Pierre Bayard (born 1954) is currently

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of Literature at the

University of Paris 8 Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis (french: Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) is a public university in Paris, France. Once part of the historic University of Paris, it is now an autonomous public institution. It is one of the th ...

and

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

. He is the

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

of many creative

essays An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

such as ''Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?'' (2002), ''How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read'' (2007), and ''

Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong ''Sherlock Holmes was Wrong: Re-opening the Case of the "Hound of the Baskervilles"'' is a 2007 book by French culture, French professor of literature, psychoanalyst, and author Pierre Bayard. By re-examining the clues and interpreting them in th ...

'' (2008).

Creations

Pierre Bayard is the founder of "interventionist criticism", he is opposed to neutral and uncommitted criticism of literary works. In the course of his essays, he has, among other things, chased down unpunished literary criminals (due to the negligence of their creators), provided tips and tricks for talking about books and places that have not been read or seen, or reflected on the resistance/collaboration dilemma. Bayard's most popular book, ' (Minuit, 2007), is a bestseller in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

in which he engages in a study of the different ways of not reading a book, and recommends solutions to be able to talk about it anyway. Assuming that some readers have a terrifying understanding of reading, he tries to make them feel free from guilt for not having read canonical literature. The essential thing in culture being to have an overview, he claims the possibility of having a perforated and incomplete culture. Pierre Bayard has renewed this system in Comment parler des lieux où l'on n'a pas été, a work in the second degree again, in which he reviews the authors who have spoken of places they have not visited. His books have been considered as cases of "novelistic criticism", in that they present revisionist readings of famous fictional mysteries. In his 2008 book ''L'Affaire du Chien des Baskerville'', for example, published in English as '' Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Re-opening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles'' he analyzes the famous Sherlock Holmes case, and in his earlier book ' he re-investigates Agatha Christie's ''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd''. In 2019 returned to an other book by Agatha Christie, ''

And Then There Were None ''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, described by her as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as ...

'' and questioned the solution delivered to the outcome of her novel. His entire book is therefore the counter-investigation that must restore the truth: we find in fact the procedure he already used earlier: attempts to rectify certain fictional police investigations that he considers unlikely. And he proposes to come back to a new literary misunderstanding and shed light on a mystery that no one has solved, not even Agatha Christie. The novelty this time being that he lets the real murderer of the ''And Then There Were None'' speak for himself to lead us to the only acceptable solution. His book on ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'' argues that Claudius did not kill Hamlet's father. In these essays on Agatha Christie, Shakespeare and Conan Doyle, he engages in real literary counter-investigations, studying the motivations of the characters, highlighting the inconsistencies of the intrigues and humorously showing that fictional characters escape their creators. Moreover, humour is a fundamental element of his writing. In ''How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read'', the narrator teaches the way not to read, which is a joke because he himself is a great reader. For Pierre Bayard, humour has an analytical function. It allows you to mark a gap between yourself and yourself, and therefore to distance yourself from what you read.

Bibliography

* ''Balzac et le troc de l"imaginaire. Lecture de La Peau de chagrin'' (Lettres modernes-Minard, 1978). * ''Symptôme de Stendhal. Armance et l’aveu (Lettres modernes-Minard'', 1980). * ''Il était deux fois Romain Gary (Presses universitaires de France'', 1990). * ''Le Paradoxe du menteur. Sur Laclos'' (Minuit, 1993). * ''Maupassant, juste avant Freud'' (Minuit, 1994). * ''Le Hors-sujet.

Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

et la digression'' (Minuit, 1996). * '' Qui a tué Roger Ackroyd?'' (Minuit, 1998 et « Reprise », 2002). * ''Lire avec Freud. Pour Jean Bellemin-Noël'', dir. Pierre Bayard (Presses universitaires de France, 1998). * ''Comment améliorer les œuvres ratées?'' (Minuit, 2000). * ''Enquête sur

. Le Dialogue de sourds'' (Minuit, 2002). * ''Le Détour par les autres arts. Pour Marie-Claire Ropars'', dir. Pierre Bayard et Christian Doumet (L’Improviste, 2004). * ''Peut-on appliquer la littérature à la psychanalyse'' (Minuit, 2004). * ''Demain est écrit'' (Minuit, 2005). * '' Comment parler des livres que l'on n'a pas lus?'' (Minuit, 2007). * ''

'' (Minuit, 2008). * ''Le Plagiat par anticipation'' (Minuit, 2009). * ''Et si les œuvres changeaient d'auteur?'' (Minuit, 2010). * ''Comment parler des lieux où l’on n’a pas été?'' (Minuit, 2012). * ''Aurais-je été résistant ou bourreau?'' (Minuit, 2013). * ''Il existe d’autres mondes'', Minuit, 2014 * ''Aurais-je sauvé Geneviève Dixmer ?'', Minuit, 2015 * ''Le Titanic fera naufrage'', Minuit, 2016 * ''L'énigme Tolstoïevski'', Minuit, 2017 * ''La vérité sur " Dix petits nègres"'', Minuit, 2019 * ''Comment parler des faits qui ne se sont pas produits ?'', * ''Oedipe n'est pas coupable'', Minuit, 2021, ( ISBN 9782707347107 )

External links

"Books we have never read" (review)

"L'Affaire du chien" (review)
* https://www.cairn.info/revue-critique-2004-3-page-235.htm. * http://intercripol.org/fr/index.html * http://www.fabula.org/atelier.php?Comment_ne_pas_decourager_le_lecteur * https://diacritik.com/2017/11/02/pierre-bayard-jecris-des-fictions-theoriques-lenigme-tolstoievski-le-grand-entretien/ * https://diacritik.com/2017/06/29/pop-up-de-vies-eventuelles-extensions-du-domaine-de-lexistence/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Bayard, Pierre 1954 births Academic staff of Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis French literary critics Living people French male non-fiction writers