Britka, duhovita, transparentna i diskurzivno nepretenciozno napisana studija koja e u svakom pogledu revidirati va e poglede na knjigu te ponuditi intrigantnu

anatomiju itanja, recepcije i reprezentacije knji evnog djela i drugih tekstova poku ati pru iti relevantne odgovore prije svega na pitanja ' to to itanje uop e jest?', ' to zapravo zna i ne to (pro) itati?' i 'u kojoj je mjeri to uop e mogu e?'

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/McInerneyt.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1325152284-TDEhytux5nSielujaKoo7Q

Published: November 11, 2007 Carrying this book around recently I ve caught more than a little flak, not least from my kids, who once thought of me as a literary intellectual, or at the very least as a guy who espoused the virtues of reading. Hey, really, I told them as well as my wife and the guy sitting next to me on the subway no kidding, it s a serious book, written by a professor of literature who s also a psychoanalyst. A French professor/shrink, no less, who s written books on Proust, Maupassant, Balzac, Laclos and Stendhal, among other canonical heavyweights. So lay off.

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN T READ By Pierre Bayard. Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman. First Chapter: How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read (November 11, 2007)

Questions for Pierre Bayard: My Reader, My Double (October 28, 2007)

It seems hard to believe that a book called How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read would hit the best-seller lists in France, where books are still regarded as sacred objects and the writer occupies a social position somewhere between the priest and the rock star. The ostensible anti-intellectualism of the title seems more Anglo-Saxon than Gallic, an impression reinforced by the epigram from Oscar Wilde: I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.

Bayard s critique of reading involves practical and theoretical as well as social considerations, and at times it seems like a tongue-in-cheek example of reader-response criticism, which emphasizes the reader s role in creating meaning. He wants to show us how much we lie about the way we read, to ourselves as well as to others, and to assuage our guilt about the way we actually read and talk about books. I know few areas of private life, with the exception of finance and sex, in which it s as difficult to obtain accurate information, he writes. There are many ways of relating to books that are not acknowledged in educated company, including skimming, skipping, forgetting and glancing at covers.

Bayard s hero in this enterprise is the librarian in Robert Musil s Man Without Qualities (a book I seem to recall having read halfway through, and Bayard claims to have skimmed), custodian of millions of volumes in the country of Kakania. He explains to a general seeking cultural literacy his own scheme for mastery of this vast, nearly infinite realm: If you want to know how I know about every book here, I can tell you! Because I never read any of them. If he were to get caught up in the particulars of a few books, the librarian implies, he would lose sight of the bigger picture, which is the relation of the books to one another the system we call cultural literacy, which forms our collective library. As cultivated people know, Bayard tells us, culture is above all a matter of orientation. Being cultivated is a matter of not having read any book in particular, but of being able to find your bearings within books as a system, which requires you to know that they form a system and to be able to locate each element in relation to the others.

Musil s librarian is a purist, but a perusal of the reviews in this and other publications would probably yield, if only we had the proper instruments, many less extreme examples of literate nonreading. Book reviewers generally imply that they have read the entire oeuvre of the author under discussion, as well as those of his peers, and I have no doubt they will continue to do so. You d think Nicholson Baker s U and I (a short book I read in its entirety), in which the younger novelist writes a kind of critique of John Updike based on his admittedly fragmentary and incomplete reading, would have cured us of the omniscient stance in book reviewing. But I don t see many phrases like From what I ve read about Moby-Dick ... or the part of Finnegans Wake that I tried to read ... in the review pages. Bayard, though, regards such disclaimers as understood. He doesn t blame us for fudging, and he doesn t want us to blame ourselves.

He proposes, and employs, a new set of scholarly abbreviations to go along with op. cit. and ibid.: UB: book unknown to me; SB: book I have skimmed; HB: book I have heard about; and FB: book I have forgotten.

For Bayard, who is well served by Jeffrey Mehlman s fluid and elegant translation, skimming and sampling are two of the most common forms of reading behavior, particularly with regard to Proust. Paul Valry, in his funerary tribute in La Nouvelle Revue Franaise, makes a virtue out of his admittedly sketchy knowledge of Proust by claiming: The interest of the book lies in each fragment. We can open the book wherever we choose. Bayard defends skimming as a mode of reading. The fertility of this mode of discovery markedly unsettles the difference between reading and nonreading, or even the idea of reading at all. ... It appears that most often, at least for the books that are central to our particular culture, our behavior inhabits some intermediate territory, to the point that it becomes difficult to judge whether we have read them or not.

Lest the reader, or the nonreader, think that Bayard underestimates the power of reading, he proposes that we are all essentially literary constructs, defined by our own inner libraries: the books we ve read, skimmed and heard about. We are the sum of these accumulated books, he writes. (And make no mistake about it, this prof is far more literate and widely read than he pretends to be.)

After anatomizing the different types of nonreading, Bayard addresses the social implications in a section called Literary Confrontations. I commend his advice for meeting an author and being forced to say something about his or her new book: Praise it without going into detail.

The funniest section in the book describes the encounter between the anthropologist Laura Bohannan and an African tribe, the Tiv, whom she has been living among. She tries to read Hamlet to them in the hopes of demonstrating the universality of the story, but the way in which the tribe rejects those parts of the tale that don t square with their own cultural traditions they don t believe in ghosts, for instance renders the attempt ludicrous.

Bayard proposes the term inner book to designate the set of mythic representations, be they collective or individual, that come between the reader and any new piece of writing, shaping his reading without his realizing it. This notion coincides with Stanley Fish s concept of interpretive communities of readers, although Bayard s own inner book may be more indebted to home-team text destabilizers like Derrida and Lacan. Indeed, Bayard sounds more French in the later pages as he employs phrases like consensual space and dissolves the boundaries and false oppositions between reader and writer and book into one big sloppy pool of criture.

To what end? Bayard finally reveals his diabolical intent: he claims that talking about books you haven t read is an authentic creative activity. As a teacher of literature, he seems to believe that his ultimate

goal is to encourage creativity. All education, he writes, should strive to help those receiving it to gain enough freedom in relation to works of art to themselves become writers and artists.

It s a charming but ultimately terrifying prospect a world full of writers and artists. In Bayard s nonreading utopia the printing press would never have been invented, let alone penicillin or the MacBook.

I seriously doubt that pretending to have read this book will boost your creativity. On the other hand, reading it may remind you why you love reading.

Jay McInerney s most recent books are The Good Life, a novel, and A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/chapters/1st-chapter-how-to-talk-about-books-youhavent-read.html?ref=review

FIRST CHAPTER How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read

(in which the reader will see, as demonstrated by a character of Musil's, that reading any particular book is a waste of time compared to keeping our perspective about books overall)

There is more than one way not to read, the most radical of which is not to open a book at all. For any given reader, however dedicated he might be, such total abstention necessarily holds true for virtually everything that has been published, and thus in fact this constitutes our primary way of relating to books. We must not forget that even a prodigious reader never has access to more than an infinitesimal fraction of the books that exist. As a result, unless he abstains definitively from all conversation and all writing, he will find himself forever obliged to express his thoughts on books he hasn't read.

If we take this attitude to the extreme, we arrive at the case of the absolute non-reader, who never opens a book and yet knows them and talks about them without hesitation. Such is the case of the librarian in The Man Without Qualities, a secondary character in Musil's novel, but one whose radical position and courage in defending it make him essential to our argument.

***

Musil's novel takes place at the beginning of the last century in a country called Kakania, a parody of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A patriotic movement, known as Parallel Action, has been founded to organize a lavish celebration of the upcoming anniversary of the emperor's reign, a celebration that is intended to serve as a redemptive example for the rest of the world.

The leaders of Parallel Action, whom Musil depicts as so many ridiculous marionettes, are thus all in search of a "redemptive idea," which they evoke endlessly yet in the vaguest of terms for indeed, they have neither the slightest inkling of what the idea might be nor how it might perform its redemptive function beyond their country's borders.

Among the movement's leaders, one of the most ridiculous is General Stumm (which means "mute" in German). Stumm is determined to discover the redemptive idea before the others as an offering to the woman he loves Diotima, who is also prominent within Parallel Action:

"You remember, don't you," he said, "that I'd made up my mind to find that great redeeming idea Diotima wants and lay it at her feet. It turns out that there are lots of great ideas, but only one of them can be the greatest that's only logical, isn't it? so it's a matter of putting them in order."

The general, a man of little experience with ideas and their manipulation, never mind methods for developing new ones, decides to go to the imperial library that wellspring of fresh thoughts to "become informed about the resources of the adversary" and to discover the "redemptive idea" with utmost efficiency.

***

The visit to the library plunges this man of limited familiarity with books into profound anguish. As a military officer, he is used to being in a position of dominance, yet here he finds himself confronted with a form of knowledge that offers him no landmarks, nothing to hold on to:

"We marched down the ranks in that colossal store house of books, and I don't mind telling you I was not particularly overwhelmed; those rows of books are not particularly worse than a garrison on parade. Still, after a while I couldn't help starting to do some figuring in my head, and I got an unexpected answer. You see, I had been thinking that if I read a book a day, it would naturally be exhausting, but I would be bound to get to the end sometime and then, even if I had to skip a few, I could claim a certain position in the world of the intellect. But what do you suppose the librarian said to me, as we walked on and on, without an end in sight, and I asked him how many books they had in this crazy library? Three and a half million, he tells me. We had just got to the seven hundred thousands or so, but I kept on doing these figures in my head; I'll spare you the details, but I checked it out later in the office, with pencil and paper: it would take me ten thousand years to carry out my plan."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28wwln-Q4-t.html

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON Published: October 28, 2007 Q: As a professor of French literature at the University of Paris, you re offering rather subversive advice in your 12th book, How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read, which is about to be published in this country. Do you think it will fare as well here as it has done in Europe? I have no idea. It was a best seller in France. People bought it without reading it they followed my advice. It was a best seller in Germany, too, because there are many nonreaders in Germany, and they want to see their rights defended.

Valerio Mezanotti Naturally, I read your book in preparation for this interview. Do you think I made a mistake in doing so? What do you mean when you say, I read it ? One of the purposes of my book is to show that it is not so easy to say that you have read a book.

What s wrong with the traditional method of starting a book on the first page and reading through to the end? It s important to know how to read from the first line to the last line, but there are also other ways of reading. You can skim books, you can just have heard about them, you can have read them and forgotten them.

You write in your book about Montaigne, who confessed to having a poor memory and to forgetting about books he himself had written. Which leads you to ask: If we read a book and forget that we read it, is that the same as never having read it? I think between reading and nonreading there is an indeterminate space that is quite important, a space where you have books you have skimmed, books you have heard about and books you have forgotten. You don t have to feel guilty about it.

But what about those of us who read to feel things to experience pleasure, an end to loneliness? Of course I read in order to feel something. And to feel an end to my loneliness, of course, just as you.

Then why are you so willing to devalue the experience of close reading in favor of skimming? You seem to believe that knowing a little bit about 100 literary classics is preferable to knowing one book intimately. I think a great reader is able to read from the first line to the last line; if you want to do that with some books, it s necessary to skim other books. If you want to fall in love with someone, it s necessary to meet many people. You see what I mean?

You suggest in your book that schools destroy a love of literature, in part because they don t allow skimming. Yes. Sometimes I help my son write book reports. Guillaume he s 14. It s terrible. The questions are so specific about the names of characters, dates and towns where the heroes went that I am unable to answer the questions. It is the model of reading in France. A kind of scientific reading, which prevents people from inventing another kind of reading, which should be a form of wandering, as in a garden.

Wouldn t your son be better off if you let him do his homework by himself? He thinks he wastes his time with book reports, and I agree with him.

Have you read all of Proust, on whom you once wrote a scholarly book, Off the Subject: Proust and Digression ? Proust is very difficult to read. His sentences are long and have very strange constructions, so it is not very possible to read it from the first line to the last line. You are obliged to use another way of reading.

Are you saying you skimmed Proust? Yes, of course I did! I prefer to say that I live with Proust. He s a companion. Sometimes I go to Proust and I seek advice for my life. I open it and I skim some pages. That is to live with books. It s important to live with books.

But if you re a habitual skimmer, why should we trust the conclusions you draw about literature? Because now, after hearing my arguments, you are convinced of my position.

Not completely convinced. Then you have to read my book once more, from the first line to the last line, the French method of reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/fashion/11books.html?fta=y

HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN T READ

By Pierre Bayard, translated by Jeffrey Mehlman.

I NEVER read a book I must review; it prejudices you so. That s the kind of remark you can get away with if you are Oscar Wilde.

But since you re not, how do you cope when cocktail party conversation lands on the latest book you haven t read? Have no fear. Pierre Bayard, the French writer, professor and psychoanalyst, is here to talk you off the ledge of literary humiliation.

Last year he amused Europe with his subversive book, How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read. Now it has been translated for the delectation of American nonreaders by Jeffrey Mehlman (who evidently did read it).

In Mr. Bayard s opinion, reading books is overrated. In my experience, Mr. Bayard declares, it s totally possible to carry on an engaging conversation about a book you haven t read including, and perhaps especially, with someone else who hasn t read it either.

Generously and recklessly, like a professor handing out cheat sheets to his own final, he shares his tricks. Here s a walk-through.

Assume you are asked to offer your opinion on a book all clever people were supposed to have read last summer say, for example, the newly reissued cult novel The Dud Avocado, about a brash young American girl set loose in Paris. It was written by Elaine Dundy in 1958 and lately championed by O magazine and the arts critic Terry Teachout, who wrote the introduction.

Assume that, for you, it falls into one of Mr. Bayard s categories of nonreading: books you don t know, books you have skimmed, books you have heard of, or books you have forgotten.

If the novel happens to be on a coffee table, glance at the cover at the camera with unselfconscious eyes and wing it.

a nude Jean Seberg-like blonde stares

You know, that book reminds me of the movie Breathless, out to be off base, laugh it off and keep talking.

you can opine. If your comparison turns

The point is not to be correct, but to have an opinion, he explains. If you are alive and sentient, you are more than qualified to discourse on everything from Silas Marner to Lance Bass s Out of Sync, whether you ve cracked the spine of either.

Only in accepting our nonreading without shame can we begin to take an interest in what is actually at stake, Mr. Bayard writes. Besides, he teases, chances are that none of the partygoers will have read it, either, including the know-it-all who brought it up.

NOT only does Mr. Bayard see talking about unread books as a realm of authentic creativity, he exhorts like-minded shirkers to enter this virtual library.

In Print Is Dead, Jeff Gomez points out that much of the world has already entered a different virtual library: the world of digital media.

The general population is shifting away from print, he writes. So if you want to start talking about books you haven t read, you d better hurry.

If he is right, it s only a matter of time before the world s bound volumes are booted from bookshelves to make way for screens, speakers and WiFi ports.

Today s kids are not going to want to pick up a big book and spend hours in a corner silently, passively reading, Mr. Gomez warns. Instead, he says, They re going to ditch the hardback and head over to Facebook. Why shouldn t the boring bits of The Mill on the Floss be expunged? he asks. Why don t savvy publishers expand their market by remixing Middlemarch and Middlesex? Why can t Dickens be as fun as World of Warcraft? And why would anyone write a travel memoir anymore, when Google Earth has inventoried nearly every backyard on the planet? (I d pursue this further, but it s time to update my Facebook status.)

Writers who can t stomach this choppy digital future will soon find themselves barred from the feast, Mr. Gomez threatens.

Authors who choose not to take part in any sort of online promotion or to curry online exposure, or who don t blog, post clips on YouTube, have a page on MySpace or otherwise engage an Internet audience will soon find themselves at an increasing disadvantage, he writes. Which is to say, readerless.

Now there s something to talk about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/books/24read.html?scp=6&sq=&st=nyt

Read It? No, but You Can Skim a Few Pages and Fake It

By ALAN RIDING Published: February 24, 2007 PARIS, Feb. 23 It may well be that too many books are published, but by good fortune, not all must be read. In practice, primed by publishers, critics, teachers, authors and word-of-mouth, a form of natural selection limits essential reading to those classics and best sellers that become part of civilized intellectual and social discourse.

Renaud Monfourny/Les Inrockuptibles Pierre Bayard, a professor, offers social guidance to the unread. Of course, many people don t get through these books, either, and too embarrassed to admit it, they worry constantly about being exposed as philistines.

Now Pierre Bayard, a Paris University literature professor, has come to their rescue with a survivor s guide to life in the chattering classes. And it is evidently much in need. How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read? has become a best seller here, with translation rights snapped up across Europe and under negotiation in Britain and the United States.

I am surprised because I hadn t imagined how guilty nonreaders feel, Mr. Bayard, 52, said in an interview. With this book, they can shake off their guilt without psychoanalysis, so it s much cheaper.

Mr. Bayard reassures them that there is no obligation to read, and confesses to lecturing students on books that he has either not read or has merely skimmed. And he recalls passionate exchanges with people who also have not read the book under discussion.

He further cites writers like Montaigne, who could not remember what he read, and Paul Valry, who found ways of praising authors whose books he had never opened. Mr. Bayard finds characters in novels by Graham Greene, David Lodge and others who cheerfully question the need to read at all. And he refuses to be intimidated by Proust or Joyce.

Having demonstrated that non-readers are in good company, Mr. Bayard then offers tips on how to cover up ignorance of a must-read book.

Meeting a book s author can be particularly tricky. Here, Mr. Bayard said there was no need to display knowledge of the book, since the author already has his own ideas about it. Rather, he said, the answer is to speak well of it without entering into details. Indeed, all the author needs to hear is that one has loved what he has written.

Domestic life is another potentially hazardous zone. People often want their spouses and partners to share their love of a particular book. And when this happens, Mr. Bayard said, they can both inhabit a secret universe. But if only one has read the book, silent empathy may offer the best way out.

Students, he noted from experience, are skilled at opining about books they have not read, building on elements he may have provided in a lecture. This approach can also work in the more exposed arena of social gatherings: the book s cover, reviews and other public reaction to it, gossip about the author and even the current conversation can all provide food for sounding informed.

One alternative, he said, is to try to change the subject. Another is to admit not knowing a particular book while suggesting knowledge of the so-called collective library into which the book fits.

But Mr. Bayard s most daring suggestion is that nonreaders should talk about themselves, using the pretext of the book without dwelling on its contents. In this way, he said, they are forced to tap their imagination and, in effect, invent their own book.

To be able to talk with finesse about something one does not know is worth more than the universe of books, he writes.

That Mr. Bayard enjoys the role of iconoclast is evident in the titles of some of his earlier books, including How to Improve Failed Literary Works, in which he examines failed books by Proust, Marguerite Duras and others, and Inquiry Into Hamlet, in which he sets out to prove that Claudius did not murder his brother and Hamlet s father, the King of Denmark.

With his new book, he is also a tad subversive because How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read? is not really what it appears to be. It is told by a fictional personality who boasts about not reading and is obviously not me, he explained. This is not a book written by a nonreader.

But he chose this device, he said, because he wanted to help people conquer their fear of culture by challenging the way that literature is presented to students and the public in France.

We are taught one way of reading, he said. Students are told to read the book, then to fill out a form detailing everything they have read. It s a linear approach that serves to enshrine books. People now come up to me to describe the cultural wounds they suffered at school. You have to read all of Proust. They were traumatized.

They see culture as a huge wall, as a terrifying specter of knowledge, he went on. But we intellectuals, who are avid readers, know there are many ways of reading a book. You can skim it, you can start and not finish it, you can look at the index. You learn to live with a book.

So, yes, he conceded, his true aim is to make people read more but with more freedom. I want people to learn to live with books, he said. I want to help people organize their own paths through culture. Also those outside the written word, those who are so attached to the image that it s difficult to bring them back.

Then why, he was asked, did he write a book that seems to justify nonreading?

I like to write funny books, he said. I try to use humor to deal with complex subjects.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E1D71F3EF932A35750C0A9619C8B63&scp=5&sq =&st=nyt

I, Um, Loved Your Book Published: March 1, 2007

To the Editor:

Re ''Read It? No, but You Can Skim a Few Pages and Fake It'' (Arts pages, Feb. 24):

If you take Pierre Bayard's advice seriously, there's no need to buy or read his book, ''How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read?''

All you have to do is read the dust jacket, browse the table of contents and flip through the first and last chapters.

If you meet Mr. Bayard, tell him you loved it -- just don't define it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/opinion/13schiff.html?scp=7&sq=&st=nyt

GUEST COLUMNIST Ulysses Without Guilt

By STACY SCHIFF Published: February 13, 2007 There are two ways to approach our cultural crossroads. You can either wring your hands and lament as an eloquent school librarian did recently in The Washington Post that literacy today has less to do with Wordsworth or Faulkner and more to do with how we find our way through the digital forest of information overload. Or you can be a sport about it, slip your earbuds back in and pick up a copy of Pierre Bayard s best-selling How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read.

There is one catch: Professor Bayard writes in French. Of course, that hardly matters as, by definition, you re not going to crack the spine.

To summarize: Don t be put off by your ignorance. Let your subconscious do the talking. Remember that text matters less than context. A 52-year-old professor of literature and a psychoanalyst, Mr. Bayard has got this far without ever having picked up Oliver Twist or finished Ulysses. He remains guilt-free on both counts. In his view, to engage with one book is to forgo the acquaintance of many others. Reword that slightly, and you have the battle cry of half the men I dated.

You could argue that the French have something of a tradition of talking through their hats. And certainly Professor Bayard s feel-good book counts as recompense. After having been bludgeoned by the unbearable lightness of French women, it s high time we were consoled by the exemplary liteness of French men. All the same, the technique is familiar. It s one some of us mastered as undergraduates.

Should Professor Bayard s measures seem radical, you can meet him halfway: treat yourself to a copy of P. J. O Rourke s On The Wealth of Nations, among the first in a series on the great books, or, as Mr. O Rourke terms them, Works Which Let s Admit You ll Never Read the Whole Of. You can tackle 900 pages of Smith, or you can be tickled by 240 pages of O Rourke. I agree; it s no contest. Especially since no one has read Smith in his entirety since 1776, when there was nothing going on anyway.

Also this spring Weidenfeld & Nicolson, the British publisher, will issue compact versions of the classics. (Starved though we are for a thin Thackeray in 30 days, we remain fussy about language. Abridged is for children. Compact is for adults.) Have you not noticed there is too much rambling in Anna Karenina and Mill on the Floss ? And to think I worried about the Monarch Notes people when Wikipedia came along.

Say what you will about Professor Bayard, he forces us to confront a paradox of our age. By one estimate, 27 novels are published every day in America. A new blog is created every second. We would appear to be in the midst of a full-blown epidemic of graphomania. Surely we have never read, or written, so many words a day. Yet increasingly we deal in atomized bits of information, the hors d oeuvres of education. We read not in continuous narratives but by linkage, the movable type of the 21st century. Our appetites are gargantuan, our attention spans anorectic. Small wonder trivia is enjoying a renaissance. We are very good on questions like why men fall asleep after sex and why penguins feet don t freeze.

Recently Cathleen Black, president of Hearst Magazines, urged a group of publishing executives to think of their audience as consumers rather than readers. She s onto something: arguably the very definition of reading has changed. So Google asserts in defending its right to scan copyrighted materials. The process of digitizing books transforms them, the company contends, into something else; our engagement with a text is different when we call it up online. We are no longer reading. We re searching a function that conveniently did not exist when the concept of copyright was established.

All of which sent me back to the king of content-free reading, the Ur-blogger. There was to be no tough sledding for this consumer, who never bit his nails over Aristotle. Among distracted readers he has no equal; as disjointed, derivative writers go, he is a man for our times. Five centuries ago he pioneered Mr. Bayard s reviewing technique: Leave the book under discussion unopened before you. Then write about yourself.

At the outset he warned his reader not to waste his time with the scribblings to follow. Who knows where we go from here. We may well produce another Montaigne. Stacy Schiff is the author, most recently, of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America. She is a guest columnist. A version of this op-ed appeared in pri

http://knjizevnicki.blogspot.com/2011/04/pjer-bajar-kako-da-govorimo-o-knjigama.html

Pjer Bajar - Kako da govorimo o knjigama koje nismo pro itali

Kao prvo, nije nimalo o igledno, iako se naoko ini, da je pisac u najboljoj poziciji da govori o vlastitoj knjizi, pa ak i da je se precizno seti. To to Montenj nije mogao da se sna e u trenucima kada ga pred njim citiraju, svedo i o tome da pisac, kada napi e svoja dela i odvoji se od njih, postaje onoliko udaljen od vlastitih tekstova koliko i ma ko drugi. A kao drugo i najva nije, ukoliko unutra nje knjige dve osobe zaista nikada ne mogu da se usaglase, onda je uzaludno da se upu tamo u duga obja njenja kada se sretnemo s nekim piscem. Uvek, naime, postoji opasnost da e se njegova strepnja uve avati dok evociramo ono to je napisano, jer to u njemu stvara ose aj da mu govorimo o tu oj knjizi ili da smo ga pobrkali s nekim drugim piscem. A mogao bi ak i da do ivi istinsko iskustvo obezli enja dok se suo ava s bezmernom daljinom koje jedno bi e razdvaja od drugoga. Postoji, dakle, samo jedan razuman savet koji se mo e dati svakome ko je prinu en da s nekim piscem razgovara o jednoj od njegovih knjiga koju nije pro itao: recite mu ne to bez zala enja u pojedinosti. Pisac nipo to ne o ekuje da uje sa etak ili obrazlo eno tuma enje svoje knjige. Po eljno je, tavi e, da mu tako ne to ne saop tavamo, po to od nas o ekuje da mu to neodre enije ka emo da nam se dopalo ono to je on napisao. http://www.danas.rs/dodaci/vikend/knjiga_danas/veoma_citana_knjiga_.54.html?news_id=186260

V(eoma) (itana) K(njiga) ++

AUTOR: GORDANA DRAGANI NONIN Nikada ne itam knjige o kojima moram pisati; to vas ini toliko pristrasnim, ta ne su re i Oskara Vajlda koji je Pjer Bajar i stavio kao moto svoje knjige o teoriji ne itanja. Ta ne su upravo zato to se ne mo e re i da je knjiga Kako govoriti o knjigama koje nismo pro itali? NK - nepoznata knjiga, K - knjiga za koju ste uli, a nakon itanja ona svakako nije ZK zaboravljena knjiga.
Ove skra enice u knjizi uporebljava sam Bajar i eto paradoksa - da upravo za ovu njegovu knjigu moramo priznati da je V K - veoma itana knjiga i da damo i dva plusa isto po ugledu na ovog francuskog profesora knji evnosti i psihoanaliti ara koji je imao hrabrosti da progovori o tabu temi - nepro itanim knjigama. Naime, Bajar ve dugo objavljuje eseje u kojima knji evnost sagledava sa razli itih stanovi ta, ali ova knjiga je brzo u svetu postala bestseler zbog njegovog lucidnog i duhovitog razmatranja upravo ovog problema. Kada su Alberta Mangela, velikog ita a i pisca knjiga Istorija itanja i Biblioteka no u, ljubopitljivi posetioci pitali da li je injenica da

pro itao sve knjige iz svoje prebogate biblioteke, on je odgovorio da je zasigurno otvorio svaku od njih i da je

se biblioteka, bez obzira na svoju veli inu, ne mora pro itati u celosti kako bi bila od koristi; svaki italac izvla i dobit iz finog balansa izme u znanja i neznanja, se anja i zaborava . Upravo o tome je Bajar pisao, ali je on u ovoj knjizi sistemati no i nau no, upravo kao psihoanaliti ar, raskrinkao fame o itanju klasifikuju i na ine ne itanja. I to upravo on, ugledni profesor, upravo knji evnosti. I Bajar, kao i Mangel za primer dobrog pregleda uzima Muzilovog bibliotekara iz romana ovek bez osobina koji nas suo ava sa problemom nesagledivosti granica kulture. Naime, kako bi u svakom momentu znao sve knjige o kojima se brine , Muzilov bibliotekar nije pro itao nijednu knjigu iz riznice. U io je samo naslove, autore i sadr aje knjiga kako bi imao dobar pregled jer bi ga svako pojedina no itanje opredeljivalo, rasipalo mu snagu i ne bi mogao da ovlada celinom biblioteke. Bajar zaklju uje da je kultura prevashodno stvar orijentacije i da je vrlo bitno da ovek spozna polo aj odre ene knjige u odnosu na druge, pre nego njen sadr aj. Na primeru Pola Valerija, Bataj obja njava i za to je neke knjige dovoljno samo prelistati, a pi e i o tezi Umberta Eka da je ponekad dovoljno i da se pro ita ta su drugi o nekoj knjizi pisali pa da se ima uvid u knjigu koja nam nikada i nije bila u rukama. Bajar se bavi i problemom se anja: da li za neku knjigu

koju smo davno pro itali i zaboravili njen sadr aj i dalje mo emo re i da je pro itana, jer bilo da italac veruje da je verno upamtio sadr inu on naj e e sa uva samo nekoliko rasutih fragmenata koji poput usamljenih ostrva plutaju na okeanu zaborava . Bajar tvrdi da postoje najmanje tri prinude s kojima se suo avamo u dru tvu zbog kojih je ne itanje gotovo zabranjena tema: to je shvatanje da je itanje obavezno, da je obavezno u celosti i da je sramota govoriti o knjigama a da je prethodno niste pro itali. Autor nas uverava da moramo znati ta nu granicu izme u itanja i ne itanja uprkos tome to su naj e e na i susreti sa knjigama upravo negde izme u to dvoje. Deo svoje knjige on je posvetio i pojmovima unutra nje biblioteke i unutra nje knjige i koliko one uti u na oveka i na poimanje sveta. Bajar je briljantno u ovoj knjizi pokazao kako ne itanje mo e biti klju itanja. Upravo zato je i objavljena u Slu benom

glasniku u biblioteci Klju evi u prevodu Sne ane Kalini i, naravno, pod uvek preciznom uredni kom rukom Jovice A ina.

http://www.danas.rs/dodaci/vikend/knjiga_danas/odbrana_necitanja.54.html?news_id=163211

Odbrana ne itanja Da sa itanjem postoji neki problem bilo je jasno kada su se tokom, a naro ito krajem XX veka, fenomena itanja dohvatili knji evni teoreti ari, lingvisti i filozofi i po eli da ga seciraju, koriste i pri tom sve ve u i sve te u teoreti arsku artiljeriju. U me uvremenu je po etak novog milenijuma doneo potpuni trijumf informati kih tehnologija koji je samo poja ao strah od nestanka Gutenbergove galaksije, pa je i sama sudbina itanja i pojmovnog mi ljenja dovedena u pitanje.

Upravo problemu (ne) itanja posve ena je knjiga Pjera Bajara Kako da govorimo o knjigama koje nismo pro itali? Naoko nepretenciozna, duhovita i pronicljiva, Bajarova studija predstavlja ako ne ba pravu pohvalu ne itanju, a ono bar prilog raskrinkavanju fame o itanju i sveznaju em itaocu kao neprikosnovenoj jedinici obrazovanog i kulturnog sistema. Dakle, Bajar ne pita Mo e li se govoriti o knjigama koje nismo pro itali? , ve odgovara na pitanje Kako govoriti o njima? Njegova teza je tim ozbiljnija, jer sti e od strane uglednog univerzitetskog profesora knji evnosti, dakle nekog prili no upu enog u temu (istina, sa naro itom sklono u za uo avanje i analizu paradoksa unutar knji evnosti). Na in na koji je svoju ideju proveo u delo, u inio je njegovu knjigu bestselerom, prevedenim na dvadesetak jezika.

Ve u prologu knjige profesor Bajar razoru avaju e priznaje ne to to ve ina njegovih kolega manje ili vi e uspe no sakriva: Ro en sam u sredini u kojoj se malo italo, ne u ivam mnogo u itala koj delatnosti, niti imam vremena da joj se posvetim, te sam se, sticajem uobi ajenih ivotnih okolnosti, neretko zaticao u kakljivim situacijama koje su me prisiljavale da govorim o knjigama koje nisam pro itao. Njegova namera s ovom knjigom, kako ka e, nije da veli a vrednosti ne itanja, ve da dovede u pitanje niz op te usvojenih prinuda koje se odnose na itanje. Prva prinuda ti e se obaveze itanja,

koje je u dana njem dru tvu (po svemu sude i, na izdisaju) jo uvek podlo no odre enom stepenu sakralizacije. Priznaju i da, poput ve ine, nikada nije pro itao, na primer, D ojsa i Prusta, Bajar odbija tezu da o ovim knjigama nema ta da ka e. Naprotiv. Kulturni ljudi znaju ono to nekulturni, na svoju veliku alost, ne znaju: kultura je prevashodno stvar orijentacije. Obrazovan ovek nije neko ko je pro itao ovu ili onu knjigu, ve neko ko ume da se sna e u celokupnoj knji evnosti, ko zna da sve knjige sa injavaju jednu celinu i ko je kadar da odredi polo aj svakog njenog deli a u odnosu na polo aje ostalih. Druga prinuda, kojoj se Bajar naro ito o tro suprotstavlja, jeste obaveza itanja knjige u celosti iz ega proisti e prezriv odnos prema takozvanom prelistavanju i itanju na preskok . Tre a prinuda koju navodi ti e se govora o knjigama, odnosno vladaju eg na ela po kojem se o knjizi mo e govoriti samo pod uslovom da se ista pro ita, i to itava. Moja iskustva pokazuju da se i te kako mo e strastveno razgovorati o knjizi koju nismo pro itali, i to osobito sa sagovornikom koji je tako e nije pro itao , duhovito konstatuje Bajar.

Sasvim profesorski, Bajar u prvom delu knjige najpre klasifikuje i analizira tipove ne itanja, odnosno maglovitu razliku izme u itanja i ne itanja. Vrste ne itanja odnose se na knjige koje nismo ni otvorili, knjige koje smo samo prelistali, knjige za koje smo uli i knjige koje smo zaboravili. Pri analizi on se poziva na karakteristi ne knji evne primere, na Muzila, Valerija, Eka i Montenja. Drugi deo knjige odnosi se na analizu konkretnih okolnosti u kojima je mogu e dospeti u situaciju da govorite o knjigama koje niste pro itali, dok je tre i deo knjige, do koga mu je naro ito stalo, svojevrsni praktikum sastavljen od jednostavnih saveta ta u takvim neprilikama u initi - saveta proisteklih iz godina iskustva ne itala kog ivota. Njihova je svrha da pomognu svakome ko se sa ovim problemom u komunikaciji susretne da ga re i na najbolji mogu i na in, a mo da ak i u svoju korist , ka e Bajar.

Knji evni profesionalci u Bajarovoj knjizi prona i e svojevrsnu teoriju ne itanja na tragu aktuelnih knji evnoteorijskih trendova. Oni drugi u iva e u visprenim, ironi nim i relaksiraju im Bajarovim analizama. Njegova knjiga ima nameru da podstakne itao evo samopouzdanje da se bez obaveze itanja uputi na putovanje kroz knjige, oslobodi bremena tu ih re i i gestova, te da govore i o knjigama koje nije pro itao progovori o onome za ta je zapravo najvi e zainteresovan o sebi. Da bismo bez stida govorili o nepro itanim knjigama, trebalo bi da se oslobodimo prinudne predstave o kulturi i obrazovanju bez rupa, koju nam name u ku no i kolsko vaspitanje, i s kojom uzalud nastojimo da se poistovetimo tokom itavog ivota , ka e profesor Bajar. Istinit odnos prema drugima manje je va an od istinitog odnosa prema sebi, koga mogu da dosegnu samo oni koji se oslobode obaveze da izgledaju obrazovani, koja nas iznutra mu i i spre ava da budemo verni sebi.

U svakom slu aju, re je o duhovitoj i pou noj knjizi. Prelistajte je.

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Vreme 17.09.09 Protiv kuluka itanja Kako da govorimo o knjigama koje nismo pro itali?, Pjer Bajar Svako je itanje ponajpre svojevrsno ne itanje. ak i kod najve ih italaca, koji mu posvete itav ivot, in uzimanja i otvaranja knjige uvek prikriva suprotni, a istovremeni in, koji je zbog toga jedva primetan: nehoti ni in neuzimanja i neotvaranja svih drugih knjiga koje bi mogle, kada bi svet bio druga ije ustrojen, da budu izabrane namesto sre no odabranih. Osim to je profesor knji evnosti i briljantan esejista, Pjer Bajar (Pierre Bayard) je i psihoanaliti ar. Mo da to bar donekle rasvetljava njegovu kura da se u ogledu s naslovom koji vispreno parafrazira self-help literaturu, poduhvati jednog intelektualnog tabua, jedne specifi ne nelagodnosti u kulturi: injenice da su i najve i eruditi i najfanati niji knjigo deri zapravo pro itali mada, Bajar e i same kriterijume "pro itanosti" poprili no dovesti u pitanje samo deo onoga to spada u knji evni kanon, onaj maternjeg nam jezika i onaj svetski, plus svega drugoga to spada u "osnove op te kulture". Me utim, malo e se ko u akademskom svetu usuditi da prizna, ak i u intimnijem krugu, da nije (do) itao, ta znam, Don Kihota, Uliksa ili Majstora i Margaritu (ili Bibliju, Kapital i Svet kao volju i predstavu), jer se naprosto podrazumeva da ih "svi" imaju u malom prstu. Stvarnost je bitno druga ija, ali ta je tu uop te "stvarnost"? Niko nikome ne dr i sve u pri itanju, kolekcija (ne)pro itanog ionako je ne to to akumuliramo kroz ceo ivot, tako da nam ponaj e e ostaje da verujemo na re drugima da su pro itali sve to bi svaki- ovek-koji-dr i-do-sebe morao da pro ita, isto kao to drugima preostaje da na re veruju nama... To je gotovo pa neka vrsta nepisanog dru tvenog ugovora (o nenapadanju?). Bajar zato (o)kre e drugim putem. Najpre, " okantno" priznaje da mnoge Kanonske Knjige, o kojima naduga ko zbori sa svojim studentima, zapravo nije "regularno" ni pro itao, vi e ih je prelistao, zbrzao po dijagonali, slu ao i itao o njima od drugih ljudi, onih koji su ih pro itali to jest, ako jesu?! Umesto da se stidi i opravdava , Bajar u svom eseju razvija svojevrsnu teoriju ne itanja, u kojoj ne itanje nije tek puko odsustvo itanja (i bilo kakvog interesovanja za svet knjiga) o emu se ionako ne bi imalo ta za re i, nego pledira za neku vrstu legitimizacije i rehabilitacije na ih "stidnih" itala kih nesavr enosti: izme u knjige koju smo "pro itali", i one za koju nikada nismo ni uli, nalazi se bezbroj me ustanja, tako da odavno nije ni ta neobi no da neko "zna sva ta" o nekoj knjizi, a da je zapravo samo projurio kroz nju ili je ak nije nikada dr ao u rukama. Evo, koliko je vas, naro ito mla ih, italo Doktora ivaga? Ja nisam, priznajem. I ne to sumnjam da u je se ikada ma iti (mada u sve vreme ne to itati). Pa ipak, ta je knjiga deo jednog sveop teg (isto no)evropskog "kulturpoliti kog prtljaga", i sigurno biste imali ta da ka ete u vezi s njom, samo da vas neko priupita. Ho u da ka em, verovatno ne biste ba ispali glupi u dru tvu... A ta tek da radimo, pita se Bajar, sa uistinu "pro itanim" tekstom, nad kojim na a svest i pam enje uprkos onome u ta volimo da verujemo nemaju nikakvu znatniju kontrolu? Jednostavnije re eno, ve tokom samog itanja neke knjige, mi po injemo da je zaboravljamo; ne samo da je na a recepcija prokleto nesavr ena, nego je jo i sklona rapidnom degenerisanju s protokom vremena. Kroz neko vreme, od "pro itane" knjige ponaj e e nam ostaje samo neka nejasna predstava, magli asta hrpa utisaka. Ja sam, recimo, vaistinu jednom davno pro itao Vatikanske podrume, i veoma u ivao, ali da me sad prore etate na detaljima tog sjajnog romana, tjah, ta znam, mo da mi ne biste lako poverovali da sam ga itao... ta je na pisac zapravo "hteo da ka e"? Bajar nije nikakav antiintelektualni krsta i demagog koji e sad lepo da vam objasni da su knjige avolja rabota i da s njima ne treba imati posla. Njegov je naum druga ije naravi: on eli da relaksira jednu dozlaboga krutu, upravo neodr ivu implicitnu, ali sveprisutnu prisilu savr ene na itanosti koja itanje od radosne aktivnosti slob odnog i radoznalog oveka pretvara u

odlika ki kuluk i "ispunjavanje norme", a to zakonito rezultira svojevrsnim umiranjem u itka, a itanje bez u itka naprosto je manje od ni ega: ako je to alternativa, uistinu je pametnije zuriti u plafon i a kati nos, pa praviti kuglice od nosne rude. Mo da je to dobro, mo da i nije, tek, nikada se vi e ne e vratiti Drevna Vremena u kojima je pismen ovek (tada retkost) mogao za ivota i itati u knjigama sakupljenu vascelu (do)tada nju ljudsku mudrost, i da mu jo ostane vi e nego dovoljno slobodnog vremena za ispijanje rujnog vina i naganjanje nevinih, kulturolo ki zapu tenih mom i a po Atini. ivimo u vreme tako nepregledne hiperprodukcije i to kad odbijemo tre !; ovde govorim samo o onome to sadr i nekakav kvalitet i potencijalnu relevantnost da je itaju a ljudska jedinka tu upravo nemo na: sve to mo e jeste da poku a da se u svemu tome nekako razabere; Bajar e re i: "kultura je prevashodno stvar orijentacije". Kada shvatite da ona nikada ne e biti ni blizu savr enstva, nu no ete posegnuti i za nekim pre icama (a bogme i potporama), ali ete to dr ati u najve oj tajnosti, jer se to ne govori, jer je to, ka e Bajar, najve i tabu "uz finansije i seks". Paradoksalno ili ne, Bajar koji se egzemplarno razme e svojim "rupama u obrazovanju" koje imamo ama ba svi, ali nismo, je li, tako ludi da ih iznosimo na sunce i koji se zala e za sve mogu e prelazne vrste ne itanja-kao-slobodnog- itanja, i te kako je ve t i kadar da nam primere za svoje teze demonstrira u najboljem close reading maniru; a zahvata, bogme, sa svih strana, od Valerija do Eka, od Oskara Vajlda do Itala Kalvina, od Balzaka do Greama Grina i Dejvida Lod a. Ili, pak, do filma Dan mrmota. Neki anglosaksonski kriti ari u njegovim idejama prepoznaju, izme u ostalih, deridijanske odjeke, to je mo da ta no, ali svakako ne va i na jezi kom planu: Bajar, naime, pi e zavodljivo i prozra no lako, ali ne i plitko, iskazuju i dar (i ar) literate koji se ne da spakovati u luda ku ko ulju teroretisti kog argona, koji je ozloglasio savremenu francusku teoriju. itao sam sedam-osam angloameri kih prikaza ove knjige: gotovo niko nije odoleo da ne poku a da bude duhovit na temu "paradoksa" da srda no preporu uje itanje knjige koja tobo e srda no preporu uje "ne itanje". Pa dobro, ta da se radi, preporuka ipak stoji. Uzgred, Oskar Vajld, koji se u ivotu prehranjivao i knji evnom kritikom, tvrdio je da itanje knjige o kojoj e pisati kriti aru mo e samo da smeta, jer bi ga u inilo pristrasnim. Sve sam uvereniji da je to ta no, mada se li no i dalje dr im klasi ne, treberske metodologije... U ovom slu aju, najbolje je poentirao D ej Mekinerni: " itanje ove knjige mo e vas podsetiti za to volite itanje". Pra aj, ivago, to je ja e od mene! Teofil Pan i

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Anticipirani plagijat
Autor: Bajar Pjer; prevodilac Popovi Mira; Ovaj naslov mo ete nabaviti: Izdavac: JP Slu beni glasnik ; Distributer: Krug Commerce , Bookbridge ; Internet: knjizara.com

Ovo je druga knjiga Pjera Bajara koju je objavljuje Slu beni glasnik. Nakon naslova Kako da govorimo o knjigama koje nism analizu: pojam knji evnog plagijata, ali u obrnutom smislu od uobi ajenog plagijat na injen od strane pisca koji je vremen eruditski upu uje na na in na koji je Ni e plagirao Frojda, Mopasan Prusta, Lorens Stern D ojsa, Rasin Igoa, a Kafka Beke knji evne svojine ima tendenciju nestajanja, valja nastaviti s odbranom nekih osnovnih vrednosti i izvesnog shvatanja intele inspirisati se, delimi no ili na iroko, pre a njim ili potonjim autorima. Podlo nije je kritici kada se to prikriva i tada je na istra agresivnosti ali odlu no, svakome vrate ono to mu pripada.

http://www.vreme.com/download.php/system/storage/pdf/960glasnik.pdf