[lit-ideas] Keillor's review of Levy

Andreas, writing about Garrison Keillor's review of Bernard Henry Levy's book in the NYT:

Levy's book about America is indeed mostly about the French's perception of the USA. It's written for the French, which is why Eric doesn't recognize his country in it.

____

Here's some info as to how Levy is regarded by his countrymen:

from Gaby Wood's interview in The
Observer, titled "Je suis un superstar."

"Lévy's reputation for narcissism is unparalleled
in his home country, and he's not unaware of the
fact. The headline of one article about him coined
the immortal dictum, 'God is dead but my hair is
perfect.'"

"Lévy is something of a conundrum. On the one
hand, he is such a po-faced laughing stock that
the famed anarchist pie-thrower Noël Godin has hit
him a record five times. On the other, huge
numbers of people buy his books. He is not the
most serious thinker the French have, but he is
charismatic and accessible and constantly in demand."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,977498,00.html


For a literary parody of BHL, read Milan
Kundera's _Slowness_, with an eye to the
media-whore intellectual who is so long on opinion
and so short on fact. Guess who that's supposed to
recall?




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