About an article i haven't read...I promise I didn't Bayard I promise

Q. Where does a general keep his armies?

A. In his sleevies!!

In reading Bayard’s “How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read”, I found myself intrigued with philosophical implications of the concept of “non-reading”.  Bayard defines non-reading a “genuine activity, one that consists of adopting a stance towards in relation to the immense tide of books that prevents you from drowning”.  What is fore grounded here, to Bayard’s credit, is the identification of interconnected discourses between the reader, the text and the world. No text exists in isolation, according to Bayard, with each work contributing to the larger intellectual sphere in which the reader interacts. Thus in turn, the mere presence of the reader (or non-reader) is enough to allow one to draw from this greater literary domain spanning across an infinite number of books.

It strikes me that Bayard does not seem concerned with much of the practical applications of non-reading he supplies. In fact he appears well aware of the at times humorous implications of what he suggests. I would argue instead, that the act of speaking on unread texts is merely a simple medium utilised by Bayard, to mask a far complex development of literary circulation in the metaphysical sense. It is indeed quite intuitive to perceive that books act upon those who do not read, purely in virtue of their existence in a greater discourse.  He suggests that the act of non-reading is therefore exercising “a wisdom superior to most readers...with greater respect to the books itself”. It is in these instances where I am struck with a sense of counter-intuition on the part of Bayard’s theory. There seems to be a disloyalty between the figurative and the practical. Theoretically the implications of non-reading enable a greater connection between reader and culture, through which the reader is simultaneously connected to every part of the larger world. To actively read a text would be to narrow that connection, limiting ones perception of the literary world and permanently separating the reader from the infinite number of remaining unread texts. Yet to follow this theory practically in my opinion, at the very least feels shallow. On some level it seems as though non-reading is merely the illusion of connectedness, and it is hard to fathom viewing the world purely in terms of one items relation to another without having some firm starting point.  There is also a distinction to be made between experiencing texts and simply knowing them. The latter is the only option available for non-readers, and surely experiencing a limited number of texts on a deeper level through reading provides a truer representation of culture than knowing it from another source. Taking Bayard’s claim that the “interior of the book is its exterior, since what counts in a book is the books alongside it” further, does the literary work itself not become an arbitrary exercise? Surely if I was to take James Joyce’s Ulysses and replace some pages with my own it would have some effect on what the text contributes to culture. But who of us can really say now, having read a book or two in our lifetimes. Bayard’s greater literary gate has already begun to close to us, and even as you read this you are becoming more aware of the many Lit Theory blogs you will...never...get to read.