Pierre Bayard





Pierre Bayard

Author profile


born
in France
January 01, 1954

gender
male


About this author

Pierre Bayard (born 1954) is a French author, professor of literature and connoisseur of psychology.

Bayard's recent book Comment parler des livres que l'on n'a pas lus?, or "How to talk about books you haven't read", is a bestseller in France and has received much critical attention in English language press.

A few of his books present revisionist readings of famous fictional mysteries. Not only does he argue that the real murderer is not the one that the author presents to us, but in addition these works suggest that the author subconsciously knew who the real culprit is. His 2008 book L'Affaire du Chien des Baskerville was published in English as Sherlock Holmes was Wrong: Re-opening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles. His earlier b...more


Average rating: 3.42 · 1,564 ratings · 408 reviews · 20 distinct works · Similar authors
How to Talk About Books You...
by
3.35 of 5 stars 3.35 avg rating — 1,174 ratings — published 2007 — 34 editions
Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?: ...
by
3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 avg rating — 198 ratings — published 2000 — 6 editions
Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: ...
3.31 of 5 stars 3.31 avg rating — 156 ratings — published 2008 — 15 editions
Miten puhua kirjoista joita...
3.44 of 5 stars 3.44 avg rating — 9 ratings
Le plagiat par anticipation
3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2009
Hamlet Üzerine Soruşturma: ...
by
3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2002 — 2 editions
Aurais-je été résistant ou ...
4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2013
Peut On Appliquer La Litté...
4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2004
Comment améliorer les  œuv...
2.67 of 5 stars 2.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2000
Comment parler des lieux où...
3.5 of 5 stars 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2012
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“The books we love offer a sketch of a whole universe that we secretly inhabit, and in which we desire the other person to assume a role.

One of the conditions of happy romantic compatibility is, if not to have read the same books, to have read at least some books in common with the other person—which means, moreover, to have non-read the same books. From the beginning of the relationship, then, it is crucial to show that we can match the expectations of our beloved by making him or her sense the proximity of our inner libraries.”
Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

“(in which, along with Montaigne, we raise the question of whether a book you have read and completely forgotten, and which you have even forgotten you have read, is still a book you have read)”
Pierre Bayard

“Our relationship with literary characters, at least to those that exercise a certain attraction over us, rests in fact on a denial. We know perfectly well, on a conscious level, that these characters “do not exist,” or in any case do not exist in the same way as do the inhabitants of the real world. But things manifest in an entirely different way on the unconscious level, which is interested not in the ontological differences between worlds but in the effect they produce on the psyche.
Every psychoanalyst knows how deeply a subject can be influenced, and even shaped, sometimes to the point of tragedy, by a fictional character and the sense of identification it gives rise to. This remark must first of all be understood as a reminder that we ourselves are usually fictional characters for other people […]”
Pierre Bayard, Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles

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