning takes place. Applied to reading and human learning, constructivism holds that learners (including readers) actively construct knowledge for themselves as a result of their active interaction with the environment. I am a learning theorist (not a psychoanalyst), and most learning theorists see the following applications to reading based on constructivism: (1) It is vitally important that learners actively interact with concepts and information. It is incorrect to view them as passive recipients of instruction. (2) What learners will learn from a book or unit of instruction depends substantially on their previous experience and knowledge with regard to the concepts covered on that topic. (3) What one learner "knows" after exposure to information may be completely different than what another person "knows" after being exposed to that same information. (4) If learners do not possess the prerequisite knowledge that will enable them to construct meaning from exposure to a unit of instruction, they will learn little or nothing. (5) If they possess active misconceptions, learners' problems will be even more severe than if they "know nothing." Bayard understands constructivism and expresses his understanding clearly - albeit ironically, as when he says that Montaigne argues against reading too carefully, because the reader will "forget it anyway." What Montaigne is saying is that the reader (or thinker) will integrate the new information with his/her previous information and come up with a new understanding - possibly with no concern for what he previously knew or exactly how the new information was acquired. That's not the same thing as saying that the reader has "learned nothing" from the experience.

Good satire requires careful thinking on the part of the reader. This is because it often mixes accurate ideas with false ideas. By realizing that the false ideas are wrong, the thoughtful reader realizes that the true idea must be more plausible. For example, one of Bayard's first points is that if you don't read carefully, the effect is pretty much the same as not having read at all. That's an accurate point; but the solution is not to skip the reading process altogether, but to read in such a way as to understand the information and to do something useful with it.

Bayard has not only written an excellent book; he has also inspired some reviews that are indeed a set of case studies that he is right.