Well, what d'you know!! James Feagan talking about E.O. Parrott's 'How to Become Ridiculously Well-Read in One Evening' without ever having read it !!!!!! '...in most cases ... mildly ribald limericks' is a pretty hearty misrepresentation!! And it most certainly is NOT 'terribly American', thank you!!!!

Margaret Anderson, Glasgow, UK

Yes, I have found intellectual pretensions to cross all borders, even societal status. If you have read a book, great, admit it even if the intellectual snobs think it is beneath them. At least you know how to read and enjoy... I always thought reading was meant to be enjoyed, not bragged about. Who died and put some snob in charge to decide what's good reading and what's not??? Thank God we all have different tastes, it would be a boring world if we read nothing but what some intellectual snob has deemed to be great....
I have read Harry Potter, and The Di Vinci Code and enjoyed them both. I have also read Grapes of Wrath, War and Peace, and many more, and enjoyed them all. Does that mean I'm an idiot because I loved the The Di Vinci Code or look forward to the next book of Harry Potter? I have news for you intellectual snobs, it just means I'm not stuck in an "intellectual" rut, I enjoy many things in life.

KuanYin, Seattle, Washington

It seems that Mr. Baynard's theory is heavily reliant upon the intrinsic properties of the text itself, and is propelled by Vladimir Propp's Russian formalistic approach to literature and plot. What Propp did was to strip down every fairy tale from every culture and country, and reduce it to its basic element of plot. Propp found that all of these tales were comprised of the same essential elements and, therefore, was able to understand the development of (in his case) folklore and fairy tales.
Since Mr. Baynard specializes in psychoanalysis, it seems likely that what he has done is created a "one size fits all" approach to understanding the development of literature through psychoanalysis; all with the hopes that the common reader will try it on and find that it fits ever so nicely. But it can't be that easy, can it? It shouldn't. In any case this is why Joyce's oddity of 'Ulysses' and other cannonical texts cannot be crammed into any particular genre; because it doesn't fit.

Anthony Cagala, San Diego, California

As a bookseller, I often bluff my way through. I haven't read Da Vinci or Harry Potter, and I rely on reviews to get me through the bad fiction. Nonfiction can usually be handled by reading the first and last chapter. When people ask what I'm reading, I'm honest, but they're usually not interested (currently Gardner's "Mickelsson's Ghosts" and "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose). Perhaps knowing what's out there is almost as important as having read it.

Lacey Burnette, St. Louis, Mo.

I must take issue with the supposed "Frenchness" of this idea of bluffing. Back in the 80's, there was a book published in the US entitled "How to Become Ridiculously Well-Read in One Evening" by E.O. Parrott. Classic literature distilled, in most cases, to mildly ribald limericks. An amusing read, and probably terribly American, too. But much the same thing. What I would say instead is that intellectual pretension knows no boundaries. Now isn't that wonderful?

James Feagin, Hagerstown,

As a reference librarian, I frequently deal with people who assume that I am widely read. I do read a fair amount but I'm pretty selective about it and my reading habits don't correspond with my patrons' expectations. So I have developed some ways to keep my edge and maintain the facade of the underpaid but intellectually superior librarian. In my experience, the best way to fake readership of books is through reading reviews. Take advantage of those who are paid to read, remember one key assessment from the review and you can fake having read almost any work of fiction. Non-fiction is a bit more challenging, but you get the idea.

PJB, Wayne, Pennsylvania

I'm glad there's so much support, in and out of academia, for the pretentious and their close relative, the pointedly non-pretentious. I'd always felt guilty for not being better read, and now that I've gone to the trouble of being more well-read, I suppose I must start feeling guilty about that as well. I've read, cover to cover, Joyce's Ulysses as well as Remembrance of Things Past, and passed on such obvious trivia as the DaVinci Code. But as a previous post makes clear, what you read is far less important than how you read it; when your mind is full of "text" and "theory", you may as well be reading anything....whether it's Dante and Joyce, or Stephen King and Maya Angelou.

James Lee, las vegas,

I'll admit to having read the DaVinci Code-- but I'll quickly add that said reading took place under the space of an hour on a flight from NY to DC.

I quite liked Corelli's Mandolin, however.

As for French academics being oversubsidised-- I can tell you, as a French academic, or at least an American academic in the French system, that this is sadly not the case.

Lauren, Paris, France,

I have a bookshelf full of books I have yet to read, although by having them on the shelf I feel like I have read them. When I want to read a new book, I buy it and add it to the bookshelf. This gives me more time to do other things, like watching television, while making me believe, along with any visitors, that I am well read. Eventually I would have forgotten the content of any of these unread books anyway, so I can discuss them with others as if I had read them and forgotten the content, but retained the gist, which I will have gleaned from their blurb when buying the books originally.

Vincent Sheehan, Sydney, Australia

Bah. As a successful university student, I find that reading books often gets in the way of understanding them properly. It's the received view of the authors that's really important in most intellectual contexts.

As Derrida says, once you start paying attention to the actual texts themselves, you generally start to find all sorts of contradictions and points of conflict with the received view--so that if you just read a book on your own, you're likely to end up with an interpretation totally different than what it's *supposed* to be.

Of course, ideally you want to read a book in light of the received view, and force it in line. But come on, who has time for that.

Eric, Austin, TX

Language is an encoding - you are only as good as your last decoding of that code, perhaps in a cryptic message. Clear enough?

aaron, brooklyn, NY

Indeed, let's not read anything. Let's not even bother saying that we have. Let's let the postmodernists continue to fill the heads of students (the ones that hang around til 3rd or fourth year) with mind boggling garbage about just how unimportant everything is and that not reading things might be a better way to read afterall.

No, do let's not. Let's read. We'll read books cover to cover and then talk about them.

Proust, Dante, even Flaubert all have their place. Rather than dismissing them as being pretentious (which they almost certainly are to some degree), let's think about them. Why can't people take the time to think?

The world is increasingly philistine. Let's not knock the French for doing something about it.

Hugh Holt, Melbourne, Australia

Should I admit to having read this article? Should I admit to being able to read? As long as author interviews are broadcast, and with audio-books and test-to-speech software available, literacy is unnecessary. One need only recall some sound bites to be able to converse vivaciously, win friends and influence people, wow'em at parties, get laid, etc.

ric carter, volcano, california

Ms. Vine
I've never read you before this article but I must say that you are simply wonderful. Thank you for your prose and humor!

Stacy Sullivan, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

Several years ago there were these "Bluff your way in ..." booklets.
What about a " Bluff your way in the canons" booklet

Heriberto Rodríguez, san Jose, COSTA RICA

Stephen Potter wrote "Notes on the Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship" - I can't remember the exact title, and he followed it up with a few other books on much the same topic. The idea was that, to be one up on someone, that someone had to be made to be one down. Potter had a good chapter on how to make someone think that you've read a book, so getting one up on him. Potter struck me as being quintessentially English and he is worth reading from cover to cover.

mverskin, Toronto, Ontario

Lovely.

GLB, Highland Beach, Florida

M. Baynard is obviously unfamiliar with American university students, who have their own method--read one page, then expound deeply on that page's meaning, whether real or imagined (preferably imagined). Sprinkle in a few paraphrases of beleifs you've heard your professor expound, et voila: an insightful, brilliant essay. Or simply purchase Cliff's Notes--breezy synopses of the vital bits of the canon.

Jason , Nashville, TN,

Very funny.
Rumor has it that Ms. Bloom's "yes" times 3 occurs well towards the end of the book. Only a hypocrite would cite this as evidence of not having finished the thing. How less bad is having read 90% than all?

lewis cook, Forest Hills, NYC, USA

I don't know if the British indulge themselves in "Cliff Notes" for major literature, but the zenith of American literary prowess is to be able to discuss classics with having read neither the books nor their Cliff Notes. The epitome of vapidity.

Perhaps the best way to discuss a book one hasn't read is to watch the movie based on the book. If one can glean the essence of a book and talk about it without once mentioning Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, one is seriously intellectual.

Any mention of Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson automatically identifies one as having an IQ of 85 or less.

Joseph Porter, St. Louis, Missouri USA

Perhaps a Harry Potter association as well.

Richard Fye, Alexandria, VA, US

Excellent comments, very smart. Sorry to say so!

Saleem, London,

I laughed hard for a while at the ha ha part. I was feeling quite smug for a moment before.

A very entertaining, if suspect review.

Paul Freynet, Burnaby, Canada/BC

I guess that you have really not read "Corelli's Mandolin"
(the title of the novel), because you gave the name of the movie based on the novel.

Alan Marsh, New York, NY

nice piece.
the issue is why read any of them ?
if the only intrest in one does not reqeir ist actual reading its a better occupation for one's mind t hear about or read a brief.

pathologies decrees prowess and if prending your better motivate you to the fact then pridefullness is meritable

How to Avoid remistake what you Shouldn’t Have Read — But Have is book many would be happy to read (and write)

i rather forgive myself and other for all the above then hide and seek on other.

HH husa, warwick, United Kingdom

Thjis is a very witty piece. I had a friend who broke a leg and only THEN could read Proust; he wanted to keep the plaster on much longer to keep the excuse of finishing reading it, because he was mesmerized. The book changed his character so I did not touch it. I always considered Joyce as a brilliant satirist of literary modernism untill an other friend convinced me it was all very serious. Writing a really good novel, creating a world which opens-up a profound perspective upon human life, is a rare gift though. Instead of the generous froth washing on the coast of public space, one should look for that miraculous window upon inner experience. I would like to strongly recommend 'Night train to Lissabon' by Pascal Mercier, a masterwork, and just such writing, and obviously a future Great Classic. I got the tome from a family member for my birthday, but was too busy to delve into it, but reading little fragments at random just soaked me in and I was lost. This is definitely a book one should have read, in secret.

John Borstlap, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Sarah Vine is wickedly funny, especially with her surmise that Joyce did not finish writing Ulysses because no one has read it cover to cover. I am ashamed to say that I have. I have no valid excuse. I was determined to read every word, so that when I pilloried it in polite conversation, I would not be trapped by the obvious question. I started out determined to read 50 pages a day, but I got slower and slower and slower. I would slump into the kitchen, where my wife would look at me and say with heartfelt compassion, "You're an idiot." There is one good chapter, not the famous last, which is as bad as you would think it must be if someone described it to you, but the parody of popular newspaper writing. As with so much bad 20th century art, it seems likely that it is a malicious joke or the work of a charlatan, but what makes it so much worse than that is the author's bullet-proof sincerity and commitment to his aesthetic. I'm not repeating this experiment with Proust.

Stephen Kennamer, New Hope, Virginia

I possess overweaning intellectual pride, but I confess I read the book. Luckily I did not see the film.
I admit that reading the book enabled me, by dint of some background in the Merovingian myths, to verify once again the adage attributed to Conrad Adenaur: "I am constantly amazed by the limits of human intelligence, altho there are no limits to man's stupidity".

Elisha Galon, Ramat Hasharon, Israel

He never does tell you how to do it.

Thomas Bloch, Alajuela,

I think there must be a lot of hum-flummery in print as well as at cocktail parties. Several years ago, I published a book review which was not entirely positive, and received a letter from the author thanking me for the review because it was clear that I had read the book from cover to cover. He didn't expect that courtesy.

Robert M. Copeland , Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, USA

Please note that the author's name is Pierre Bayard. And "Comment par les livres que l'on n'a pas lus" shows how it is possible to have an interesting exchange with somebody even about books one did not read, for instance by asking questions about them. In a way, Bayard's book proves that when Oscar Wilde declared : « Je ne lis jamais un livre dont je dois écrire la critique ; on se laisse tellement influencer », he was right.

Gilles Des Rivières-Hoode, Montréal,

I am with you on the books I shouldn't have read, but I wish to tell youthat I, myself, have read close to 100 books, which is a hell of a lot more than my third dog has done, and, furthermore, I might add, that, in conjunction with reading partners, I have read several more. That being said, however, I must add that my memory is so poor these days, that I have completely forgottenwhich books they were, though some of them were pretty damned good. In all likelihood, I have read any book you could care to name, up to, and including last month's publications. I decline to comment upon them, moreover, unless, that is, presumptuous of me to even suggest it, though nevertheless i shall, and that is, doubtlessly, the Bible remains, to this day, the most talked about, unread book in the known history of the written, and, possibly, the as yet unwritten.

Richard Buss, White Rock, B.C., Canada

How brilliantly pretentious Sarah Vine is when she castigates the pretentious French for being so pretentious. How wonderfully ironic it is that she is so condescending, pretentiously condescending perhaps, about her (the English's) supposed unpretentiousness. For shame!

George Ryyad, Waterloo, Canada

Sarah Vine is the second funniest reviewer ever. Those interested in the funniest should refer to my forthcoming opus on the malaise in the American Academy entitled, "A Cocktail Discussion Near You: Forthcoming Book Profects That Will Never Be Completed."

RM, Memphis, U.S.A.

Have you written a book I could pretend to read?

I love how you write, you made me laugh without even trying, which is my favourite form of mirth, the unexpected kind...

Rain, Podunk, Finland

This is real stomach churning small-mindedness and xenophobia. The sarcastic sneering at French and Irish writers betrays Sarah Vine's little Englandism. Pause for an upchuck after first few paragraphs.

Colin Samson, Colchester,

See how the internet can corrupt.

Raymond Resetar, West Mifflin,

One can only believe that the necessity of this book (in French, by the French) indicates that the insular Academie has never heard of Cliff Notes.

H. S. Conway, Longmont, CO, USA

In the one life you have it's a real shame not to read Ulysses or Proust. It's a loss you can't know you've suffered, but a loss anyhow.

Martin Browning, peoria, illinois

This article gave me the best belly laugh I've had in months!

e.owens, Kalispell, MT

I didn't read the column, but I agree with the general idea. I hope that's the right response.

tony o'brien, auckland, new zealand

I'm delighted to admit that I've read 'The Da Vinci Code' (the illustrated collector's edition, no less) and, in the same sentence, declare that I have intellectual pride. I knew very little of it other than its claim to shoddy history. I was actually suprised at how bad it was. A book that has a homicidal albino monk on page 1, followed by the scene (page 3) where he turns his back on his dying victim with the words "My work here is done" actually went downhill from there. In fact the ending (which I glady confess to reading to) was even worse than the rest of the book.

If one aspires to be an intellectual, one must nourish the inner philistine.

Larry Cook B.A./L.L.B, Dip.Comp.Sci, Hobart, Australia

I never read all Proust, although for ten years I possessed a set Lionel Trilling sold to a used bookstore near Columbia. I kinda like Ulysses, but it took a July to really read, at the university library every day in Ann Arbor. I threw out my TV and only half-regret it annually on Superbowl Sunday. It's taken twenty years not to read Book One of The Iliad, but I've sure read a lot of translations (of Book One). I'm a Roman Catholic atheist, and I'm sure that reading Butler's Saint of the Day has lead me to almost as many godly thoughts as believing Catholics. Who knows what we know? God?

Michael Andre, New York, New York

I haven't read The da Vinci Code, honest.
I haven't finished the complete works of Jillie Cooper yet.

Brian gunn, Nottingham, UK

I've practiced this since childhood. The New York Times book Review functions as a Cliff's Notes for grownups. Why read a book when you can read a hundred book reviews? An ADHD's wet dream, the internet, with all the trimmings these days, allows me to skim a ginormous amount of
material, from an almost unlimited number of fields.
Strangely, I find everyone else to be so deadly boring.
Oh, well, there is the youth. Although comparing the 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' audience with the AOL audience is really depressing. The AOL
audience must be in the lowest quintile of wiredom.
Cya in the funny papers!

Dennis Crow, Chicago, Il