From a recent piece on Reuters.com, I learned that “Most Britons have lied about the books they read.”
According to the study, which surveyed 1,342 members of the public on behalf of the organizers of World Book Day, people lie like rugs when they’re trying to impress others with their erudition.
Reuters tells us that “those who lied have claimed to have read:
1. 1984 – George Orwell (42 percent)
2. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (31)
3. Ulysses – James Joyce (25)
4. The Bible (24)
5. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (16)
6. A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking (15)
7. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (14)”
And naturally the list continues. I didn’t read all of it, even though I’m pretending I did.
Naturally, too, the Reuters story reminded me of the quintessential academic game which is described, developed or — at the very least — dubbed, “Humiliation” by English writer and critic David Lodge in his definitive campus novel Changing Places.
To engage in “Humiliation,” scholars — and Lodge always uses the word loosely, to his credit — take turns admitting which canonical works they’ve never actually read: the “winner” is the one who’s NOT read the most seminal of all texts.
But when one of the poor souls admits that he’s never read Hamlet, the game spirals out of control. Is that even POSSIBLE? Has he REALLY never read Hamlet?
(Please imagine the phrase “Has he REALLY never read Hamlet?” uttered in a terribly plummy, terribly clenched-teeth upper-class accent, the way Lady Bracknell says “A handbag?” in The Importance of Being Ernest — which, of course, you HAVE read, haven’t you?)
A few titles on the Reuters list surprised me: Isn’t it sort of a double whammy, for example, to lie about reading the Bible — or it is better, so that you claim never to have know about the whole “Thou Shalt Not Lie” business when you’re quizzed by St. Peter (Intellectual Poser to St. Peter: “I didn’t know, man! I only saw the movie!”)? Are people lying about reading early Rushdie so that they can avoid lying about later, more provocative (and potentially life-threatening) Rushdie? How much briefer would A Brief History of Time had to have been for people to read it?
Fay Weldon, C.B.E. and my personal heroine, writing godmother, and general muse, once gave me poignant instructions on authorship.
“Gina,” she announced when I was 29 and couldn’t afford a pair of red shoes in the window of Bergdorf’s, “You must write books that people will READ.”
I always thought that was a great piece of advice.
Perhaps, however, that should be amended; perhaps the goal of writers should be to become the author that ambitious people pretend they’ve read.
(My bid for a top spot in “Humiliation” is the fact that I never read Don Quixote, which is, I hear, a pretty good book.)
