He worships Woody Allen and Charlie Rose in terms that would make Donald Trump cringe with embarrassment. He admires Warren Beatty, though he sees Beatty at a public event "among these rich and beautiful who, as always in America . . . form a masquerade of the living dead, each one more facelifted and mummified than the next, fierce, a little mutant-looking, inhuman, ultimately disappointing." Lévy is quite comfortable with phrases like "as always in America." Bombast comes naturally to him. Rain falls on the crowd gathered for the dedication of the Clinton library in Little Rock, and to Lévy, it signifies the demise of the Democratic Party. As always with French writers, Lévy is short on the facts, long on conclusions.Pretty good stuff, though as Welch commenter Steve points out, "This guy, who's been talking and writing about America all his professional life, was letting it be known that the USA is his turf."
True. And if you want to read a writer defend some regional reportorial turf that actually matters, check out Binyavanga Wainaina's essay "How to Write About Africa" in this month's Granta. Among his sarcastic-but-true suggestions to aspiring authors:
Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.That's my favorite bit, though a close second is "Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed."
And please note that yes, Wainaina's essay comes from an issue of Granta which promises to be present "The View From Africa." Wainaina can make fun of the rules for writing about Africa all he wants. But he probably knows that if he violates them, he isn't likely to reach the western market.
