the · queerist;

a 250 lb man with full arm tattoos sat next to me on the bus and tapped his fingers along frantically to the song on his mp3 player. apparently, miley cyrus is versatile.

i'm at work copying down notes from a board meeting. as i type down their makeshift outlines, i realized how obnoxiously underqualified the people i work for are. how difficult is it to make a consistent outline with roman numerals, letters, and numbers (in that order)?

"thanks for the help, nohvid. i passed on your work to the big guy and took all the credit. alright, i'm gonna have to take this call."

i took myself out on a date and saw roman holiday in union square. i showered, made dinner, and took a picnic blanket. the perks of taking yourself out on a date.

1) you dont have to worry about who pays.
2) you dont have to worry about being bailed on.
3) you dont have to put out.

i havent painted my walls yet because plans failed, failed again, and inconsistently failed a third time. i'll wait for luis.

i also feel like i'm in a stage where i want to burn down all my connections and be fiercely independent and alone for several weeks. this, of course, is one of my inward daydreams. or just a cue for me to sabotage all connections i have with the world.

yet, if i'm so connected to the world, why do i feel so deserted?

twenty-one: you won't die in peace, will you?

NYT: As a professor of French literature at the University of Paris, you’re offering rather subversive advice in your 12th book, “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read,” which is about to be published in this country. Do you think it will fare as well here as it has done in Europe?


PB: I have no idea. It was a best seller in France. People bought it without reading it — they followed my advice. It was a best seller in Germany, too, because there are many nonreaders in Germany, and they want to see their rights defended.



NYT: Naturally, I read your book in preparation for this interview. Do you think I made a mistake in doing so?


PB:What do you mean when you say, “I read it”? One of the purposes of my book is to show that it is not so easy to say that you have read a book.


NYT: What’s wrong with the traditional method of starting a book on the first page and reading through to the end?

PB: It’s important to know how to read from the first line to the last line, but there are also other ways of reading. You can skim books, you can just have heard about them, you can have read them and forgotten them.


NYT:You write in your book about Montaigne, who confessed to having a poor memory and to forgetting about books he himself had written. Which leads you to ask: If we read a book and forget that we read it, is that the same as never having read it?

PB: I think between reading and nonreading there is an indeterminate space that is quite important, a space where you have books you have skimmed, books you have heard about and books you have forgotten. You don’t have to feel guilty about it.


NYT: But what about those of us who read to feel things — to experience pleasure, an end to loneliness?

PB:Of course I read in order to feel something. And to feel an end to my loneliness, of course, just as you.


NYT: Then why are you so willing to devalue the experience of close reading in favor of skimming? You seem to believe that knowing a little bit about 100 literary classics is preferable to knowing one book intimately.


PB: I think a great reader is able to read from the first line to the last line; if you want to do that with some books, it’s necessary to skim other books. If you want to fall in love with someone, it’s necessary to meet many people. You see what I mean?


NYT: You suggest in your book that schools destroy a love of literature, in part because they don’t allow skimming.


PB: Yes. Sometimes I help my son write book reports. Guillaume — he’s 14. It’s terrible. The questions are so specific about the names of characters, dates and towns where the heroes went that I am unable to answer the questions. It is the model of reading in France. A kind of scientific reading, which prevents people from inventing another kind of reading, which should be a form of wandering, as in a garden.


NYT: Wouldn’t your son be better off if you let him do his homework by himself?


PB: He thinks he wastes his time with book reports, and I agree with him.


NYT: Have you read all of Proust, on whom you once wrote a scholarly book, “Off the Subject: Proust and Digression”?


PB: Proust is very difficult to read. His sentences are long and have very strange constructions, so it is not very possible to read it from the first line to the last line. You are obliged to use another way of reading.


NYT: Are you saying you skimmed Proust?


PB: Yes, of course I did! I prefer to say that I live with Proust. He’s a companion. Sometimes I go to Proust and I seek advice for my life. I open it and I skim some pages. That is to live with books. It’s important to live with books.


NYT: But if you’re a habitual skimmer, why should we trust the conclusions you draw about literature?


PB: Because now, after hearing my arguments, you are convinced of my position.


NYT: Not completely convinced.


PB: Then you have to read my book once more, from the first line to the last line, the French method of reading.