Posted on 01/29/2006 2:57:55 AM PST by Cincinna
Bernard-Henri Levy is a French writer with a spatter-paint prose style and the grandiosity of a college sophomore; he rambled around this country at the behest of The Atlantic Monthly and now has worked up his notes into a sort of book. It is the classic Freaks, Fatties, Fanatics & Faux Culture Excursion beloved of European journalists for the past 50 years. In more than 300 pages, nobody tells a joke. Nobody does much work. Nobody sits and eats and enjoys their food. You've lived all your life in America, never attended a megachurch or a brothel, don't own guns, are non-Amish, and 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
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
HAAAAAA!!!!! Magnificent.
ROTFLMAO, too! I felt like I was reading a book review written by a freeper! :)
Thanks for the heads up!
BHL is what the French call an intellectual/philosophe which basically means he has no real job.
He views America through the lens of the typical Euro vision: Alabama ca. 1954.
His obsession with "20 questions" and the puffy shirt are a mystery to Americans.
He understands nothing about America. He comes from a country that has lost its love of country,is defeatist, cowardly, and pessimistic about its future.
"Thanks for coming. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. For your next book, tell us about those riots in France, the cars burning in the suburbs of Paris. What was that all about? Were fat people involved? "
I agree with Garrison Keillor! Now that isd a miracle.
"BHL is an "intellectuel". He writes books. He writes poetry. He wears a puffy shirt. Ooh la la!
Shall we look for him on the talk show circuit?"
The puffy-shirted poet/20 questions expert will be on Book TV ( CSPAN2) tonight at 10pm
Does he shave his chest?
Doesn't need to apparently, but his upper lip looks like it requires extra effort.
How does BHL really feel about America? Do we Care?
He is quoted in the review of his Magnum Opus in the great intellectual journal NY Magazine thusly:
Everything, my dear. I will tell you. Sometimes in your private life you have a mistress you love, love being with. You spend time to time in a grand hotel, with good room service, great champagne, and you separateand when you are really in love with her, you inevitably think, Could I wake up with her, near her every morning? And then you try it. This is exactly what I did in America. America was a great mistress. I had a great f--k with America. It was like a weekend in the Hotel du Cap.
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