Customer Reviews

Nothing Serious

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justine levy takes us from the pits of hell, spins us around a couple of times, and spits us back out. refreshing in its strong female narrative, utterly indulgent in its darkness, but wonderfully redemptive in its transformations. i was surprised to read such an insightful ending to the novel. like an uncensored journal, it is raw and honest. worth the read.

NOTHING SERIOUS reads mostly like a a journal, or a incredibly long, often incohesive and random stream of thought. The novel is more about what and how the character Louise Levy thinks and how she experiences and interprets the world than about any particular events. In fact, the basic events of the plot are revealed pretty early, although perhaps out of sequence, and the story holds no real surprises. I was only so interested in Justine/Louise's mania, (though I was relieved when she seemed to figure it all out) so it took me a while to finish the book. I put it aside often to read something more interesting. I also think that the prose of this novel just does not work as well in English. The writing style is palatable in French, and is mostly annoying in English.

The story itself -- I think that it could be told just fine through an long literary essay. As it book, it just seems to belabor the point.

I just had to read Nothing Serious when heard that Carla Bruni--wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy--was one of the characters depicted by Justine Levy in fictional form. I finally had a chance, thanks to the kindness of Melville House publishing chief Dennis Loy Johnson, who sent me a review copy--which, by the way, has a beautiful paperback binding, with helpful end flaps that can be used as bookmarks, real class...

As for the novel, of the confessional genre, I can report that it is really not too bad, especially for a 20-something. Better than the "girls of Knopf" sort of memoirs-cum-novels that appeared a few years ago. Not great literature, but worth reading if one's expectations are not too high.

Nothing Serious is not actually much about Carla Bruni, although she does appear as a Wicked Witch of the West-type husband-stealing predator who pops up episodically throughout the story. The main storyline, however, is a coming-of-age tale for a young French woman coming to terms with the death of her grandmother. It is a journey of self-discovery, complete with tales of infidelity and drug and alcohol abuse that ends in a French rehab center (where apparently the French health system allows stays of up to one year). Included in this roman-a-clef are vignettes of famous French philosophers like the author's father, Bernard Henry-Levy.

While not great literature, and geared more towards female "chick-lit" audiences than male readers, it does give a sense of what has happened to Europe, culturally. Blue jeans, drugs, sex, rock and roll seem to have replaced philosophical discussions about the meaning of life, more "Sex and the City" than "The Second Sex," although Levy gives philosophy a shot in the end, when she reveals the moral of her story:

Life is a rough draft, in the end. Every story is a rough draft of the next one, you cross out, you cross out, and when it's almost right and without any misprints, it's over, all that's left is to leave, that's why life is long. Nothing serious.
It would be nice to see Levy expand upon this concept in future. She may have something serious to say, but she hasn't said it yet. In a sense, Nothing Serious is a rough draft, holding out the promise of perhaps more serious work to come...

Presenting obviously autobiographical information as fiction is both indiscreet and unfair. It is indiscreet because the "characters" in this "fiction" had a legitimate expectation that their private interactions with Justine Levy would stay that way. It is unfair because they can't defend themselves against unflattering portrayals of themselves in fiction.

In spite of being unseemly airing of family dirty linen, or perhaps because of it, this book is passable airplane reading. To her credit, the author attempts neither to make her alter ego attractive nor to portray the husband who leaves her in too harsh a light. In fact, by the end of the book, I found myself wondering how he put up with her for so long.