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How to Talk About Places You've Never Been: On the Importance of Armchair Travel by Pierre Bayard
kathrinpassig's review
3.0
Schöner Anfang, schöne Idee, aber nach den ersten ein, zwei Kapiteln hatte ich das Gefühl, es sei eigentlich schon alles gesagt. Mir war zu viel Psychoanalyse drin und zu viel literaturwissenschaftliches Gerede ("atopic space", "spatial jamming", "abstract representation of loci"). Aber wenn einen so was nicht stört, ist vielleicht auch der Rest des Buchs interessant.
claryperezv's review against another edition
1.0
I still don’t know how to talk about places I’ve never been
sdbecque's review
3.0
I don't think this worked as well as Bayard's other book, [b:How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read|1143788|How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read|Pierre Bayard|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1306039227s/1143788.jpg|1609642], but it was an interesting jaunt considering it's not very long and didn't take much time to read. His Margaret Mead example was also difficult for me, having just read [b:Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science|22571733|Galileo's Middle Finger Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science|Alice Dreger|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1406513188s/22571733.jpg|42038174] in which she disproves the attack on Mead that Bayard uses here. His points here, like in his last book, seem vaguely tongue in cheek, but he never succeeds in convincing me I must talk about places I've never been. Talking about books you haven't read is something that often comes in handy - knowing just enough about a cultural object to engage in a kind of shorthand with people about it is useful at dinner parties and whatnot. There seems to be no reason to fake having been somewhere, since people are far less likely to hold that against you? Eh. An interesting experiment.
narwhal's review
3.0
Bought on impulse, fittingly, in an airport. I expected it to be funnier than it was. Some of the stories were interesting though, and the theories around psychology, experiences, and writing. You really have to work for it.
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