There is a tacit understanding in our culture that one must read a book in order to talk about it with any precision. The third constraint concerns the way we discuss books. For example, it's virtually unthinkable for literary intellectuals to acknowledge that they have flipped through Proust's work without having read it in its entirety-though this is certainly the case for most of them. If it's frowned upon not to read, it's almost as bad to read quickly or to skim, and especially to say so. The second constraint, similar to the first but nonetheless distinct, might be called the obligation to read thoroughly. This worship applies particularly to a number of canonical texts-the list varies according to the circles you move in-which it is practically forbidden not to have read if you want to be taken seriously. We still live in a society, on the decline though it may be, where reading remains the object of a kind of worship. The first of these constraints might be called the obligation to read. In deed, to describe your experience in this area, as I will attempt here, demands a certain courage, for doing so clashes inevitably with a whole series of internalized constraints. It is unsurprising that so few texts extol the virtues of nonreading. This exercise is even more problematic, since unlike spoken statements-which can include imprecision without consequence-written commentaries leave traces and can be verified.Īs a result of such all-too-familiar situations, I believe I am well positioned, if not to offer any real lesson on the subject, at least to convey a deeper understanding of the non-reader's experience and to undertake a meditation on this forbidden subject. In addition, I am regularly called on to discuss publications in my books and articles, since these for the most part concern the books and articles of others.
It' s true that this is also the case for the majority of my students, but if even one of them has read the text I'm discussing, there is a risk that at any moment my class will be disrupted and I will find myself humiliated. Born into a milieu where reading was rare, deriving little pleasure from the activity, and lacking in any case the time to devote myself to it, I have often found myself in the delicate situation of having to express my thoughts on books I haven't read.īecause I teach literature at the university level, there is, in fact, no way to avoid commenting on books that most of the time I haven't even opened.
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