bayard-how_to_talk_about

that constitutes Martins's personal universe and is his reason for living. And while in general Martins does not consider himself a writer, he becomes one upon seeing himself pub­ licly denied that title:

Martins told me that he felt the first stirrings of revolt at that statement. He had never regarded himself before as a writer; but Crabbin's self-confidence irritated him—even the way the light flashed back from Crabbin's spectacles seemed an added cause of vexation. Crabbin said, "He was just a popular enter­ tainer."

"Why the hell not?" Martins said fiercely. "Oh well, I merely meant—"

"What was Shakespeare?"9

The situation quickly becomes even more tangled, because Crabbin, trying to come to the rescue of a writer who hasn't read the work he's discussing (because he hasn't written it), puts himself in a parallel situation. He, too, is reduced to speaking about books he doesn't know, as Martins is quick to point out:

"Have you ever read Zane Grey?" "No, I can't say—"

"Then you don't know what you are talking about."1 0

9. Ibid.

10 . Ibid., p. 85.

Martins can connect Benjamin Dexter to the tradition of the western without risk of contradiction: either his statements will be accepted as illuminating and original, or, should they push the envelope too far, they will be understood as humor­ ous.1 3 In either case, the belief that his statement is accurate precedes its formulation, and thus the content of the state­ ment is of relatively little importance.

To uncover and study the power in play, or, if you prefer, to analyze the exact position we find ourselves in when speak­ ing about a work, is essential to our reflection on books we haven't read. It is only through such analysis that we will be able to adopt the correct strategy when we find ourselves in the position of not having read the books we're talking about, as Martins experiences here. We will have occasion to return to this question of strategy further on.

In this public lecture, then, a writer who has not read the books on which he is expected to speak confronts an audience that

13. Before arriving in Vienna, Martins makes a stop in Frankfurt, where he is also mistaken for the other Dexter and where his frank answers are also taken to be humorous:

A man he could recognize from twenty feet away as a journalist ap­ proached his table.

"You Mr. Dexter?" he asked.

"Yes," Martins said, taken off his guard.

"You look younger than your photographs," the man said [. . . ] "What about views on the American novel?"

"I don't read them."

"The well-known acid humor," the journalist said. (Ibid., p. 13.)

7 2 H o w T O T A L K A B O U T B O O K S Y o u H A V E N ' T R E A D

has not read those he has written. We have before us a perfect example of what is conventionally called a dialogue of the deaf14

While this scenario is taken to the extreme in the case of the lecture in The Third Man, it occurs more commonly than you might think in our conversations about books. First, often the various interlocutors will not have read the book they are talking about, or will only have skimmed it, in which case they are each actually talking about a different book.

Second, in the more unusual case in which each person has held the book in his or her hands and truly knows it, the discussion is less about the book itself than about a fragmentary and reconstituted object (as we have seen in Umberto Eco, for example), a private screen book unrelated to the screen books of the other readers and unlikely, as a result, to overlap with them.

But what is at stake here transcends the case of any individual book. The dialogue of the deaf is a function not only of the divergence between the two authors Martins is speaking about, but also of the fact that the parties present are attempting to conduct a dialogue on the basis of two sets of books, or, if you prefer, two distinct and adversarial libraries. It is not simply two books that are in play, but two irreconcilable lists of names (Dexter and Dexter, Grey and Gray), as a result of the profound difference, indeed the incompatibility, of the two cultures confronting each other.

We might use the term inner library to characterize that set of books—a subset of the collective library—around which every

14. Concerning this notion, see my Enquête sur Hamlet: Le dialogue de sourds

(Paris: Minuit, 2002), F B - .

personality is constructed, and which then shapes each person's individual relationship to books and to other people.1 5 Specific titles figure in these private libraries, but, like Montaigne's, they are primarily composed of fragments of forgotten and imagi­ nary books through which we apprehend the world.

In this case, the dialogue of the deaf arises from the fact that the inner libraries of Martins and of his audience don't overlap, or do so only to a limited extent. The conflict is not limited to any particular book, even if certain titles are men­ tioned, but bears more broadly on the very conception of what a book, and literature, may be. For this reason, achiev­ ing communication between the two libraries will not be easy, and any attempt to do so will inevitably create tension.

Thus it is that in truth we never talk about a book unto itself; a whole set of books always enters the discussion through the portal of a single title, which serves as a temporary symbol for a complete conception of culture. In every such discussion, our inner libraries—built within us over the years and hous­ ing all our secret books—come into contact with the inner libraries of others, potentially provoking all manner of fric­ tion and conflict.

For we are more than simple shelters for our inner li­ braries; we are the sum of these accumulated books. Little by

15. The second of the three libraries I am introducing in this book, the inner li­ brary is a subjective part of the collective library and includes the books that have left a deep impression on each subject.

7 4 H o w T O T A L K A B O U T B O O K S Y o u H A V E N ' T R E A D

little, these books have made us who we are, and they cannot be separated from us without causing us suffering. Just as Martins cannot bear to hear criticism of the novels written by his heroes, comments that challenge the books in our in­ ner libraries, attacking what has become a part of our iden­ tity, may wound us to the core of our being.

V I

Encounters with Professors

(in which we confirm, along with the Tiv tribe of western Africa, that it is wholly unnecessary to have opened a book in order to deliver

an enlightened opinion on it, even if you displease the specialists in the process)

A s A TEACHER, it is my lot more often than average to find myself obligated to speak to a large audience about books I haven't read, either in the strict sense (having never opened them) or the attenuated sense (having only skimmed them or forgotten them). I am not sure I have dealt with the situation any better than Rollo Martins. But I have often attempted to reassure myself with the thought that those who are listening to me are no doubt on similar ground and are probably no more confident about it than I am.

I have observed over the years that this situation in no way unsettles my students, who often comment about books they haven't read in ways that are not only relevant, but indeed quite accurate, by relying on elements of the text that I have, involuntarily or not, conveyed to them. To avoid embarrassing