Adventures on the Freedom Road: The French Intellectuals in the 20th Century

by Bernard-Henri Lévy, Richard Veasey (Translator)

From the days when Zola and Peguy brandished their pens in pursuit of political action, the question of Literature at the service of Political Commitment has remained a live issue, most of all in France. As this century saw the rise first of Communism, then of Fascism, French intellectuals have hurried to take sides and devote their writings to the good of their chosen Cause. If Breton and some of his fellow-Surrealists, as also Sartre and Aragon, favoured the Left, Bataille, Celine and Drieu La Rochelle were no less passionate advocates of the Far Right. There were also nice shadings of political casuistry as Red veered to Pink and eventually even to True Blue; Malraux was one of the great men to skate across the spectrum. In this book we shall witness many a sacred cow being led to the slaughter as we consider the impact on the French intelligentsia of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Third Reich, the Spanish Civil War, the Algerian War and other crucial turning points in this century, and the nation's writers fashion a philosophy to match. To follow Bernard-Henri Levy, one of the high priests of the "new philosophers", in his quest is an altogether stimulating exercise.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction

433 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher, activist, filmmaker, and author of more than thirty books including The Genius of Judaism, American Vertigo, Barbarism with a Human Face, and Who Killed Daniel Pearl? His writing has appeared extensively in publications throughout Europe and the United States. His documentaries include Peshmerga, The Battle of Mosul, The Oath of Tobruk, and Bosna! Lévy is cofounder of the antiracist group SOS Racisme and has served on diplomatic missions for the French government.

Reviews

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should have been marketed and sold as a booklet. Essay selections rarely work in book form, few writers can pull this off and Bernard Henri Levy is no exception. I would have been disappointed, except Levy began the book with a 50 page “introduction” of French intellectualism from the Dreyfus affair until the fall of the Soviet Union.

That booklet was worth the purchase of the book. It should have been marketed alone, pulled from the following articles and one-page reflections on this or that intellectual and sold cheaply to those who care about liberal intellectualism (liberal in its correct form – I always have to say that, alas). Beginning from the Dreyfus affair, which is when Levy suggests French liberal intellectuals first organized to defend an innocent man, it then walks the reader through the following 100 years of flirtations with both Communism (and the USSR) and Fascism. Sarte and Camus and so many others who couldn’t resist the alure of socialism, and how they realized their mistakes – usually too late – and why the left has such a soft spot for Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and Karl Marx.

French, Parisian intellectualism is something we writers love to think about. We walk down the Seine on our way to Shakespeare and Company and marvel at the grandeur of Paris in Spring. If Berlin is Europe’s engine, London is its pocketbook, Paris is its brain and its soul. There’s no place (that I know of) in the US that rivals the feeling of being somewhere that Paris has; especially for an intellectual. The United States doesn’t give place to intellectuals like France does; if you say you are a writer to your fellow passenger on the Metro they will look at you with a yawn and pull their Iphone closer to their nose.

But not in Paris.

The only other places I’ve felt similar in the world are Buenos Aires, for the Spanish speaking world and Yerevan for Eurasia. Places where I, somehow, have felt free.

[Ryan (Glay)]

I found the language/style to be pretty poor, but this could be because it was a poor translation from French. Besides that though it was a pretty interesting read covering the major French (Western) Intellectual movements from the early 20th century from the early Avant-Garde to Surrealism, to Existentialism and Post-Structuralism, while focusing mainly on the various political commitments made by members of these various movements. The spectre of communism of course hangs over most of these movements and Henri Levy is writing in the recent aftermath of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

What I wasn't expecting from the book was Henri Levy really brings his Journalistic acumen to the fore and interviews surviving members (often very old at this point) of the various movements. It was great to hear what the friends and colleagues of Breton, Bataille, Sartre and Foucault thought about these intellectual heavy weights of the 20th century.