Wednesday, February 28, 2007
American Vertigo.
Since (post below) Meredith's good review does not give us an opportunity to vent, we'll share our thoughts on the book American Vertigo, by Bernard-Henri Levy. This book was left with us by a well meaning person who needed something to read on the way over from France. The conceit of the book: BHL (as he is nicknamed) follows the steps of Tocqueville and, being the French intellectual du jour, dutifully reports his deep thoughts.
Garrison Keillor reviewed the book and excoriated it nicely. My first thought, when I read the review, was: Garrison Keillor? They assigned the review to Garrison Keillor? Ok, even the NYT knows BHL is a joke!
But Garrison makes a point: contrary to what BHL pretends, it is not a book about America, but, says Keillor it dawns on you that this is a book about the French. There's no reason for it to exist in English, except as evidence that travel need not be broadening and one should be wary of books with Tocqueville in the title.
To which I say: hell no! There is no reason for the book to exist in French either. It is the same platitudes in both language. The Lonely Planet is more enlightening and has more insights about America. It should have dawned on Garrison that it is not about the French, but it is a book about BHL!
What does it say about BHL: he is a mediocre thinker (but he can drop philosopher's names with the best of them). Each short chapter is dedicated to a topic, where BHL takes a glance at a situation and sees it for what it is, and then for the opposite of what it is, but then, in a maneuver BHL has perfected and reproduces every single f&cking time, the yin and the yang are in fact the same thing! It's fun the first time, but it gets old really fast. He visits a jail with view on Manhattan: are you in the city, or pushed out of the world? Both! It is a contradiction, but it is not. And the jail happens to be on the site of a previous trash dump. How symbolical, isn't it? Or not?
He is not intellectually honest. This really annoyed me. He cherry picks to support a thesis (a thesis which is pretty much "America is not that bad", and not much deeper). So a waitress in a road side diner becomes proof that every American has access to health care. Ughh.
He views San Francisco as a museum of gay rights, not as a lively, vibrant city, despite the fact that his trip in America takes place during the '04 election. That's when people accused Newsom of tossing the election to Bush by celebrating gay marriages, an event which does not even make it into the book, because it would contradict his thesis.
The Right is the party of ideas, says BHL, sounding like a DC journalist force fed with the GOP emails and talking points. The Left is empty of ideas, they are just concerned about fund raising (what a strange idea, trying to raise money when you are typically outspent 2-to-1 by your Republican opponents?) And what are these great ideas: invading Iraq! Who is the liberal with the most intellectual heft: Warren Beaty! I kid you not.
And the debate on Iraq. Well, BHL sees it as a debate between Huntington and Fukuyama. I am not an expert on the different factions of the neo-conservative swamps, but still, that's a bit much to swallow. Of course the Left must seem a vacuum when, talking about ideas, you don't know who to pick as your neo-con idol.
Los Angeles is a city that no one can see from a bird's eye view, there is no Eiffel tower or Empire State Bldg, says definitely BHL. Thus it is, de facto, not even a true city. That guy is obviously not taking is tourist job very seriously, if only he had been atop the Hollywood sign!
And Guantanamo, in another yin-yang collision, is not all that different from the other jails he visited (Tocqueville visited America to do a report on the prison system, so BHL visits jails as well). As if being part of, or outside of, a legal system was not decisive enough a distinction.
And the unintentional irony: BHL met with Al From and Will Marshall (pseudo-liberal guys advocating soft centrist positions) and complains that their "third way" discourse sounds exactly as it would have sounded, twenty years ago. But how does BHL conclude his book? By mixing the blue state yin with the red state yang, giving it a serious shake, and voila: America is not broken, it just needs a little more bipartisanship.
As I said: it's all about DHL doing perilous-yet-empty maneuvers with his brains; just don't make the same mistake as Garrison, and blame all the French for this. I want no part of it.
Garrison Keillor reviewed the book and excoriated it nicely. My first thought, when I read the review, was: Garrison Keillor? They assigned the review to Garrison Keillor? Ok, even the NYT knows BHL is a joke!
But Garrison makes a point: contrary to what BHL pretends, it is not a book about America, but, says Keillor it dawns on you that this is a book about the French. There's no reason for it to exist in English, except as evidence that travel need not be broadening and one should be wary of books with Tocqueville in the title.
To which I say: hell no! There is no reason for the book to exist in French either. It is the same platitudes in both language. The Lonely Planet is more enlightening and has more insights about America. It should have dawned on Garrison that it is not about the French, but it is a book about BHL!
What does it say about BHL: he is a mediocre thinker (but he can drop philosopher's names with the best of them). Each short chapter is dedicated to a topic, where BHL takes a glance at a situation and sees it for what it is, and then for the opposite of what it is, but then, in a maneuver BHL has perfected and reproduces every single f&cking time, the yin and the yang are in fact the same thing! It's fun the first time, but it gets old really fast. He visits a jail with view on Manhattan: are you in the city, or pushed out of the world? Both! It is a contradiction, but it is not. And the jail happens to be on the site of a previous trash dump. How symbolical, isn't it? Or not?
He is not intellectually honest. This really annoyed me. He cherry picks to support a thesis (a thesis which is pretty much "America is not that bad", and not much deeper). So a waitress in a road side diner becomes proof that every American has access to health care. Ughh.
He views San Francisco as a museum of gay rights, not as a lively, vibrant city, despite the fact that his trip in America takes place during the '04 election. That's when people accused Newsom of tossing the election to Bush by celebrating gay marriages, an event which does not even make it into the book, because it would contradict his thesis.
The Right is the party of ideas, says BHL, sounding like a DC journalist force fed with the GOP emails and talking points. The Left is empty of ideas, they are just concerned about fund raising (what a strange idea, trying to raise money when you are typically outspent 2-to-1 by your Republican opponents?) And what are these great ideas: invading Iraq! Who is the liberal with the most intellectual heft: Warren Beaty! I kid you not.
And the debate on Iraq. Well, BHL sees it as a debate between Huntington and Fukuyama. I am not an expert on the different factions of the neo-conservative swamps, but still, that's a bit much to swallow. Of course the Left must seem a vacuum when, talking about ideas, you don't know who to pick as your neo-con idol.
Los Angeles is a city that no one can see from a bird's eye view, there is no Eiffel tower or Empire State Bldg, says definitely BHL. Thus it is, de facto, not even a true city. That guy is obviously not taking is tourist job very seriously, if only he had been atop the Hollywood sign!
And Guantanamo, in another yin-yang collision, is not all that different from the other jails he visited (Tocqueville visited America to do a report on the prison system, so BHL visits jails as well). As if being part of, or outside of, a legal system was not decisive enough a distinction.
And the unintentional irony: BHL met with Al From and Will Marshall (pseudo-liberal guys advocating soft centrist positions) and complains that their "third way" discourse sounds exactly as it would have sounded, twenty years ago. But how does BHL conclude his book? By mixing the blue state yin with the red state yang, giving it a serious shake, and voila: America is not broken, it just needs a little more bipartisanship.
As I said: it's all about DHL doing perilous-yet-empty maneuvers with his brains; just don't make the same mistake as Garrison, and blame all the French for this. I want no part of it.
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