Public Enemies_ Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World - Bernard-Henri Levy [88]
My readers, in any case, are not supposed to realize this. I brake gently from time to time, I adjust the handlebars, but these are microadjustments, in principle imperceptible to those watching; the result should give the impression of a perfect, geometric trajectory inscribed since time immemorial.
My readers probably guess this and were they to pore over the text they would quickly realize everything. But I think most of them simply read and enjoy the pleasure, both intellectual and sensual, of a successful downhill run (on a bicycle or on skis, the principle is the same; Formula One is a little less interesting, there is the overtaking, the accelerating, there are artifacts). And if they tell me, in a tone that is almost commanding, to keep on writing, if every time they suspect that I am the kind to give up, it is for other reasons.
I expect it is because they have seen me, on television or at some public event; or that they’ve read one of my interviews. And each time, they realized that I bore easily, sometimes to the point where I seem to be struggling not to nod off; that I was not, in any case, terribly brilliant or terribly talkative; that, all in all, I played the role of author very badly.
I am about as ill adapted as it is possible to be for a public role. I spent my school days trying to avoid calling attention to myself and my professional life in much the same frame of mind. As a child I dreamed of subjugating humanity, of captivating or of vanquishing it, and leaving my mark on it; but I also dreamed of staying in the shadows, of hiding behind my creations.
I think it can be said that that’s been a complete washout.
Philippe Sollers has managed to be a constant presence in the media for more than forty years and people have learned nothing, or almost nothing, about his private life. That’s what you call success; of course he began his career in an era infinitely less brutal than ours, and people maintain certain habits; even so it is a stunning achievement.
You, and I apologize for saying this, have been rather less successful; but it’s true that you started later and on territory that, from the first, was much more dangerous.
As for me, well, I don’t need to draw you a picture.
During certain encounters with certain readers, I have sometimes been weak enough to complain, to deplore the hostility, even the hatred that greets every book I publish. Their response has always been the same (and I mean in absolutely 100 percent of cases; I cannot remember a single exception). It amounted to saying, “I don’t understand … you should be above all that.”
I could tell they were a little disappointed. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in myself. Because it’s true, I remember a time, though it’s a long time ago now … it must have been around 1990. I had already published a number of poems and articles in La Nouvelle revue de Paris, but my book about Lovecraft hadn’t yet appeared in the collection Les Infréquentables. I must have been unemployed, because I had the time to go to the weekly meetings of the magazine. Michel Bulteau had just published his own book (about Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo) in the same series. That day, there had been an article in L’Express by Angelo Rinaldi,* seriously panning the book.
It may be useful, in order to appreciate the anecdote, to know something about our future positions. Well, Angelo Rinaldi has invariably given my novels mixed reviews, in which the negative has eventually won out; he has never, however, lowered himself to personal hostility, never reached the level of vulgarity of an Assouline or a Naulleau. At the end of the day, Angelo Rinaldi does not like my books, which, obviously,