A review by rheckner
Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World by Michel Houellebecq, Bernard-Henri Lévy

3.0

This book is interesting and intimate. Houellebecq and BHL are fascinating figures of modern France. Houellebecq for all his faults (racism, sexism, general narrowness of mind) is under no delusions about his work, his reputation, or his abilities. He is a great writer and ever once and a while an insightful thinker (this is the best, I think, one can hope for as a writer). I think he is probably right that once rot has set in it is nearly impossible to stop it, his writings bear out this idea. BHL, on the other hand, seems to think himself as the heir to the best of French philosophy. Perhaps he is, but his philosophical thought seems to be mostly name dropping philosophers. He is no Foucault or Sartre or Aron.
This book is worth reading once.