Most people like to think that they’re intelligent, cultured individuals, and project that self-image outward. If that requires a little fibbing now and again, so be it. “Oh, I simply love going to the opera.” “You’re right, funding for the arts has been shamefully neglected during the Bush administration. I heard it on NPR.” “I signed a petition demanding ‘whom’ be restored to common usage in the English language.” “I read James Joyce’s Ulysses, and I had no difficulty understanding it.” See, that last statement is too transparent a lie to be believed. It’s an amateur mistake that could ruin a perfectly good sham.
In a Guilty Secrets survey of the top ten books people in the UK claim to read but really haven’t, Ulysses ranked no. 3, with 25 percent of respondents admitting that they just wanted to impress that hot Joyce scholar during a day trip to Ireland. If they had read even part of it, they would know that the author’s magnum opus is a sometimes impossible word labyrinth that necessitates eight years of postgraduate work to completely decode. I may be abetting future deceits by explaining this, but if a person is going to lie, lie convincingly. Almost everyone will believe a citizen of an English-speaking country has read no. 4, The Bible. But they should only attempt no. 2 (War and Peace), no. 6 (A Brief History of Time) or no. 7 (In Remembrance of Things Past) if they know others think of them highly enough not to laugh in their face next time they try to seem better educated than they are.
