Bayard’s central thesis is that to be able to talk about books, to be able to live the ‘literary life,’ to be considered ‘well read’, one has to appreciate where any particular book is located within the immense library of all books that have been written. It is this sense and knowledge of place - of genres, traditions, innovations, similarities and contrasts - rather than a detailed knowledge of the book’s content, wherein one may become hopelessly lost, that constitutes a cultured and cultivated approach to the world of books, a life that Bayard argues is essentially social rather than solitary.
From a review of How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard (which I’ve now ordered from the library).
