Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

As told 3

“Pierre Bayard wrote among other things a wonderful book called How to Write About Books That You Haven't Read”
~0:01 Interview with David Feldman2022-03-07 · 1:28:31

“the art of dialectics is the right violent abstraction. You say ignore all that, focus on one feature, and then let this one feature color your entire approach.”
4:49 Interview with Philosophy Now2017-07 · 1:00:50

“How to Talk About Books That You Haven't Read”
4:57 Interview with Slavoj Zizek2017-07 · 1:01:36

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

productive force of partial, one-sided approach ×1 Hegelian totality ×1 dialectics ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by

Vladimir Safatle1 Pierre Bayard3 Wolfgang Streeck2 Erich Fromm1 Andrew Jackson1 Dmitri Shostakovich2 John Locke1 Larry David1

alongside works

Theory of Communicative Action2 Incontinence of the Void: Economico-Philosophical Spandrels2 Symphony No. 142 How to Talk About Books That You Haven't Read3 Making It Explicit2 Spheres2 Was geschah im 20. Jahrhundert?2 Totaler Krieg speech1

Told together with

67% Hegel's owl of Minerva 2 shared talks 33% Asking Occupy Wall Street 'what do you want?' 2 shared talks 22% Light at the end of the tunnel is another train 2 shared talks 10% Fukushima and Tokyo evacuation 2 shared talks 9% Malcolm X and the loss of roots as emancipatory starting point 2 shared talks

Every retelling 3

~0:01 Interview with David Feldman2022-03-07 · 1:28:31

Bayard's book defends the intellectual value of not reading books in full; Žižek uses this to argue that comprehensive scholars of Hegel often produce worse interpretations than partial readers., illustrating productive force of partial, one-sided approach

4:49 Interview with Philosophy Now2017-07 · 1:00:50

Žižek cites Pierre Bayard's book which proves that the best commentaries on some authors are written by people who didn't read all their work, because dialectics is the art of the right violent abstraction, not total comprehension., illustrating right violent abstraction,Hegelian dialectics,reading as selective focus

4:57 Interview with Slavoj Zizek2017-07 · 1:01:36

Bayard's book seriously (not just ironically) shows that the best books on certain authors were written by people who hadn't read everything, a deep Hegelian point about dialectical violent abstraction., illustrating dialectics,the right violent abstraction