Public Enemies_ Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World - Bernard-Henri Levy [116]
You would be an excellent minister of culture, probably the only thing that might salvage a Ségolène Royal administration; but you would likely be too conscientious to write novels while you were doing it.
We all need role models, at least at the beginning and usually right to the end; but I think that, for you, it is time to break away completely from the Malraux model. I know it’s difficult; I’ve talked about how difficult it is for me to break with the Baudelaire model, which at my age is tantamount to suicide. It’s difficult, but you have to do it.
I feel strange, suddenly, playing the role of adviser, but it’s true that when it comes to fiction I’m still pretty hot. And I can well imagine the flak you’ll get when you start writing again. I can see them now, the vile little creeps with their evil grins looking at the novels in Grasset’s autumn schedule. Oh yes, it could give you pause.
So, what about the Romain Gary ruse? Feel free to talk to me about it if you like, I can tell you’re tempted by it; personally, I’ve got something else. Something simple, dead simple, but it has always worked for me.
You simply have to visualize your own death. And imagine that it will occur shortly before publication. After the book has been printed, of course, so you have the pleasure of touching it, smelling it. But a couple of days before publication or, at the extreme, on the publication date itself. Imagine that, as a result, the critical reception doesn’t affect you at all.
To achieve this, all you need do is summon up some medical crisis, we all have them once we get to a certain age. I’ve had several of them, specifically, a bout of pericarditis in Rouen I recount in Whatever: for an hour or two I really thought I was about to kick the bucket, it was pretty intense. It served me well later, that pericarditis. Whenever I think of that night, I can feel the symptoms. I usually close my eyes, I lie down, and it all comes back with ample precision.
I perform this exercise for a few minutes and afterward, I’m not afraid anymore, I can go for it. I can really go for it.
So go for it, Bernard-Henri. I’ve lifted a corner of the rug, but there are others; there are as many as you want. It’s a circular rug.
*Patrick Bauchau (born 1938) is a Belgian actor who first came to fame in 1967 in Eric Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse. He starred in Houellebecq’s film of his own novel The Possibility of an Island.
*Flaubert’s maxim (from a letter to Louise Colet) is “La vie! la vie! bander, tout est là! C’est pour cela que j’aime tant le lyrisme!” (Life! Life! To have erections! That is everything, the only thing that counts. That is why I so love lyricism!) From The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, 1830–1857, translated by Francis Steegmüller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).
†Flaubert, in a letter to Ernest Feydeau: “Mais, misérable, si tu répands ainsi toujours ton foutre, il ne t’en restera plus pour mettre dans ton encrier. C’est là le vrai vagin des gens de letters.” (Poor wretch, if you sow your wild oats [spill your come] in such a way you will have none to put in your inkwell. That is the true vagina of men of letters.)
*Marie-Françoise Colombani is a French journalist with Elle.
*Aude Lancelin (born 1973) is a French journalist and literary critic with Le Nouvel Observateur; in 2008 she co-wrote Les Philosophes et l’amour.
*Marie-Dominique Lelièvre is a French journalist and novelist who is perhaps most famous for her biographies of François Sagan, Serge Gainsbourg, and Yves Saint-Laurent.
†Gide, in his letter to François Mauriac, is actually more damning: “C’est avec les bons sentiments qu’on fait la mauvaise litterature.” (It is with fine sentiments that bad literature is made)
*Houellebecq is referring to Matthew 10:34, “I have not come to bring peace, but