Read Online Public Enemies by Bernard-Henri Lévy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bernard-Henri Lévy
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1930s. And yet this is when I was born, well, toward the end of the period; I too am a baby boomer.
It is possible to be nostalgic for a time one never knew; all you need is a television. And when I see contemporary documentaries of young people (people just like my parents, wearing the same clothes they wore), dancing the twist, when I think about their energy, their joie de vivre, I realize that I’m not alone in being
depressionist—
our whole era is, even if it is beginning to refuse to acknowledge the fact.
A few weeks ago, I read in
Le Figaro
magazine (don’t panic, I can give the classic excuse, I read it in a dentist’s waiting room; I’m only joking, I know you’re not like that, but I would like to point out that I don’t buy the rag, I’ve never really got over the sort of police investigation they did about me when
The Possibility of an Island
was published) … what was I saying? Oh yes, I was reading a book review that praised the author for “avoiding the clichés of the corporate novel.” There followed a list of the aforementioned clichés and as I read on I realized that
I
invented these clichés almost fifteen years ago in
Whatever
. It’s things like this that remind you you’re getting old.
That France (and not just France, all of Western Europe) slumped into depression after the
Trentes Glorieuses
seems to me completely normal. The optimism was too great, the belief in progress too explicit and naïve, the hopes too divisive.
Whatever
was, I think, a salutary book, and one that I think could not be published now. Because our societies have come to a terminal stage where they refuse to recognize their malaise, where they demand that fiction be happy-go-lucky, escapist; they simply don’t have the courage to face their own reality. Because the malaise has not diminished, it’s simply getting worse, you only have to look at the way young people nowadays drink: brutally, until they lapse into coma, to deaden themselves. Or they smoke a dozen joints one after the other until their panic finally subsides. Let’s not even talk about crack.
• • •
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of finding myself in Moscow with Frédéric Beigbeder (by accident; we were there for different reasons and didn’t plan to meet up). Twice we did sets as DJs in nightclubs full of the sumptuous blondes popularized by current affairs magazines. Twice Frédéric and I noticed the same thing: young Russians adore the Beatles, they react to their music immediately, they like it (whereas I’m sure they didn’t know the music before, they only discovered western music in the 1980s through groups like U2 and
a
-h
a
). And not only do they like the Beatles, they like early Beatles, songs like “Ticket to Ride” and “Love Me Do.” The music, made eternal by their genius, their enthusiasm, their joie de vivre; the music of youth, of heading off on holiday (the music of economic growth, of full employment).
Back in France, the magazines ran headlines about a new idea: economic decline. A very different atmosphere, obviously.
The worst thing is, the ecologists are right. Of course, none of the problems facing humanity can be tackled without stabilizing the world population, without stabilizing energy consumption, without intelligently managing nonrenewable resources, without tackling climate change.
And yet coming back to Western Europe I felt like I was coming back to the dead. Of course, life is hard, very hard in Russia, it is a violent life, but they
live
, they are filled with a desire to live that we have lost. And I wished I were young and Russian and, ecologically speaking, irresponsible.
I also felt I needed idealism (a rarer commodity, I admit, in contemporary Russia). I wished I were part of a time when our heroes were Yuri Gagarin and the Beatles; when Louis deFunès made everyone in France laugh; when Jean Ferrat was adapting Aragon.
And, once again, I thought about my
It is possible to be nostalgic for a time one never knew; all you need is a television. And when I see contemporary documentaries of young people (people just like my parents, wearing the same clothes they wore), dancing the twist, when I think about their energy, their joie de vivre, I realize that I’m not alone in being
depressionist—
our whole era is, even if it is beginning to refuse to acknowledge the fact.
A few weeks ago, I read in
Le Figaro
magazine (don’t panic, I can give the classic excuse, I read it in a dentist’s waiting room; I’m only joking, I know you’re not like that, but I would like to point out that I don’t buy the rag, I’ve never really got over the sort of police investigation they did about me when
The Possibility of an Island
was published) … what was I saying? Oh yes, I was reading a book review that praised the author for “avoiding the clichés of the corporate novel.” There followed a list of the aforementioned clichés and as I read on I realized that
I
invented these clichés almost fifteen years ago in
Whatever
. It’s things like this that remind you you’re getting old.
That France (and not just France, all of Western Europe) slumped into depression after the
Trentes Glorieuses
seems to me completely normal. The optimism was too great, the belief in progress too explicit and naïve, the hopes too divisive.
Whatever
was, I think, a salutary book, and one that I think could not be published now. Because our societies have come to a terminal stage where they refuse to recognize their malaise, where they demand that fiction be happy-go-lucky, escapist; they simply don’t have the courage to face their own reality. Because the malaise has not diminished, it’s simply getting worse, you only have to look at the way young people nowadays drink: brutally, until they lapse into coma, to deaden themselves. Or they smoke a dozen joints one after the other until their panic finally subsides. Let’s not even talk about crack.
• • •
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of finding myself in Moscow with Frédéric Beigbeder (by accident; we were there for different reasons and didn’t plan to meet up). Twice we did sets as DJs in nightclubs full of the sumptuous blondes popularized by current affairs magazines. Twice Frédéric and I noticed the same thing: young Russians adore the Beatles, they react to their music immediately, they like it (whereas I’m sure they didn’t know the music before, they only discovered western music in the 1980s through groups like U2 and
a
-h
a
). And not only do they like the Beatles, they like early Beatles, songs like “Ticket to Ride” and “Love Me Do.” The music, made eternal by their genius, their enthusiasm, their joie de vivre; the music of youth, of heading off on holiday (the music of economic growth, of full employment).
Back in France, the magazines ran headlines about a new idea: economic decline. A very different atmosphere, obviously.
The worst thing is, the ecologists are right. Of course, none of the problems facing humanity can be tackled without stabilizing the world population, without stabilizing energy consumption, without intelligently managing nonrenewable resources, without tackling climate change.
And yet coming back to Western Europe I felt like I was coming back to the dead. Of course, life is hard, very hard in Russia, it is a violent life, but they
live
, they are filled with a desire to live that we have lost. And I wished I were young and Russian and, ecologically speaking, irresponsible.
I also felt I needed idealism (a rarer commodity, I admit, in contemporary Russia). I wished I were part of a time when our heroes were Yuri Gagarin and the Beatles; when Louis deFunès made everyone in France laugh; when Jean Ferrat was adapting Aragon.
And, once again, I thought about my
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