JOLLY DAYS

Preening

Garrison Keillor in this review has found his true voice, abandoning cute affectations for direct expression. The writer being reviewed, Bernard-Henri Lévy, is aching to be seen as insightful, like Tocqueville, whose depth of understanding culled from a brief stay in America was prescient — Tocqueville was some kind of genius. Tocqueville proves that if you can really see the present with depth, you have a good chance of guessing the future.

Keillor can't stand the arrogant, shallow disdain of Bernard-Henri Lévy:

Thanks, pal…Thanks for coming. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. For your next book, tell us about those riots in France, the cars burning in the suburbs of Paris. What was that all about?…

The excellent critic William Grimes, in today's NYT, doesn't much like the preening Frenchman either:

[Bernard-Henri Lévy] is lazy. Tocqueville, faced with the bewildering logic of American politics and American habits, rolled up his sleeves and tried to account for what he saw. Mr. Lévy dashes off a few lines, shrugs his shoulders and tosses out rhetorical questions.