Academic lectures on books he never read
Monday February 05 2007
Pierre Bayard (52), who specialises in the link between literature and psychoanalysis, stunned specialists with the admission that he is anything but an assiduous reader.
The Paris University professor says that he often makes references in lectures, meetings, reviews and conversations to works that he has not read, or has forgotten to read - without being found out.
Ulysses
However, Mr Bayard - who has never finished 'Ulysses' by James Joyce and forgotten what 'Steppenwolf', Hermann Hesse's classic novel, is about - claims that this in no way devalues his opinion.
"It's possible to have a passionate conversation about a book that one has not read, including, perhaps especially, with someone else who has not read it.
"The discourse on books that have not been read places us at the heart of a creative process which leads us to their origin," he says in his work, 'Comment Parler des Livres que l'on n'a pas Lus' (How to Speak about Books that You Haven't Read).
(© The Times, London)
- Adam Sage
