Public Enemies_ Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World - Bernard-Henri Levy [79]
The dark face is recognizing one’s own essence in the criminal, in the executioner; in him through whom evil has come to pass in the world.
You are faced with your own essence and at the same time you are its chief victim.
What happens at this point is difficult to describe, but it has nothing to do with Christian forgiveness. It is more akin to an understanding, a light; a knowledge of both good and evil and of one’s own nature. And a wish, which may take the form of a prayer, to be delivered, as far as possible, from the wrong path.
Maybe I have come back to somewhere not far from philosophy. I hope so; to be honest, the detour was rather painful, and I hope it was simply a detour, and I hope, though I can’t be sure, that I have come through it once and for all. I would very much like to discuss the status of philosophy, if you’d like to, but I don’t feel up to starting it, and besides, I want to send this letter to you as soon as possible, and I’m already waiting impatiently for your reply; our letters have become one of my few joys.
*The Prix de Flore is a French literary prize founded by Frédéric Beigbeder in 1994 to acknowledge young authors. Michel Houellebecq won the prize in 1996 for his collection of poems Le Sens du combat.
*Marc Weitzmann (born 1959) is a French writer and journalist and a former literary editor of Les Inrockuptibles.
*Télérama is a weekly French magazine of television and radio listings, with occasional feature articles.
*Tat tvam asi is the Sanskrit expression of the relationship between the individual and the absolute in the Upanishads.
May 12, 2008
Dear Michel, I know all that.
I knew it from day one, even though you had, I think, a sort of reprieve when your first books were published.
And I know how slander, malicious gossip, and lies can leave indelible traces.
You tell yourself, “It will go away, one image will displace another, one piece of information will replace the previous one.” But no, it takes root. It’s like a background noise that you know you’ll have to live with until the end of your days. And there’s no point in rebelling, revolting, protesting. I’ve lived through thousands of stories like the one of your sister’s letter of denial published by Les Inrocks, which made no impact. I know by heart the golden rule of the literary nuclear war, according to which there is never, absolutely never, the possibility of a second strike. And if I never take action against that bullshit or look for compensation, it’s not because it “costs a lot” or because I don’t want to provoke the newspapers. It’s, first and foremost, as I think I told you in one of my first letters, because ultimately part of me couldn’t give a damn about any of this and is well “fireproofed.” But even more so, it’s because it doesn’t make any difference. Not one iota. You could bring all the legal actions you wanted and for some people you’d still be only a nauseating matricidal killer, a racist and an Islamophobe. I could attempt to set the record straight in every possible and conceivable way and I would only strengthen their case that I’m a bourgeois bastard who knows nothing about social questions and takes an interest in the world’s disowned only in order to promote himself. Kant said politics is destiny, but he was wrong. It’s your reputation that’s your destiny. In our Ubuesque societies, rumor is one of the faces of fate. And I’ve paid for the knowledge that there is nothing you can do to combat a rumor, gossip, or false information that spreads like a virus.
I’m going to relate an anecdote, one that’s minor but telling. It was at the time when a series of atrocious books about me appeared. They were dashed off, contained almost an error per page, and were nothing more than a tissue of malevolence and invention disguised as biography. Among the pile, there was one