Public Enemies_ Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World - Bernard-Henri Levy [102]
Few people have penetrated these mysteries by means of their intelligence. Personally, I know only one. His name is Jean Cohen; he was a theoretician, a linguist. He wrote two books, the first entitled Structure du langage poétique, and the second Le Haut Langage, both published by Flammarion. He does not concern himself with the notion of literariness (by which certain texts among the immense body of texts in the world can be called literary). He interests himself in the issue of greater magnitude of poeticity (why certain texts in the body of literature can be said to be poetic).
It would be difficult for me to overstate the shock I felt reading Le Haut Langage. Because I hadn’t read (and still haven’t read) the theoreticians who came before him, Genette, Todorov, Greimas … But I had the pretension to know for myself, in a very secret place inside myself, when I had produced something that could be called a poem; or when, on the contrary, it had missed the mark (often the case with texts written under the influence of alcohol). And here I had stumbled on someone who also knew … I felt as though he could read the very depths of my soul.
I mention this because I think he would agree with you on the word living. Except that he, unlike us, was not in the media; the dangers he faced were of a different kind. He knows he is being watched; knows his linguistics colleagues are waiting round the corner for him; in short, he has to produce theory. And what is most extraordinary is that he succeeds. He succeeds in giving a convincing theoretical elaboration of what quite clearly came to him by pure intuition. In a word, in a hundred words, you have to read Jean Cohen.
Unlike you, Bernard-Henri, I have never sought to join the ranks of the “intellectuals,” something that, from what I know of the careers of Jean Cohen and a handful of others, and from what Rachid Amirou (a university professor who specializes in the sociology of tourism and whose work I greatly admire) told me recently, I do not regret for a moment. There too there is slander, polemic, base jealousy, plots … And maybe I am idealizing, maybe it is the famous “magic of memory” at work in me, but I don’t remember anything of that kind in the little world of poetry. When I published my second collection of poems (which, coming after a novel that had had some press coverage, consequently had the dubious honor of being exposed to the broad mass of literary critics), some journalists saw fit to appear surprised that I use the alexandrine, a form they considered antiquated. In fact, they were rather simplistic (although I sometimes use the alexandrine, I more often use the octosyllabic form, or free verse). Well, whether you believe it or not, in all my time in the little world of poetry, I never came across a criticism like that. That sort of criticism was considered completely outmoded. Whether a poem was written in alexandrines, in free verse, in prose, in anything you liked, made not the slightest difference in the little world of poetry. The alexandrine, I agree, was considered to be one of the possible forms of French poetry—a form that corresponded to the general structure of the language, which had made possible some beautiful works and could still do so.
All this to say, Bernard-Henri, that I have no trouble believing you when you tell me that your fame was in no way premeditated. It is all the easier to believe since almost nothing in my life has been premeditated (or, to be more precise, everything I premeditated failed). The only things I have ever managed to plan, more or less, have been my novels (well, at least the beginnings; after the first hundred pages, it goes downhill). And moreover, it was because I never wanted fame. It is true that I wanted to earn money through my books; fiercely wanted it,