[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I've never heard of an author who doesn't read ANY books EVER, so I call preemptive straw-man on that.

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Sorry to have to answer your ill-informed 'straw man' accusation, Anamardoll. Simply Google 'authors who admit to not reading books' and you will find many.

The very first listing there, in fact, is about the renowned Umberto Eco who openly states in a Guardian piece: "I'm a writer, not a reader." There are others, Of course, I have read Eco. But after reading what he has said here and there, I will never do so again.

Neil, his quote has NOTHING to do with not reading books.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...ter-not-reader

Umberto Eco: There are more books in the world than hours in which to read them. We are thus deeply influenced by books we haven't read, that we haven't had the time to read. Who has actually read Finnegans Wake – I mean from beginning to end? Who has read the Bible properly, from Genesis to the Apocalypse?

And yet I've a fairly accurate notion of what I haven't read. I have to admit that I only read War and Peace when I was 40. But I knew the basics before then. The Mahabharata – I've never read that, despite owning three editions in different languages. Who has actually read the Kama Sutra? And yet everyone talks about it, and some practise it too. So we can see that the world is full of books that we haven't read, but that we know pretty well.

And yet when we eventually pick them up, we find they are already familiar. How is that? First, there's the esoteric explanation – there are these waves that somehow travel from the book to you – to which I don't subscribe. Second, perhaps it's not true that you've never opened the book; over the years you're bound to have moved it from place to place, and may have flicked through it and forgotten that you've done so. Third, over the years you've read lots of books that have mentioned this one and so made it seem familiar.

Jean-Claude Carrière: There are books on our shelves we haven't read and doubtless never will, that each of us has probably put to one side in the belief that we will read them later on, perhaps even in another life. The terrible grief of the dying as they realise their last hour is upon them and they still haven't read Proust.

UE: When people ask whether I've read this or that book, I've found that a safe answer is, "You know, I don't read, I write." That shuts them up. Although some of the questions come up time and time again: "Have you read Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair?" I ended up giving in and trying to read it, on three different occasions. But I found it terribly dull.

He's saying that (a) he hasn't finished Vanity Fair despite trying on three separate times (I'm willing to bet a lot of people haven't, and if he's trying to finish it then he is reading it, he's just not finishing it.) and (b) that great works disseminate through our culture and that there's no ONE "oh, you haven't read X? Then you're not qualified to write," measuring-stick book.

The quote isn't about "not reading", it's about dodging "gotcha" questions.

He very clearly is saying that he does read frequently -- he's read War and Peace, for goodness's sake, and he also mentions reading many other books that flow ideas from other classics into out cultural consciousness. I don't see how anyone can interpret that quote to remotely mean that the author in question doesn't love to read.

(I also note from Wikipedia that his most famous book is a literary deconstruction of other works -- hard to write something like that if you don't read books!)

[moderation note: this post was edited by moderation and by anamardoll to comply with our guidelines and may not reflect what was later posted in response the original post.]