Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:53:13 -0800 (PST) From: Paula Gillis Subject: I wish they'd had T-shirts Mr. Fant requested: > a full report OK, here goes. First, you should know that I read "American Vertigo" naively. I remember Toqueville, though not in detail; I knew Bernard-Henri Levy was a student of Derrida, wrote "Who Killed Daniel Pearl" and other things I haven't read, and is a figure of some controversy in France. I didn't know the details of that, and didn't want to know until after I had read and heard what he had to say. If I had to read "The Case of Dora" while setting aside my knowledge that Freud was on coke, had never heard of pelvic inflammatory disease and didn't believe in incest -- and pay tuition to do it! -- then by all that's holy I shall approach a text I *want* to read with as much ignorance of its circumstances and buzz as I please. Dammit. After I got most of this written, I googled a bit. Turns out Levy's married to an "extraterrestrially beautiful" actress, is adored or reviled depending which blog you read, but is, at least, very well known. Whether he's a good deconstructionist or a pop-culture loon, I don't know. But I didn't want to know. I just wanted the text in as much of a vacuum as I could get. In short: He likes us, he really really likes us. In medium: He really does like us, and I found it impossible not to like him back. Though I still disagree about *why* Hillary Clinton might be unelectable as president. I asked some other, slightly more normal people, and although they hadn't personally imagined this particular objection to Hillary, they don't find it unimaginable that she might, or that a person might, , or that lots of people would fear she'd . Fine. I still think that's nuts, but apparently lots of things happen in soap operas and movies that some real people actually do. God help them. In long: The lecture and Q&A with Bernard-Henri Levy were held in the auditorium of the Free Library of Philadelphia at 19th and Vine, and ran about 90 minutes total. It was packed; folding chairs were brought in. My friend and I arrived early enough to pick good seats, second row on the right side. Less than half, to my eye, of the audience stayed for the book-signing in the lobby afterward. M. Levy had a lot of energy for a guy pushing 60 who got up at 4 a.m. for a flight from Florida. Very, um, enthusiastically French. He never left the lectern, but gave the distinct impression of using the entire stage -- one sometimes sees it called an "eloquent Gallic shrug," but really, I'd had *no* idea. I almost want to call the event a performance rather than a lecture, except he seemed to me to be simply carried away, not acting. It didn't distract from what he had to say, and I didn't hear too many comments on it, so perhaps I'm just an incurable gesture-watcher; leave me with a sketch pad in the city, a stable or a kennel and I'm happy for hours. Levy was easy to listen to. He started by apologizing for his English, and joked that it's better now than before he started this project. When he'd get off and running, little bits of French would creep in -- an article dropped or added; he, she, his, hers for it and its; analogous words pronounced in French but only sometimes corrected. He talks like he writes, in sentences a paragraph or two long. That seems to be one of the things irritating reviewers, though I don't see why; as multi-clause sentences go they're pretty clear, and the $2 words I had forgotten were clear from context. (Though I didn't grok the End of History thing too well before, and I still don't. Bad Johnny. Bad Johnny! Give back your degree!) Levy's accent is heavy and he missed some of Jon Stewart's jokes on "The Daily Show," but his command of English was very good Thursday. So, enough of how he said it, and on to what he said. Levy began by noting that it was fitting to end his book tour in Philadelphia, a city he visited early in his travels, the cradle of U.S. democracy, full of history. I was surprised at his enthusiasm, because in "American Vertigo" he didn't seem too hot on us -- or at least on the Quakers, whose idea of a penitentiary he described, basically, as terrorizing prisoners with sensory deprivation, Bible study, and orthodontic ironmongery for the persistently chatty. I had always considered the penitentiary model a step up from rats 'n' shackles, but he appears to consider it not a step up. He talked for about 45 minutes, expanding on what he had written. I always read forewords wondering whether the author really means "no one could possibly care about this little book," or is just trying to avoid burning at the stake; Levy made the point very seriously that he intended an homage to Toqueville rather than an update, a thoughtful travelogue rather than an answer to "Democracy in America." I read ... two? ... negative reviews complaining that "American Vertigo" wasn't an answer, or wasn't a good answer, to "Democracy in America," and I wonder if they didn't notice when he said it wasn't supposed to be, or just didn't believe him. Levy said he initially didn't want the project; when the editor at the Atlantic Monthly pitched it to him, he objected, basically, that he's a war correspondent, not a Toqueville. The editor said, yeah, well, elections are coming up, you could say we've got a war going on here. Which got his attention. Levy said he started the project by noticing the wall of cliches, the fog, separating the French and Americans, but also aware of our close historical bonds: "If not for America, there wouldn't be France, and if not for France, there wouldn't be America." That is, the World Wars and the American Revolution. So, he says, he set out to question the cliches. He said that when he went hunting them, particularly francophobia, he didn't find them. "Not one!" francophobe, though he did find a couple ameriphobes in France. He said something self-deprecating about his expectations of the mess that anti-American cliches say is going on here, and was surprised, in examining the state of American democracy, to find himself going rather "from hope to hope." He was particularly impressed by a citizens group's prevention of a new Wal-Mart, which he said would be impossible in France, and by homeschooling, which is illegal in France. During the Q&A he returned to homeschooling, characterizing this right as an acknowledgement that the relationship with the state is reciprocal, that the state's power is borrowed, and that if the state fails in its reciprocal obligation we can take back what we had lent. Homeschooling and petition drives are where it's at for him, a reservoir of living, breathing democracy. Levy didn't say much about President Bush, but gave a brief negative evaluation and was vigorously applauded. Bush also came up in Levy's comments on Hurricane Katrina -- he said he found an image of Bush, when he was on the plane to look out over the destruction and was joking around with his staff, obscene. He picked the word carefully. He noted the horror show of the government response to Katrina, but went on to say that he was stunned by the citizens' response. By the way Texans opened their schools, homes and communities to the refugees, opened their arms, the way Americans everywhere opened their own wallets. "Their *own* *personal* *wallets*!" He found it astonishing, and was excited enough that he said he was just ".tonn.!" but didn't notice, that I could see, that he had switched languages. Levy said he found Americans' and Texans' response to the storm refugees astonishing because it would not happen in France. If a catastrope wiped out (one city, which I didn't catch), and the residents fled to (another city) ... well, no, he said. If a catastrophe wiped out something in Germany, and the German refugees came running to France (here the audience started laughing), well, we'd see a new border put in place. By "border," I took him to mean something butch in a size XXL with retro accents of razor wire and guard towers. But seriously, folks, he said, it just wouldn't happen in France, and it was amazing. Levy frequently compared France and the U.S., sometimes favorably, sometimes un-. Nondenominational megachurches particularly caught his attention, especially the best-buddy-fication of God he saw there, a god who's always present and always talking to you. He appeared rather put out by the idea of God as a pal. He contrasted this to Europe's traditional remote, miraculous, inscrutable God, and it was plain which he preferred. He said it's a huge change, he doesn't know what its effects will be. Secular government and church-state separation came up in the Q&A, from questions about homeschooling and about Islam. A woman in the audience wanted to know how he could be so enthusiastic about homeschooling when, basically, we all know it's ultraconservative snakehandling crackpots keeping their kids at home to teach them Science Is Bad. She didn't say that in so many words, but what she meant was clear; even a guy operating in a second language in which he still makes occasional mistakes could tell that's what she was asking. He answered "but liberals homeschool too!" and everyone laughed. (This is when he talked about homeschooling as the citizen's resort when the state fails in its obligations.) Around this point in the conversation, IIRC, he noted that in France, the purpose of church and state separation is to protect the state from religious intrusion, while in America its purpose is to protect the churches from government intrusion. Which, in practice, lead to different policies and outcomes. The subject of freedom of religious expression came up, specifically the veil and Muslim schoolgirls in France; Levy said something I didn't quite catch, it may have been something like girls that young don't really something-something the veil. Understand? Consent? Choose? Something ... but there have been studies, "we have a lot of statistics, a *lot* of statistics," and the issue of the veil not being permitted in school is not an issue of freedom of expression, but of getting the girls out from under the thumb of their fathers and brothers, and educated. One young man asked a two-parter: Could Levy comment on racism in France, and is deconstruction dead? This brought a comparison of France and America. Levy noted that he when he was in the American South 30 years ago or so, there was much overt racism, and sure he had expected to find some progress by now, but he was gobsmacked by the turnaround. Racism still lurks here and there, but is shameful, impolite, not acceptable to show openly the way it used to be, he said. He went out with some quail hunters, he said (and managed to restrain himelf from joking about Cheney more than once), and found that the old forms are dying. It seemed to me he was thinking of these hunting expeditions of white Southern gentlemen as a sort of emblem of the history of racism in America. He said the rituals are dying out, the hunters couldn't say why they were doing what they were doing, and were mumbly and shamefaced about it. He didn't say what rituals in particular. Getting drunk? Wearing your blaze orange cap tilted back instead of forward? Smearing the blood of your kid's first kill across his forehead and cheekbones? I may have to find some Faulkner or something to see what he was referring to, because while I understand Northeast Pennsylvania whitetail season, and I could ride to hounds anywhere -- though for that, I'd *have* to get drunk -- I don't know a thing about the gentlemanly pursuit of shooting quail over a dog, or polite Southern hunting society. I don't know what rituals, what forms, he meant. Levy noted, with a self-deprecating "well, you know," that he hates hunting, hates guns, hates violence, and is happy to see these hunting traditions out the door; my friend, sitting next to me, laughed and covered my ears with her hands. She is a better Quaker than me in many ways -- for one thing, she's a member and I'm a mere, contented attender -- and we have had many vigorous discussions of the Second Amendment, the death penalty, hunting. Maybe she was worried I was going to throw a tomato, but honestly, I hadn't brought any produce along (and if I had, I would have eaten it, not thrown it, because we hadn't quite had time for dinner beforehand). This issue of racism, IIRC, tied in with Levy's thoughts that in America, one becomes an American but keeps one's ethnic heritage; in France, one becomes French and that's that, the rest is erased. Altogether, Levy said, this one of the things America has done better than France -- deal with racism. Unless I misunderstood, he seemed to think we're observing its last gasp here. He added, however, that Americans are more violent than the French. He compared the Clichy riots to the Los Angeles riots, and noted that no one was killed in the French riots and the police didn't bust heads. So, he said, controlling riots without killing people is something France has done better than America. As for deconstruction, Levy gave a long answer, which, summed up, is: No. It's not dead. A question or two about democracy and Islam led Levy to say that in his experience "on the ground" in Pakistan and other Islamic countries, the citizens are reasonable and thoughtful and want democracy, though they have to be very careful about how and to whom they say that. He said basically that the militant Islamists are few, though they've got the guns. There was more, but this is enough. Consider yourselves lucky I didn't bring a notebook or tape recorder. To wrap this up: the book-signing. In the interest of honest reportage, this section is titled "Daisy Miller." I feel like a bit of a vampire at these things, and the authors so often look exhausted. But what do you do? A sincere three sentences, sucking more life out of some poor tired writer by demanding their attention for 20 seconds? Twenty seconds times dozens of people is a lot of time to suck out of somebody. An impersonal handing back and forth of a book, sucking the life out of them by treating them like a signature machine? God, maybe that's even worse. It always feels so weird. Levy looked knackered. So, I thought, the hell with it. I've been getting in three, four hours a day of French radio by iPod, I'm holding my own with the native speakers in the conversation group, I've recovered as much fluency as I ever had before; surely I can manage a polite greeting and thank-you so this tired-looking guy who just entertained me half to death doesn't have to keep trying to think in a foreign language. Quelle dumbass. I handed him the book, said "bonsoir msieu Levy." He glanced up, started to write and said "ah. vous etes francaise," very quietly, in a tone between statement and question. Dunno what I expected, but it certainly wasn't *that*. Wha ... huh? Oh, jeez. And good heavens his vocal volume just dropped several decibels, he's not just being polite, he really thinks ... oh, dear. vaporlock. I didn't think I had lost my horrible American accent. Later inquiries of native speakers indicate that yes, we have no bananas. We really must send a card to our first-year high-school teacher, because we have officially joined the ranks of her students who are mistaken by French people *for* French people. And not by just any French people, but by smart French people. Eep. Through the vaporlock, I heard someone, who must have been me, say, "... ah, non, non non. Mais je parle un peu." Oh, gack. Of all the ... and then I was rewarded with an unreadable look. It could have been a reciprocal "wha ... huh?" or it could have been "Oh. One of *you*. And now why are you still in my line of sight?" I heard someone, who also must have been me because it certainly wasn't Levy and there wasn't anybody else within talking distance, offer a polite betise -- which I shall not repeat here. Or anywhere. Ever. Yes, it was that dumb -- thanking him for his work, which elicited a polite "merci" and The Look, Continued. Then I fled. It was really the look that undid me. I will not report on the signing of my friend's book, except to say that we laughed for several blocks until we found a cab on the Ben Franklin Parkway, and I have sworn never to pester a French writer in his or her own language again. best regards, Paula Gillis, SF '96