Public Enemies_ Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World - Bernard-Henri Levy [114]
In this war of mirrors, you were right to note, my victory is guaranteed. Historically, it’s a rout. There will inevitably come a moment when the reaction to my books is considered to be a symptom. Some have already chosen to speak of me in a fictional mode. I have never had a problem with appearing as a character in a novel; I have no choice given that I have become a sort of public figure; but the decision still surprises me. And actually, it’s only been done by mediocre writers, with the exception of Philippe Djian (in Vers chez les blancs). But to make the novel more interesting, Djian had to deviate quite a bit from his model—and the episode with Madonna is very funny, but really has nothing whatever to do with me. The obvious conclusion: as a fictional character, I’m not very interesting.
It is probably a pity, on the other hand, that no one has had the idea of writing a book about the critical reception of my books. I’ve just spent a week in Poland during which there were exceptionally heated debates, mostly focusing on sexual morality between Catholic conservatives and liberal progressives. One of the most interesting moments was a long conversation I had with a young girl in which she explained how both camps were trying to use me. Interesting to me, I mean; for her, meeting me in person was entertaining, nothing more. Her real subject was not me, nor even books; it was Poland. She managed to shed on the subject the detached, composed light that sociology brings to bear when it succeeds in dissociating itself from immediate ideological issues.
This vaguely Christlike turn my destiny has taken (“I have not come to bring peace, but war”;* “they will tear one another apart in my name,” etc., etc.) does not exactly plunge me into the depths of joy. All this is distressing, gloomy, tiresome. But what can I do? The die is cast.
The official version, therefore, is that everything is fine, that things are getting better and better and that the only people who deny this are a bunch of neurotic nihilists. Whose existence can easily be explained away by some painful family history (raped by his father, abandoned by his mother … you get the picture, heavy shit). From this point of view, my mother’s reappearance was quite a coup, I have to admit. Visually, she was perfect—a complete nightmare. As soon as she opened her mouth, things went downhill. Her “conversion to Islam,” which had given secret agent Assouline food for interpretation, quickly turned out to be a farce; moreover, it soon became obvious that she and I barely knew each other; that we had run into each other once or twice, no more.
When Nietzsche uses Schopenhauer’s poor relationship with his mother to explain away his misogyny, he is committing an intellectually terrible act, one that prefigures many others; but at least he has the excuse of plausibility. It is possible to imagine that someone who spent his childhood and adolescence in daily contact with a mother he despised would be unlikely, later in life, to appreciate a woman’s qualities. But what about someone who barely knew his mother? One might imagine he would be particularly determined to seek out the company of women; that he would try with all his might to be reunited with this thing that, to him, will forever remain a mystery.
Does this mean I should be a sex maniac? Looking back over my life, I have my doubts. I have certainly been one at times, but at other times I find I have been inexcusably offhand. I think that in this, as in everything, I have been bipolar.
And if I am an author (because I am; on that it is too late to have doubts, in fact it would be a little ridiculous to affect false