Comparative Critical Studies 5, 23, pp. 249269 DOI: 10.

3366/E174418540800044X

BCLA 2008

Bibliomania and the Folly of Reading

BERNHARD METZ

Libri quosdam ad scientiam, quosdam ad insaniam deduxere. (Books have led some to knowledge and some to madness.) Francesco Petrarca, De remediis utriusque fortunae, De librorum copia

Antiquity was a relaxed period in terms of reading. With only a few texts around, there was a small number of well-known authors, and one knew them well or even by heart. It was paradise compared to our modern world of millions of new releases each year and the burden of all the historic books, with never enough time to take notice, let alone to read them all. But as every reader of Alberto Manguels A History of Reading or other works on this topic will know, the complaint over too many books and too little time is as old as the history of the written book or even the book-scroll.1 Literacy once promised to save time, but the opposite happened. In his Epistulae ad Lucilium Seneca gives the dietetic advice to read less instead of reading everything and to choose carefully: Illud autem vide, ne ista lectio auctorum multorum et omnis generis voluminum habeat aliquid vagum et instabile. [. . .] Distringit librorum multitudo. Itaque cum legere non possis, quantum habueris, satis est habere, quantum legas.2 This is the problem which is at stake here but there are solutions to it. The bibliomaniac or book fool, as he is named since Sebastian Brants Ship of Fools (1492), breaks Senecas rule of Satis est habere, quantum legas. He possesses more books than he is able to read as all of us do and often he doesnt read them at all, since shopping, collecting and possessing are already too demanding and time-consuming; hopefully this is not true for any of us. The book fool unies many key aspects related to reading, print culture, and scholarship. He stands for the distinction between using vs. collecting books or reading vs. not reading at all. All bibliomaniacs have tremendous libraries, yet they dont use them. At least not in a philologically accepted way: by exact, intense, and attentive reading and writing about the reading. The bibliomaniac is the counterpart of the scholar; he is the 249

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oppressed and excluded other of scholarship. He embodies our bad conscience so many books, so little time. He is perfectly trained in all types of speed and fast reading, which results in not reading at all. He embodies an unacknowledged desire and a bad habit we normally try to avoid but often simply cannot control. The book fool doesnt care too much about correctness and gets excluded, as Jackson Holbrooks Anatomy of Bibliomania shows: They [the bibliomaniacs] amass books not for use but for the lust of possession. Or, in the other extreme, for inordinate consumption [. . .]. Bibliomania is perverted bibliophily. [. . .] Bibliomania is [. . .] inordinate or corrupt book-love.3 Why such a harsh judgement? Consider Robert Musils Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930), this well-known but rarely completely read novel. General Stumm von Bordwehr tells Ulrich about his talk with a librarian and unveils the arcana imperii of the Wiener Hofbibliothek:
Sie wollen wissen, wieso ich jedes Buch kenne? Das kann ich Ihnen nun allerdings sagen: Weil ich keines lese! [. . .] Es ist das Geheimnis aller guten Bibliothekare, da sie von der ihnen anvertrauten Literatur niemals mehr als die Bchertitel und das Inhaltsverzeichnis lesen. Wer sich auf den Inhalt einlt, ist als Bibliothekar verloren! hat er mich belehrt. Er wird niemals einen berblick gewinnen! Ich frage ihn atemlos: Sie lesen also niemals eines von den Bchern? Nie; mit Ausnahme der Kataloge. Aber Sie sind doch Doktor? Gewi. Sogar Universittsdozent; Privatdozent fr Bibliothekswesen. Die Bibliothekswissenschaft ist eine Wissenschaft auch allein und fr sich, erklrte er.4

Bibliomaniacs (and sometimes librarians, book-sellers, and bibliographers) dont read any longer. And when they do, they only read titles, names and places of printers shops and other bibliographically relevant information. They are interested in the core data instead of the actual content of the book. Otherwise they lose perspective and cant keep an overview. Unlike Musils librarian we normally cant admit this and have to simulate reading or at least dissimulate our not having read this or that book. Non-reading seems to be the worst thing that can happen to philology and literary studies, but also to the ordinary reader. Pierre Bayard has recently said that admitting to not having read certain great books is one of the last great taboos of private life in our Western societies along with the equally impossible topics of money and sexuality.5 The book fool holds the mirror to the scholar and is also crucial to the history of media. By collecting books as if they were handwritten unique originals he behaves anachronistically. In manuscript culture scrolls or codices still possess an aura of the autographic original, which gets lost

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through high print runs. The bibliomaniac is interested in everything that increases rarity and originality: misprints, special editions, very old or very rare prints, bindings, covers, paper qualities, etc. But in print culture theres hardly a book printed only once, and their quantity increases tremendously. Treating printed books as unique and singular originals wont solve the problem of too many books and too little time. Giacomo in Gustave Flauberts Bibliomanie (1836) makes this mistake and is struck by the fact that there could be another copy of the oldest book printed in Spain, which he even killed to get hold of. Giacomo is almost unable to read (Il savait peine lire), but he loves books and appreciates everything connected with them: Il aimait un livre, parce que ctait un livre; il aimait son odeur, sa forme, son titre.6 Thodore in Charles Nodiers Le Bibliomane (1831) collects uncut books in Greek, which he speaks only rarely. Nevertheless he shows them off with great expertness and bibliographical knowledge. This bibliomaniac gets lethally shocked by nding out that one Elzevir edition of Virgil he owns and thought to be the one with the largest paper margins, simply is not.7 But the book fool also reects the new conditions of reading after Gutenberg. He reads books in a reductive way by skimming and browsing them, picking out the most interesting elements. He creates ways of nonreading, which became important and more or less accepted during the twentieth century. He has developed an informational competence its not his fault when this leads to skipping most of the text. The bibliomaniac is specialized in all types of paratextual information like format, type, title, publication history, etc., and he considers these to be more essential than the texts themselves. His answer to the problem of too many books and too little time consists in the radical cure of nonreading or avoiding to read, which Ephraim Kishons How to Review Books without Really Trying (1962), Peter Bichsels Lob des Nichtlesers (1993), Gion Caveltys Endlich Nichtleser (2000), Renaud Camus Ne lisez pas ce livre! (2000), or Pierre Bayards Comment parler des livres que lon na pas lus? (2007) tried to defend, at least ironically.8 Daniel Pennacs great praise of reading in Comme un roman (1992), which has been recently re-published under the appropriate title The Rights of the Reader, contains a Readers Bill of Rights; the rst of these ten commandments is the right not to read, the second the right to skip pages, the third the right not to nish, and the eighth the right to browse.9 In Hermann Burgers Die Leser auf der Str (1970) reading is nally outsourced to reading societies, as people order professional readers to get their libraries refurbished and equipped with the latest

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releases. These professional readers also bookmark and dog-ear books, write marginal notes, underscore pages or simply order books pre-read from the sellers for a higher price.10 In a still procreative typology Harald Weinrich distinguished between three reading types in history: rst we had few books and few readers, i.e. few readers read few books (wenige Personen lesen wenige Bcher), which was the standard situation for most of the history of reading and was connected to reading aloud. During the eighteenth century this changed to the new status quo of intensive reading, when many readers read few books (viele Personen lesen wenige Bcher), and extensive reading, when many readers read many books (viele Personen lesen viele Bcher), combined with the breakthrough of silent reading. The most recent development could be found in the twentieth century, which Weinrich describes as the era of abundant or defensive reading. All readers have to defend themselves against too many books and avoid reading as often as possible: wir benden uns in der historischen Phase der abundanten Lektre, die vielleicht sogar schon in vielen Fllen eine superabundante und bei den klgsten Kpfen eine defensive Lektre ist.11 Walter Scott called Don Quijote [t]he most determined as well as earliest bibliomaniac upon record,12 but Im not concerned with the phantasmatic loss of the world that we nd in Don Quijote, young Werther or Emma Bovary. Here bibliomania is connected to reading mania, reading craze or Lesesucht, Lesewut, Leseeber, manie de lire, or fringale de lectures, as this eighteenth-century madness was called in its time. But bibliomania is different from reading; rather, the book fool is not reading at all, even when hes exercising all types of wild, inordinate, improper, and forbidden reading. While its often women who suffer from the reading craze, bibliomania seems more frequently to affect men. And I will also leave out historic bibliomaniacs, the great collectors and sometimes infamous biblioklepts like King Ptolemaios, Johann Georg Tinius, John Kerr, Duke of Roxburghe, Richard Heber, Conte Guglielmo Libri Carrucci, or nowadays Stephen Blumberg or William Simon Jacques.13 The 1989 second edition of the OED provides the following description of bibliomania: A rage for collecting and possessing books. However, it also mentions related phenomena like biblioclasm, biblioklepticism, bibliolatry, bibliophilia, and bibliotaphism. The English notion is at least as old as 1734, but even if bibliophilia and bibliomania have always had a very prominent place in England (let us

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remember Richard de Bury and his Philobiblon (13431345), where in the third chapter the advice is given to buy and possess books by all means), the French bibliomanie is older. The earliest occurrence dates back to Guy Patin in 1654, where he speaks of a malady and his wish to prohibit the access to books to bibliomanes: jappelle cette maladie bibliomanie; et je voudrais quil ne ft permis davoir des livres qu ceux qui sont en tat de les lire et den proter.14 No book-possession without reading bibliomaniacs provoke reactions of refusal. Nevertheless, this rejection is no invention of the post-Gutenberg period of incunables and early printing; the book fool in literature is as old as the satiric writings of Lucian of Samosata. Lucians unnamed Syrian book collector is the prototype of the book fool as collector of unread books, a ridiculous shopper of books, ineptus librorum emtor, as Jacob and Heinrich Grimm centuries later dene the German Bchernarr in their Deutsches Wrterbuch in 1860.15 He believes in magic, as if being close to books would make him wiser and more erudite simply by contact:

.16 This belief is ridiculous, but its more common than we would admit. Think honestly of your recent book acquisitions and what you really read of them. Lucians book fool is attracted by the shape and layout of books like all bibliophiles: .17 He reads only the titles, but never the content of the books he owns (Ind. 18). But he also takes them away. Bibliomaniacs tend not only to collect books they dont read, but also to dislike the fact that others could read them. Thats the meaning of bibliotaph and the main accusation in Lucians diatribe. An open-access library is not what this book collector has in mind: .18 There are similar attacks in the works of other ancient writers, such as Petroniuss Satyrica (Sat. 48), which describes Trimalchios libraries and his grotesque lack of erudition. Collecting books as a shortcut to great education and knowledge is not simply a contemporary bad habit.

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Consider one last ancient example, Senecas De tranquillitate animi, where even the library of Alexandria is ridiculed as a showpiece:
Quo innumerabiles libros et bybliothecas, quarum dominus vix tota vita indices perlegit? Onerat discentem turba, non instruit, multoque satius est paucis te auctoribus tradere, quam errare per multos. Quadraginta milia librorum Alexandriae arserunt; pulcherrimum regiae opulentiae monimentum alius laudaverit, sicut Titus Livius, qui elegantiae regum curaeque egregium id opus ait fuisse. Non fuit elegantia illud aut cura, sed studiosa luxuria, immo ne studiosa quidem, quoniam non in studium, sed in spectaculum comparaverant, sicut plerisque ignaris etiam puerilium litterarum libri non studiorum instrumenta, sed cenationum ornamenta sunt. Paretur itaque librorum quantum satis sit, nihil in apparatum.19

After this philosophical claim for the right measure and against the collecting of books for mere show which can also be found in Petrarchs De librorum copia (approx. 1360), another famous plea for bibliomanic temperance20 Seneca gives this ne description of bibliomania:
Quid habes, cur ignoscas homini armaria e citro atque ebore captanti, corpora conquirenti aut ignotorum auctorum aut improbatorum et inter tot milia librorum oscitanti, cui voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent titulique? Apud desidiosissimos ergo videbis quicquid orationum historiarumque est, tecto tenus exstructa loculamenta; iam enim inter balnearia et thermas bybliotheca quoque ut necessarium domus ornamentum expolitur. Ignoscerem plane, si studiorum nimia cupidine erraretur. Nunc ista conquisita, cum imaginibus suis discripta sacrorum opera ingeniorum in speciem et cultum parietum comparantur.21

To use or misuse books as wallpaper is no modern invention; the cultum parietum is quite old. As Jean le Pautre claims in the late seventeenth century, the book fool is somebody who
se plaist aux Livres bien dorez Bien couvers, bien reliez, bien nets, bien Epoudrez Et ne les voit Jamais que par la Couverture. (who likes his books all gilt, well covered, well bound, nice and clean and dustfree, and who never looks at anything but the cover.)

In La Folie du sicle, his cycle of six engraved plates, bibliomania is dened as the greatest folly in the world, worse than vanity, arrogance, pride and carelessness for the right goals. The inscription begins: Cest bien le plus grand fou qui soit dans la nature (The greatest of all natures fools is he).22 The distinction between an acceptable bibliophilia and a pathologized bibliomania is nevertheless difcult. Book love and book madness belong together, and often it is impossible to distinguish between them. It

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Figure 1. Jean le Pautre, La Folie du sicle (Paris: Franois Iollain, before 1683); Bibliothque Nationale de France, cl 61 B 27309.

depends on the perspective and sometimes only the level of madness that the author himself is suffering from. This is part of the ambivalence in how we deal with bibliomania as a scholarly attitude. Alexander Koenina rightly claimed that there is no scholarship without a touch of bibliomania:
Keine Krankheit des Gelehrten ist so unheilbar wie die Bibliomanie. Ist sie aber nicht einmal im Keime vorhanden, kann mit Fug die Gelehrsamkeit in Zweifel gezogen werden. Der Gelehrte lebt von Bchern fr Bcher. [. . .] Wer sie nicht liebt und besitzen will, gilt in der Respublica litteraria als Auenseiter, unter all den Sonderlingen also als ein wunderlicher Fremdling im Haus der Erudition, der Bibliothek. [. . .] Die meisten Gelehrten sind Bibliomanen, unter den eigentlichen Bibliomanen aber nur wenige Gelehrte.23

Its striking that there is rarely ever a warm and sympathetic treatment of bibliomaniacs to be found, at least not before the nineteenth century;24 on the contrary, they are excluded in every possible way. Many bibliomaniacs die, often burning with their unread books. Even though Peter Kien in Elias Canettis Die Blendung (1936) and Jorge of Burgos in Umberto Ecos Il nome della rosa (1980) both read, these examples are as good as the aforementioned Giacomo or Thodore. In Charles

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Asselineaus LEnfer du bibliophile (1860) the narrator doesnt get burned, but he dreams one of his worst nightmares: a bibliomaniac hellre. At the very least, bibliomaniacs are depicted as ridiculous and bizarre gures. Alberto Notas Il Bibliomane (18221827), which features the character Don Geronzio, who spends all his money on books and tries to marry his niece Faustina to a Dutch book trader for obvious reasons, is an example of the scholar as antihero and of the tradition of the learned fool. Geronzio pays high sums for books in languages he is not able to read, but he appreciates the beautiful typography and paper of a 1470 edition of Petrarch: Vedete il contorno e larmonia di questi caratteri: sentite questa carta; osservate il margine [. . .] (I, iii). But even Faustina talks to him about the book burning she desires: Vorrei vederla in amme quella libreria. (II, v; I want to see this library on re.)25 In the end it is not the library that burns down, but only the kitchen, out of carelessness Il Bibliomane is a comedy. Why cant all these book fools live their harmless lives? Whats the reason for this ardent rejection? In Don Quijotes case the books get burned to liberate their owner; with the book fools its the other way round, as Kirsten Dickhaut writes: Gerade der Tod der Bibliomane soll am Ende der Texte die Ordnung wiederherstellen, welche die Bchersammler durch ihre grenzberschreitenden Exzesse zerstrt haben.26 Von unnutzen bchern, Of useless books, is the rst chapter in Brants vast description of the varieties of foolish behaviour in his Narrenschiff, which was one of the greatest successes of the book trade in the late fteenth century, especially in its Latin translation. The book fool got his prominent position for possessing a huge number of books which he doesnt understand, since he doesnt read them:
Den vordantz hat man mir gelan Dann ich on nutz vil bcher han Die ich nit ly/und nyt verstan.27

He is also a bibliotaph, and his library becomes a shrine to enclose and bury its contents instead of enabling open access and public discussion:
Uff myn libry ich mych verlan Von bchern hab ich grossen hort Verstand doch drynn gar wenig wort Und halt sie dennacht in den eren Das ich jnn wil der iegen weren Wo man von knsten reden dut Sprich ich / do heym hab ichs fast gut Do mit lo ich begngen mich Das ich vil bcher vor mir sych/28

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Figure 2. Sebastian Brant, Stultifera nauis. Narragonice p[er]fectionis nunq[uam] satis laudata Nauis, translated by Jakob Locher (Basel: Johann Bergmann von Olpe, 1497), p. XI; University Library of Munich, 4 Inc. lat. 867.

Comparing himself to King Ptolemeus he claims:

Ich hab vil bcher ouch des glich Und lys doch gantz wenig dar jnn Worumb wolt ich brechen myn synn Und mit der ler mich bkmbren fast Wer vil studiert / wrt ein fantast29

Brant, who owned a vast library himself, had a completely different opinion. Here speaks folly. The book fool is a jackass for not wanting to get the right message. He is not a good reader, but rather no reader at all, and certainly not a scholarly reader. His Latin is so poor that he only understands vinum for wine and stultus for jerk. But you have to read this in the original German, not in Jakob Lochers Latin translation, which made the richly illustrated Stultifera Navis (1497) famous all over Europe and enjoyable even for lazy readers. The book fool in the Latin version claims not to read, but he does it in perfect Latin:
En ego possideo multos, quos raro libellos Perlego, tum lectos negligo, nec sapio.

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Figure 3. Johann Christoph Weigel, Bcher-Narr, Centi-Folium Stultorum (Vienna: Johann Carl Megerle; Nuremberg: Johann Christoph Weigel 1709); Dombibliothek Freising M/012 00144/M.

In the handwritten marginal note, printed in later editions, we read: Distrahit enim librorum multitudo. Et faciendi libros plures non est nis, which intertextually echoes the already mentioned passage from Seneca (ep. mor. II, 3) and the Book of Ecclesiastes (12:12).30 The book fool has since become a well-known gure in moralistic reections and mirrors of good manners. In a famous rejection La Rochefoucauld attacked him,31 as did La Bruyre in Book XIII (De la mode) of the sixth edition of his Caractres (1691), where he compared the library of a bibliomaniac to a tannery because of the odd smell of morocco leather which covered all his beautifully gilded unread books (il ne lit jamais): une odeur de maroquin noir dont les livres sont tous couverts; [. . .] ils sont dors sur tranche, orns de lets dor, et de la bonne edition, [. . .] sa tannerie, quil appelle bibliothque.32 In the Centi-Folium Stultorum (1709), an alphabetically arranged and richly illustrated typology of a hundred fools that is sometimes wrongly ascribed to Abraham a Sancta Clara, Brant and Senecas topics are

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re-combined once more. The book fool is dened in the traditional manner as an unlearned collector, but a new twist is added by claiming that the readers of dangerous and immoral literature are also foolish (welche ohne Unterschied alle Bcher, so ihnen vor die Hand kommen, lesen, und theils hierdurch verkehrt, aber nicht gelehrt werden, indeme, wo sie nur ein nrrisch-unzchtig-oder verbottenes Buch knnen aufftreiben, sie es), including those who read without thinking and those who skim with supercial interest out of pure curiosity (welche die Bcher nur obenhin au eylen, und vermeinen, es seye schon gut, wann sie nur das Buch bald augelesen haben, und dannoch, wann sie fertig, weder vom End oder Mittel, vielweniger aber vom Anfang desselben Buchs das Geringste nichts zu sagen wissen). The CentiFolium Stultorum has a clear concept of good reading and is contemptuous of all other types: wer anderst liset, der drschet lhres Stroh (whoever reads differently is a phrasemonger).33 At this time medical literature began to dene bibliomania as madness. One notorious attack was Louis Bollioud-Mermets anonymously published De la Bibliomanie (1761). Bibliomania is rejected here for the following reasons: it is an excess, a luxury beyond measure, and it is useless, since the outcome of these readings is not new books, but no reading at all. However, Bollioud-Mermet gives another reason related to medical discourse: Bibliomania is pathological, and it is very often connected to criminal acts like book theft, stealing or murdering to get money for new books. Instead of looking only at the moral aspects, he recommends treating bibliomaniacs as monomaniacal madmen who are difcult to cure. Its necessary les regarder comme des malades difciles gurir (to see them as patients who are hard to cure).34 It was dAlembert himself who wrote the articles in the second volume of the Encyclopdie (1752) on Bibliomane and Bibliomanie, which he dened as fureur davoir des livres, et den ramasser and which he classied as une des passions les plus ridicules, one of the most ridiculous passions.35 Again, the worst type of bibliomania remains bibliotaphism, and dAlembert gives many examples. For good reasons there is a supplement article on the Bibliotaphe in Volume 17 of the Encyclopdie (1767) which denes this type of bibliomaniac as the worst and most ancient: les bibliotaphes namassent des livres que pour empcher les autres den acqurir et den faire usage (bibliotaphs only collect books in order to prevent others from acquiring and making good use of them). The article proceeds, giving one of the harshest and most disgusted denitions of bibliomania: La bibliotaphie est la bibliomanie

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de lavare ou du jaloux, et par consquent les bibliotaphes sont de plus dune faon la peste des lettres; car il ne faut pas croire que ces sortes de personnes soient en petit nombre: lEurope en a toujours t infecte, et mme aujourdhui il est peu de curieux qui nen rencontrent de temsen-tems en leur chemin.36 Thomas Frognall Dibdin published his Bibliomania; or, BookMadness; Containing Some Account of the History, Symptoms, and Cure of this Fatal Disease in England in 1809, and bibliomania was known for a long time as Dibdins syndrome. Contrary to the French tradition, he dened the love of books as one of the most reasonable and praiseworthy of all follies and mentioned the following: Symptoms of this disease [. . .] by a passion for I. Large Paper Copies: II. Uncut Copies: III. Illustrated Copies: IV. Unique Copies: V. Copies printed upon Vellum: VI. First Editions: VII. True Editions: VIII. A general desire for the Black Letter.37 Dibdins ironic cure, as opposed to book burnings or normative reading, consisted in a plea for good and affordable reprints of rare books, open-access libraries, and good bibliographies; Bibliomania itself consists mainly of bibliographic information. Nevertheless even Dibdin, the initiator of the famous bibliophile Roxburghe Club, distinguishes in the rst place between the book and its content and between
useful and protable works whether these be printed upon small or large paper, in the gothic, roman or Italian type! To consider purely the intrinsic excellence, and not the exterior splendor or adventitious value, of any production, will keep us perhaps wholly free from this disease.38

The reservation against all forms of reading that are aberrant and unacceptable for scholars thus still remains intact. Take for example Harold Blooms How to Read and Why? Its preface begins with the distinction between good and bad reading habits: There is no single way to read well, though there is a prime reason why we should read. Blooms is a nineteenth-century model of education and selfimprovement through the reading of the great books: Reading well is best pursued as an implicit discipline; nally there is no method but yourself, when your self has been fully molded.39 Bibliomania as a method of non-reading as opposed to reading well or badly simply breaks out of this frame. Concerning Weinrichs notion of defensive reading, it could be dened as self-modelling through non-reading. We will nd many aspects of it over time, reaching into the twentieth century.

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In conclusion I will present some amiable and sympathetic literary treatments: the book fool in Hermann Burgers Der Bchernarr (1970), Irnerio in Italo Calvinos Se una notte dinverno un viaggiatore (1979), Reger in Thomas Bernhards Alte Meister (1985), and Howie in Nicholson Bakers The Mezzanine (1988). Burgers book fool realizes exactly Weinrichs defensive type of reading. Instead of using the library as a workplace, he goes there regularly for sleeping. Hes there every day without even leang through books to get rid of all he had read during his lifetime: Der Mann konnte einen Vormittag reglos auf seinem Stuhl sitzen und in sein Buch starren, ohne eine Seite umzuwenden.40 His therapy and defensive reading consists in sleeping: Das ist nmlich das einzige, was die Bcher nicht ertragen, da man ber ihnen einschlft. Sie sind beleidigt und nehmen freiwillig alles zurck, was sie vermittelt haben. Ich lese mich leer, ich lese mich frei. Ich entziehe mich ihnen im Schlaf.41 Once a veracious reader, this bibliomaniac frees himself completely from reading. Calvinos Irnerio is also a highly specialized non-reader and had to train himself hard to become one. In the typology of Lettore and Lettrice, Irnerio stands for a third option, being the non-reader, il Non Lettore:
Io non leggo libri! dice Irnerio. Cosa leggi, allora? Niente. Mi sono abituato cos bene a non leggere che non leggo neanche quello che mi capita sotto gli occhi per caso. Non facile: ci insegnano a leggere da bambini e per tutta la vita si resta schiavi di tutta la roba scritta che ci buttano sotto gli occhi. Forse ho fatto un certo sforzo anchio, i primi tempi, per imparare a non leggere, ma adesso mi viene proprio naturale.42

Instead of reading them, Irnerio destroys books and uses them for sculptures, book works and art objects. He reduces books solely to their materiality and pure outside; this bibliomaniac is a true biblioclast:
Cercavo un libro, dice Irnerio. Credevo che non leggessi mai, obietti. Non per leggere. per fare. Faccio delle cose coi libri. Degli oggetti. S, delle opere: statue, quadri, come li vuoi chiamare. Ho fatto anche unesposizione. Fisso i libri con delle resine, e restano l. Chiusi, o aperti, oppure anche gli do delle forme, li scolpisco, li apro dentro dei buchi. una bella materia il libro, per lavorarci, ci si pu fare tante cose.43

Reger, in Bernhards novel Alte Meister, claims to have never read an entire book in his whole life and hes already eighty-two. He combines

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leang and skipping with the older practice of intensive reading:

[I]ch habe niemals in meinem Leben ein einziges Buch ausgelesen, meine Art zu lesen ist die eines hochgradig talentierten Umbltterers, also eines Mannes, der lieber umblttert, als liest, der also Dutzende, unter Umstnden Hunderte von Seiten umblttert, bevor er eine einzige liest; [. . .] Es ist doch besser, wir lesen alles in allem nur drei Seiten eines Vierhundertseitenbuches tausendmal grndlicher als der normale Leser, der alles, aber nicht eine einzige Seite grndlich liest, sagte er. Es ist besser, zwlf Zeilen eines Buches mit hchster Intensitt zu lesen und also zur Gnze zu durchdringen, [. . .] als wir lesen das ganze Buch wie der normale Leser [. . .].44

Non-reading and intensive reading nd a balance in Reger; its the reader who has to choose what to read. Senecas reading diet and the hard training to become a non-reader are mentioned once again:
Wer alles liest, hat nichts begriffen, sagte er. Es ist nicht notwendig, den ganzen Goethe zu lesen, den ganzen Kant, auch nicht notwendig, den ganzen Schopenhauer; ein paar Seiten Werther, ein paar Seiten Wahlverwandschaften und wir wissen am Ende mehr ber die beiden Bcher, als wenn wir sie von Anfang zum Ende gelesen htten, was uns in jedem Fall um das reinste Vergngen bringt. Aber zu dieser drastischen Selbstbeschrnkung gehrt so viel Mut und so viel Geisteskraft, da sie nur sehr selten aufgebracht werden kann und da wir selbst sie nur selten aufbringen; der lesende Mensch [. . .] verdirbt sich wie der eischfressende den Magen und die gesamte Gesundheit, den Kopf und die ganze geistige Existenz.45

Bakers Howie is also not interested in learned reading; he picks out what he likes, and leaves behind what he doesnt. He studies Wittgenstein, Spinoza or Hobbes only via their biographies instead of their theoretical writings: Yet while these tiny truths about three philosophers (of whom, to be honest, I have read very little) have at least temporarily disabled any interest I might have had in reading them further, I crave knowledge of this kind of detail.46 Howie has read only a few pages of Arrianus, Tacitus, Tully or Proskopios, but he likes to see them standing on his book shelf because of the colours of the books covers. He looks at his books and takes them in his hands, but he doesnt read them. And if he reads, its only a randomly chosen passage, which often decides whether Howie buys a book or not, as with Marcus Aurelius:
And sure enough, the rst thing I read when I opened the Meditations at random in the bookstore stunned me with its neness. [. . .] As often happens, I liked that rst deciding sentence better than anything I came across in later consecutive reading. I had been carrying the book around for two weeks of lunch hours; its spine was

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worn from being held more than from being read [. . .]; and by now, disenchanted, ipping around a lot, I was nearly ready to abandon it entirely [. . .]. I closed the book.47

The book fool personies the freedom of the reader. Instead of clinging to the notion that only a linear and complete reading of a book is acceptable, he claims his right to decide what to read and what to leave out. There are relatively few novels which obviously play with the opportunities of reader freedom, including Julio Cortzars Rayuela (1963), Giorgio Manganellis Nuovo commento (1969), Andreas Okopenkos LexikonRoman (1970), Raymond Federmans Take it or leave it (1976), Dubravka Ugrei s Patchwork Story teca (1981) or Renaud Camuss P. A. c (1997).48 Often the bibliomaniac only reads the authors name, the title, and the table of contents. He represents all types of wild, inordinate, improper and forbidden reading practices, yet he nevertheless reaches a new level of knowledge about books. He and maybe he alone is able to get the complete overview Musils librarian mentions. The book fool is the highly specialized gure, who is able to judge a book by its cover. His inability to let go is problematic and might stand for a magical relationship towards books but it could be his ease in taking possession of whole ranges of knowledge just by regarding the paratextual aspects of books that is the real scandal for the scholar. He might wish to deal with the problem of too many books and too little time in a similar way. Pierre Bayards intelligent defence of productive ways of dealing with books weve never heard of, books we only skimmed through, books weve heard of but didnt read, or books weve read but forgotten and his congenial classication system (LI for livres inconnus, LP for livres parcourus, LE for livres voqus, and LO for livres oublis) shows that the difference between reading and non-reading is often smaller than normally perceived.49 Literary studies cant do without books, without libraries and without good research librarians, book-sellers, and bibliographers, who are quintessential for good libraries and book stores. They develop strategies to recognize the quality of books even without opening and reading them. We dont have to know every book, we only have to know where to look up something, how to consult a librarian, and who to ask. In the end the reader needs the non-reader so many books, so little time. The librarian or bibliographer who reads too much loses perspective, and so does the scholar without a good librarian. But sometimes he has to be both in one and the same person. In a way were all book fools.

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1 Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (New York: Viking Press, 1996). See also A History of Reading in the West, edited by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). 2 Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. [. . .] And in reading of many books is distraction. Accordingly, since you cannot read all the books which you may possess, it is enough to possess only as many books as you can read. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, edited and translated by Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1917, reprinted 1953), ep. mor. II, 23, vol. 2, p. 7. 3 Holbrook Jackson, The Anatomy of Bibliomania (New York: Farrar, Straus & Co., 1950), pp. 523 and 568. 4 Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981), p. 462. [I]f you want to know how I know about every book here, I can tell you: because I never read any of them. [. . .] The secret of a good librarian is that he never reads anything more of the literature in his charge than the titles and the tables of contents. Anyone who lets himself go and starts reading a book is lost as a librarian, he explained. Hes bound to lose perspective. / So, I said, trying to catch my breath, you never read a single book? / Never. Only the catalogs. / But arent you a Ph.D.? / Certainly I am. I teach at the university, as a special lecturer in Library Science. Library Science is a special eld leading to a degree, you know, he explained. The Man Without Qualities, translated by Sophie Wilkins (Burton Pike & New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 503. 5 Pierre Bayard, Comment parler des livres que lon na pas lus? (Paris: Minuit, 2007), p. 15. 6 Gustave Flaubert, Bibliomanie, in uvres compltes, edited by Claudine GothotMersch and Guy Sagnes (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), Vol. 1, 159172, this quotation pp. 162163. (He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its smell, its shape, its title.) 7 Charles Nodier, Le Bibliomane, in LAmateur de livres, edited by Jean-Luc Steinmetz ([Bordeaux]: Le Castor Astral, 1993), pp. 2746. 8 Ephraim Kishon, How to Review Books without Really Trying, in Noahs Ark, Tourist Class, translated by Yohanan Goldman (New York: Atheneum, 1962), pp. 209217; Peter Bichsel, Lob des Nichtlesers. Rede zum zehnten Jubilum der Hussschen Universittsbuchhandlung in Frankfurt am Main, in Das se Gift der Buchstaben. Reden zur Literatur (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), pp. 7480; Gion Mathias Cavelty, Endlich Nichtleser. Die beste Methode, mit dem Lesen fr immer aufzuhren (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000); Renaud Camus, Ne lisez pas ce livre! (Vaisseaux brls, 1) (Paris: P.O.L., 2000). 9 Daniel Pennac, Comme un roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1992). 10 Hermann Burger, Die Leser auf der Str, in Bork. Prosastcke (Munich and Zurich: Artemis, 1970), pp. 119125. 11 Harald Weinrich, Lesen schneller lesen langsamer lesen, Neue Rundschau 95:3 (1984), 8099, this quote p. 81 (We nd ourselves in the historic stage of abundant

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12

13

14

15 16

17

18

19

reading. In many cases this may even be a superabundant reading, and for the greatest minds a defensive reading). Walter Scott, The Antiquary (1816), quoted from the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, edited by John Simpson and Edmund Weiner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), entry bibliomania. For the vast realm of real bibliomania see among others Jackson, Anatomy or Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness. Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (New York: Holt, 1995). Guy Patin, LEsprit de Guy Patin (Amsterdam: Schelten, 1709), pp. 211212, quoted from Daniel Desormeaux, La Figure du bibliomane. Histoire du livre et stratgie littraire au XIXe sicle (St-Genouph: Nizet, 2001), p. 38. Deutsches Wrterbuch, ed. by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (Berlin: Hirzel, 18541971; online at http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/DWB ), entry Bchernarr. / Lucian of Samosata, Adversus indoctum, Ind. 45, in The works of Lucian, edited and translated by A. M. Harmon, 8 vols (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1921, reprinted 1969), III, 174211, this quotation pp. 178180. What would you gain by it in the way of learning, even if you should put them [the book scrolls] under your pillow and sleep on them or should glue them together and walk dressed in them? [. . .] What good, then, does it do you to buy them unless you think that even the book-cases are learned because they contain so many of the works of the ancients! (pp. 179181) Ibid., Ind. 16, p. 194. For what expectation do you base upon your books that you are always unrolling them and rolling them up, gluing them, trimming them, smearing them with saffron and oil of cedar, putting slip-covers on them and tting them with knobs, just as if you were going to derive some prot from them? (p. 195) Ibid., Ind. 2830, pp. 208210. [B]uy books, keep them at home under lock and key, and enjoy the fame of your treasures [. . .]. But you never lent a book to anyone (pp. 209211). Its signicant that Nauds Advis (1627), the rst modern manual of library science and a vote for open access libraries, argues for the abandonment of all exclusive ornament and binding and bibliophile editions in order to buy more books. Gabriel Naud, Advis pour dresser une bibliothque (Leipzig: Neudrucke aus dem Buch- und Bibliothekswesen, 1963), pp. 8081 and 8587. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, De tranquillitate animi, IX, 45, in Moral Essays, edited and translated by John W. Basore, 3 vols (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1932, reprinted 1958), II, 202285, this quotation pp. 246248. What is the use of having countless books and libraries, whose titles their owners can scarcely read through in a whole lifetime? The learner is, not instructed, but burdened by the mass of them, and it is much better to surrender yourself to a few authors than to wander through many. Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria; let someone else praise this library as the most noble monument to the wealth of kings, as did Titus Livius, who says that it was the most distinguished achievement of the good taste and solicitude of kings. There was no good taste or solicitude about it, but only learned luxury nay, not even learned, since they had collected the books, not for the sake of learning, but to make a show, just as many who lack even a childs knowledge of letters use books, not as

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21

22

23

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the tools of learning, but as decorations for the dining-room. Therefore, let just as many books be acquired as are enough, but none for mere show. (pp. 247249) Petrarch, De librorum copia, in Petrarchs Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul. A Modern English Translation of De remediis utriusque fortune, with a Commentary, edited and translated by Conrad H. Rawski (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), I, 138142. Seneca, Tranquillitas, IX, 67, p. 248. What excuse have you to offer for a man who seeks to have bookcases of citrus-wood and ivory, who collects the works of unknown or discredited authors and sits yawning in the midst of so many thousand books, who gets most of his pleasure from the outsides of volumes and their titles? Consequently it is in the houses of the laziest men that you will see a full collection of orations and history with the boxes piled right up to the ceiling; for by now among cold baths and hot baths a library also is equipped as a necessary ornament of a great house. I would readily pardon these men if they were led astray by their excessive zeal for learning. But as it is, these collections of the works of sacred genius with all the portraits that adorn them are brought for show and a decoration of their walls. (p. 249) Jean Le Pautre, Un bibliophile en costume de fou poussetant les livres de sa bibliothque, in Inventaire du fonds franais. Graveurs du XVIIe sicle, edited by Maxime Praud (Paris: Bibliothque Nationale de France, 1993), Vol. XI, p. 236. Translation quoted from Roger Chartier, The Practical Impact of Writing, in A History of Private Life, edited by Philippe Aris and Georges Duby, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, 5 vols (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19871991), III, 111159, this quotation p. 138. Alexander Koenina, Der gelehrte Narr. Gelehrtensatire seit der Aufklrung (Gttingen: Wallstein, 2003), pp. 133134. (No illness of a scholar is as incurable as bibliomania. But once there is not the slightest hint of it, true scholarship can be justiably doubted. The scholar lives off books for books. Who does not love and want to possess them, is considered to be an outsider in the Respublica litteraria. Among all the weirdos hes an outlandish stranger in the house of erudition, the library. Most scholars are bibliomaniacs, but among the true bibliomaniacs there are only few scholars.) Apart from Nodiers stories, who was himself a great bibliophile, and the essaylike defences of Dibdin and other bibliographers, the earliest straight sympathetic treatments of explicit bibliomaniacs (bibliomanes) in literary texts I know of can be found in Octave Uzannes Caprices dun bibliophile (Paris: Rouveyre, 1878). Alberto Nota, Il bibliomane. Commedia in cinque atti, edited by Maria Christina Misiti (Novara: Interlinea, 2001), pp. 14 and 33. It is worth quoting Geronzios answer to Ergilios question as to why one should buy Greek books even without knowing the language: Ne ho dei [libri] greci, degli ebraici, degli arabi, dei teutonici, dei cinesi, e perno de sanscrittici. Che maraviglia? Non tutti coloro che posseggono ricche biblioteche, sanno leggere quel che hanno comprato. (II, vii, p. 38) I have books in Greek, in Hebrew, in Arabic, in German, in Chinese, and even in Sanskrit. You are surprised? Not every one who owns a large library can read the volumes he has bought. In The Worlds Wit and Humor. An Encyclopedia of the Classic Wit and Humor of all Ages and Nations, 15 vols (New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 190506), XIII, p. 103.

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26 Kirsten Dickhaut, Bibliomane Fiktionen ktionale Bibliomane. Beispiele einer rekurrenten Figur der franzsischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, in Das Schne im Wirklichen Das Wirkliche im Schnen, edited by Anne Amend-Schting and others (Heidelberg: Winter, 2002), pp. 407422, this quotation p. 422. (Namely the death of the bibliomaniac reinstalls the order at the end of the texts, which has been destroyed by the book collectors through their unbridled excesses.) See also Dickhauts Sammler und Jger Zur Pathogenese der Bcherlust und Charles Nodiers modernem Umgang mit den historischen Denkmustern in Le Bibliomane, in sthetische Erndung der Moderne? Perspektiven und Modelle 17501850, edited by Britta Herrmann and Barbara Thums (Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2003), pp. 5575. 27 Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff. Nach der Erstausgabe (Basel 1492) mit den Zustzen der Ausgaben 1495 und 1499 sowie den Holzschnitten der deutschen Originalausgaben (Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1962, third edition 1986), p. 8. I am the rste fole of all the hole navy / [. . .] For this is my mynde, this one pleasoure have I / Of bokes to have grete plenty and aparayle / I take no wysdome by them. Sebastian Brant, The Shyp of Folys, translated by Alexander Barclay (London: Pynson, 1509, reprinted Amsterdam: Da Capo, 1970), f. XIIIverso. 28 Ibid., pp. 910. Styll am I besy bokes assemblynge / For to have plenty it is a plesaunt thynge / In my conceyt and to have them ay in honde / But what they mene do I nat understonde / But yet I have them in great reverence / And honoure sauynge them from fylth and ordure / By often brusshynge, and moche dylygence / Full goodly bounde in pleasaunt couerture / Of domas, satyn, or els of veluet pure (f. XIIIverso). 29 Ibid., p. 10. Lo in lyke wyse of bokys I have store / But fewe I rede, and fewer understande / I folowe nat theyr doctryne nor theyr lore / It is ynoughe to bere a boke in hande / It were to moche to be it suche a bande / For to be bounde to loke within the boke / I am content on the fayre coverynge to loke (f. XIIIIrecto). 30 Ibid., f. XIIIrecto. (I do possess many books, which I read rarely; the ones I read I neglect, and I dont understand them./A multitude of books distracts the mind. And of making many books there is no end.) 31 Il y a des personnes qui aiment les livres comme des meubles, plus pour parer et embellir leur maison que pour orner et enrichir leur esprit. (There are people who love books like furniture, more to upholster and embellish their home than to beautify and enrich their minds.). Quoted from Christian Galantaris, Manuel de bibliophilie, 2 vols (Paris: dition des Cendres, 1998), I, p. 62. 32 Jean de La Bruyre, Les caractres de Thophraste traduits du grec avec Les caractres ou les murs de ce sicle, in uvres compltes, edited by Julien Benda (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), p. 389. (He never reads [. . .]; a smell of black morocco leather in which all the books are bound; they are gilt-edged, decorated with gold threads, and generally good editions; [. . .] his tannery, which he calls a library.) 33 Centi-Folium Stultorum Jn Quarto. Oder Hundert Ausbndige Narren / Jn Folio. Neu aufgewrmet / Und in einer Alapatrit-Pasteten zum Schau-Essen / mit hundert schnen Kupffer-Stichen/zur ehrlichen Ergtzung / und nutzlichen Zeit-Vertreibung / sowohl frhlich- als melancholischen Gemthern aufgesetzt; Auch mit einer delicaten Brhe vieler artigen Historien / lustiger Fablen / kurzweiliger Discursen / und erbaulichen SittenLehren angerichtet. (Vienna: Megerle; Nuremberg: Weigel [1709]), pp. 3740, these

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36

37

38 39

40

41

42

43

quotations pp. 38 and 40. Those who read without any difference all books they get their hands on and therefore partly get inverted, but not learned and those who run through the books only supercially and think its enough to have read a book fast, but when they are through, they cant tell anything of the end, the middle or the beginning of this book. As the title implies the plate of the book fool was already published several years earlier in Weigels Ein Schock Phantastn in einem Kasten mit Ihrem Pourtrait gar net in Kupffer gebracht und ausgelacht samt einer Vorred (Nuremberg: Weigel [approx. 16901705]), p. 6. [Louis Bollioud de Mermet] De la bibliomanie (Paris: La Haye, 1761), p. 56. Jean Baptiste le Rond DAlembert, Bibliomane, Bibliomanie, in Encyclopdie ou Dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers, edited by Jean Baptiste le Rond dAlembert and Denis Diderot (Paris: Briasson and others, 1752), Vol. II, 228. DAlembert, Bibliotaphe, in Encyclopdie (Neufchastel: Faulche, 1767), Vol. 17, pp. 757758. Bibliotaphia is the bibliomania of the greedy or the jealous, and consequently bibliotaphs are in more than one way the disease of letters. For it should not be believed that these sorts of people are few in number: Europe has always been infected with them, and even today he is not very inquisitive who does not bump into them from time to time on their way. In The Encyclopedia of Diderot and dAlembert Collaborative Translation Project, translated by Erik Liddell, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.521 . Thomas Frognall Dibdin, The Bibliomania; or, Book-Madness; Containing some Account of the History, Symptoms, and Cure of this Fatal Disease. In an Epistle addressed to Richard Heber, Esq. (London: Longman and others, 1809), p. 58. Ibid., p. 76. Harold Bloom, How to Read and Why? (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), p. 19. This reservation is not restricted to literary studies, consider this poets diary entry for 6 November 2000: Drauen geht der Nichtleser um, ein gefhrliches Tier. Durs Grnbein, Das erste Jahr. Berliner Aufzeichnungen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001), p. 240. Hermann Burger, Der Bchernarr, in Bork. Prosastcke (Munich and Zurich: Artemis, 1970), pp. 4154, this quotation pp. 4344. The man could sit in his chair without moving for an entire morning, staring at his book and not turning a page. Ibid., p. 53. Now that is the only thing that books cannot stand, that one falls asleep over them. They are offended, and they are happy to take everything they ever imparted. Im read empty, Im read free. Sleeping, I take myself away from them. Italo Calvino, Se una notte dinverno un viaggiatore (Turin: Einaudi, 1979), pp. 4748. Me? I dont read books! Irnerio says. / What do you read, then? / Nothing. Ive become so accustomed to not reading that I dont even read what appears before my eyes. Its not easy: they teach us to read as children, and for the rest of our lives we remain the slaves of all the written stuff they ing in front of us. I may have had to make some effort myself, at rst, to learn not to read, but now it comes quite naturally to me. Italo Calvino, If on a Winters Night a Traveler, translated by William Weaver (London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), p. 49. Ibid., p. 149. I was looking for a book, Irnerio says. / I thought you never read, you reply. / Its not for reading. Its for making. I make things with books. I make objects. Yes, artworks: statues, pictures, whatever you want to call them. I even had a show. I x the books with mastic, and they stay as they were. Shut, or open, or else

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45

46 47 48

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I give them forms, I carve them, I make holes in them. A book is a good material to work with; you can make all sorts of things with it (pp. 148149). Thomas Bernhard, Alte Meister. Komdie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), pp. 3839. I have never in my life read a single book through to the end, my way of reading a book is that of a highly talented page turner, that is of a person who would rather turn the pages than read, who therefore turns dozens, or at times hundreds, of pages before reading a single one [. . .]. Surely it is better to read altogether only three pages of a four-hundred-page book a thousand times more thoroughly than the normal reader who reads everything but does not read a single page thoroughly, he said. It is better to read twelve lines of a book with the utmost intensity and thus to penetrate into them to the full, [. . .] rather than read the whole book as the normal reader does, Thomas Bernhard, Old Masters: A Comedy, translated by Ewald Osers (London: Quartet, 1989), p. 17. Ibid., pp. 4041. He who reads everything has understood nothing, he said. It is not necessary to read all of Goethe or all of Kant, it is not necessary to read all of Schopenhauer; a few pages of Werther, a few pages of Elective Afnities and we know more in the end about the two books than if we had read them from beginning to end, which would anyway deprive us of the purest enjoyment. But such drastic selfrestraint requires so much courage and such strength of mind as can only rarely be mustered and as we ourselves muster only rarely; the reading person [. . .] like the carnivorous person, upsets his stomach and his entire health, his head and his whole intellectual existence (p. 18). Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine (Cambridge: Granta, 1989), p. 121, note. Ibid., pp. 123124. Julio Cortzar, Rayuela (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1963); Giorgio Manganelli, Nuovo commento (Turin: Einaudi, 1969); Andreas Okopenko, Lexikon einer sentimentalen Reise zum Exporteurtreffen in Druden. Roman (Salzburg: Residenz, 1970); Raymond Federman, Take It Or Leave It. An Exaggerated Second-Hand Tale To Be Read Aloud Either Standing Or Sitting (New York: Fiction Collective, 1976); Dubravka Ugrei , teca Cvek u raljama ivota. Patchwork story (Zagreb: Hrvatske, c 1981); Renaud Camus, P.A. (petite annonce) (Paris: P.O.L., 1997). Bayard, Comment parler, pp. 2162.