French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy is a literary rock star in his home country, not some stuffy academic. The national papers chronicle his expensive suits, his gorgeous Paris apartment, his movie star wife and his dangerous trips to Pakistan tracking the killers of an American journalist in his international best seller “Who Killed Danny Pearl?”
In 2004, The Atlantic Monthly recruited Levy to follow the path of countryman Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1831 trip to the United States that formed the basis for Tocqueville’s classic “Democracy in America.” For a year, Levy traveled through dozens of American states, moving from Seattle to Boston, Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, meeting celebrities and common folk. Levy’s witty and observant dispatches were published in the Atlantic Monthly in the time leading up to the presidential election.
Levy has published “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” a nuanced travelogue of his journey through the United States during a turbulent time of elections and wars.
“I hesitated because I thought the Atlantic assignment might be the most difficult challenge of my life, to put into a book, such a complex idea: the reality that is America,” said the 57-year-old Levy, from New York City’s exclusive Carlyle Hotel over lunch. In person, Levy lived up to his image, dressing in a stylish black suit, an immaculate white shirt and his mane of black-and-gray hair brushed back.
“I thought it was worth doing because of the moment and because of the vertigo,” said Levy. “It was not the vertigo of me in front of America but of the vertigo of Americans themselves, in front of their identity.”
With American troops fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a bitter presidential race descending into mudslinging, the United States was ripe for analysis in 2004. “America was at a point in its history where it was interesting to observe,” he said. “I thought maybe it would be useful for a foreigner and the American people to have an honest and humble exchange of questions, questions more than answers.”
Where Levy’s book truly excels is in his razor-sharp political observations. He catches U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle a few months before his electoral slaughter, dancing flatfootedly at an Indian powwow in South Dakota. He draws a memorable picture of Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania with his wolfish smile, fawning over Jewish leaders in New York, begging for cash.
“It’s all Balzac, the human comedy,” said Levy with a shrug of his shoulders as he compared American politics to the 19th-century French novelist. “This is universal. Politics is a big comedy. I am sure that I would be able to observe the same thing in my own country.”
Levy examines what he sees as a fraudulent obesity epidemic and America’s shrinking social safety net. Logging 15,000 miles through America with an assistant in tow, he meets with Sen. Barack Obama in Chicago and actress Sharon Stone in Los Angeles. Through it all, Levy draws a sympathetic portrait of America, from the contemplative cadets at the Air Force Academy to hard-working men and women he met on the road.
“My itinerary consisted of a lot of improvisation,” said Levy. “There was the itinerary of Tocqueville, then the parts of the country that did not exist in his time. Inside that framework, there was the contingency of the day. I left it like that.”
Some of Levy’s meetings were grim, like the one with Russell Means in his dilapidated house in South Dakota. Means was once a hero to the Indian rights movement but is now a paranoid anti-Semite.
“Meeting Means was a depressing scene. Means was in despair, and he was a desperate man, falling for the most criminal and stupid of ideologies, that of anti-Semitism,” said Levy, who is Jewish. “It is the path of bitterness.”
Levy writes that the United States is in crisis but not on the verge of extinction. “I see it as a time of crisis and hope,” he said. “In spite of Katrina and all the dark places I have seen in this country, in spite of George Bush, I see such great ability to overcome this moment.
“I believe in the capacity of Americans to draw lessons from its experiences. Few countries would have reacted to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal as America did, with such freedom on the part of the press and such a reaction of disgust on the part of so many of its citizens. It’s a book of hope.”
In an epilogue, Levy’s handles the grim Katrina debacle and America’s views on New Orleans and race. “New Orleans is a fascinating city, but hated by the rest of America, who view it as Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Levy with a sad sigh. “You have to be a European or an American intellectual to love New Orleans. On race in America, progress has been made, but there is not enough integration, and racism is still present, even if it is unsaid.”
Levy noted that France’s own racial problems were violently pulled into the spotlight during the Paris riots in November. “The riots were our Katrina,” said Levy. “We had the same revelations, the same questions on race and poverty. It is the same nonreality.”
Through his wide experiences in America, Levy learned many new things and kept his eyes open. “Every step in this country was surprising, often in the best and the worst ways,” said Levy. “My sympathy was here at the beginning. It was sometimes put to the test, but it is still there.
“America was always a mythical country for me,” said Levy. “I hope I have created a cleaner image of what the reality of America is.”
Dylan Foley is a freelance writer from Brooklyn, N.Y.
American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville
By Bernard-Henri Levy; translated by Charlotte Mandell
Random House, 320 pages, $25
