Pierre Bayard
Autor(a) de How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read
About the Author
Pierre Bayard is a psychoanalyst and professor of French literature in Paris
Image credit: Allen and Unwin Media Centre
Obras por Pierre Bayard
Sherlock Holmes was Wrong: Re-opening the Case of the "Hound of the Baskervilles" (2007) 223 exemplares
How to Talk About Places You've Never Been: On the Importance of Armchair Travel (2012) 76 exemplares
Anticipatory Plagiarism 2 exemplares
Associated Works
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1954
- Sexo
- male
- Nacionalidade
- France
- Ocupações
- professor of French literature
author
psychoanalyst - Organizações
- University of Paris VIII
Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425- Professor Bayard has written several books that present revisionist readings of famous fictional mysteries.
Membros
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 27
- Also by
- 1
- Membros
- 2,248
- Popularidade
- #11,404
- Avaliação
- 3.5
- Críticas
- 118
- ISBN
- 125
- Línguas
- 19
- Marcado como favorito
- 3
Bayard adopts the viewpoint of the 19th century school of literary theory (somewhat back in vogue) that characters can have a life beyond the page. He argues forcefully for the fact that we all play some role in bringing characters to life, interpreting the gaps and lacunae in the author's descriptions and bringing our own biases with us. He takes this theory further, arguing that it is dull to accept what the author tells us, and we must instead fashion our own work out of that on the page. An intriguing theory that doesn't sit well with my New-Criticism-cum-New-Historicism viewpoints, but I'm willing to let other opinions stand.
Without spoiling anything, Bayard's ultimate conclusion about what really happened in [b:The Hound of the Baskervilles|8921|The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes, #5)|Arthur Conan Doyle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1355929358l/8921._SY75_.jpg|3311984] is quite clever, really. He makes a convincing case that Holmes' faulty reasoning and preconceived notions led to an incorrect conclusion, and he argues forcefully that readers' love of Holmes since his conception goes beyond that of fans and a character. That, in a sense, Conan Doyle created a character who outgrew him, who outgrew the world of fiction.
Undeniably this work (in translation) would have been better as a long essay than an entire volume. The first 53 pages are a retelling of Conan Doyle's novel, which seems excessive. The section on Conan Doyle's relationship with his character is entirely filler, if interesting historically. Nevertheless, this is the book that we have, and thus it's the book I'm reviewing.
Much of your feeling on this book will depend on how you take Bayard's own attitude. Is he being wryly self-aware or does he truly believe his own argument? Evidently a lot of Goodreads reviewers are frustrated by the theorist arguing that characters experience lives we are not a part of. I suspect Bayard knows exactly what he's doing, and is having fun with his own conceit. He knows, as well as we do, that this is not possible, and that if Conan Doyle had intended for Holmes to get the case wrong, he would have made that clear. Thus, we must approach the whole work within Bayard's own framework or there is no point reading it at all.
From this point of view, the book is rather good. On reflection, even the seemingly excessive chapters (such as a deep analysis of the eponymous hound's mindset) are relevant to the central argument. This is a book that can inspire great literary debates - as indeed it has in my friendship circle - and for that we should be grateful. (Although the fact that Bayard has written three such books as this - another on Hamlet and one on Agatha Christie's Roger Ackroyd - may annoy literary elitists like myself, who would rather theorists devote themselves to exploring the texts themselves rather than making a career out of the spaces in between!)
What am I saying? If the work is one long con, it's a damn good one. If it's completely serious, it's trash. If it's somewhere in between, I suspect it's a cunning little argument that helped earn a writer some royalties, and it needn't be any more than that.… (mais)