André Benhaïm is a professor of French and Italian. His latest book “Machines à lire [Reading Machines],” co-authored with Aymeric Glacet (Sewanee), was published in April 2025 by Hermann.
How did you get the idea for this project?
The book stems from papers that Aymeric and I gave over the last ten years or so at the 20th and 21st International French and Francophone Studies colloquia. We concocted a different way of delivering papers at these conferences, in panels that we devised as performances at the intersection of scholarship and theater. The idea (the guiding principle) was to surprise the audience with what amounted to conversation-like presentations where we blended our voices and our texts to create polyphonic readings of a number of authors (but also film makers, composers, etc.) around a common theme. What we call “Machines” were not only devices in the technical or technological sense, but also in the theatrical sense of “machinations”…
How did the project develop or change throughout the research and writing process?
Because the “original version” was eminently oral, often relying on additional materials (audio or video clips, sometimes even props, etc.), it was challenging to find a written equivalent to the whimsical yet inquisitive spirit that animated our “machines.” We eventually settled for a playful structure where chapters are in no particular “logical” or “critical” order, and therefore where the reading can proceed in pretty much any way – on the model of the adventure gamebooks that were so popular in the 1980s. And yes, needless to hide it: this was a deliberately nostalgic (and exciting) move for us. We wanted to create a “literary criticism” gamebook!
What questions for future investigation has the project sparked?
How can we make it even bolder? Funnier? We’re working on expanding this project in new directions that will involve even more creative and performative ways to approach literary criticism — or critical humanities at large. We’re moving from “Machines” to “Divertissements,” borrowing from music terminology where “divertimento” can refer to diversion or amusement, but still stimulate critical reflections on literature, art, film, with or without philosophical or political orientations…
Why should people read this book?
As our back cover suggests, people who like to play, who like to read, who dream of a creative literary criticism, should read this book. More specifically, if you want to read or re-read about “canonical” authors such as Flaubert, Maupassant, Proust, Camus, or more contemporary ones like Pierre Michon, Eric Chevillard… and see how their works can mingle with “popular” literature (“The Little Prince”? “Planet of the Apes”?), or, say, graphic novels (like “Lucky Luke”, “Gaston Lagaffe”, “Tintin” or “Asterix”) or films (like John Ford’s “Stagecoach”), or even songs (only if you like Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Debussy and others you may not have heard about — like Nino Ferrer!)… This sentence doesn’t fully make sense, but if you read the book, you’ll understand.
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