American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville (Hardcover)

~ (Author), (Translator)
Key Phrases: American Vertigo, United States, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Lévy's journey through this "magnificent, mad country" is indeed vertiginous as he loops from coast to coast and back, mounting to the heights of wealth and power—interviewing the likes of Barry Diller and John Kerry—and plunging into the depths of poverty and powerlessness, in urban ghettoes and prisons. (In this last, he truly follows Tocqueville, whose assignment in the young America was to visit prisons.) Each scene is quite short, which is frustrating at first, but soon the quick succession of images creates a jostling, animated portrait of America, full of resonances and contradictions. Sharon Stone in her luxurious home, railing about the misery of the poor, is quickly followed by Lévy's chat with a waitress in a Colorado town struggling to make ends meet. A gated retirement community in Arizona seems to the author like a prison, while Angola, a prison in Louisiana, has lush grounds that resemble a retirement community's. Lévy (Who Killed Daniel Pearl), the celebrated French thinker and journalist, is a master of the vignette and the miniature, whether explaining why he could feel at home in Seattle or pondering whether Diller's apparent amorality is "too flaunted to be completely sincere." In France, where anti-Americanism has been so popular, Lévy has been an anti-anti-Americanist, and while he finds serious fissures in this country's social landscape, in the end he is an optimist about the future of a country he admires for the richness of its culture and its political vision. (Feb. 1)
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From The New Yorker

When Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America," in the eighteen-thirties, it seemed as if only a foreigner could identify the essence of American culture. Now Lévy, a new kind of French aristocrat, has retraced his steps, travelling through our malls and megachurches and prisons. Lévy's writing has always been an arms race between shrewd observation and rapt self-absorption, but that's not the only problem here. The outsider's advantage is to see things fresh; his disadvantage is that he doesn't know when his observations are anything but fresh. In recent decades, our national self-scrutiny has spawned a library of its own—Joan Didion, Christopher Lasch, Mike Davis, Richard Sennett, Thomas Frank—and the time is long past when extracting profundities from the Mall of America seemed daring, rather than trite. Lévy's hortatory prose seethes with provocation and paradox; the trouble is that so many of his observations are so stale and predictable.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (January 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064341
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064342
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #472,687 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Rite of Passage, January 30, 2006

By	Peter (New York) - See all my reviews

That probably the best book on America was written by a remarkable Frenchman has been known since about 1830, but that fact doesn't seem to bother Americans one whit. On the contrary, we're glad to have it. Especially these days, when the question of American character and integrity seem to be on the chopping block, both here and abroad. But it does seem to irritate the French a good deal, because even though they can lay claim to having authored the best book on America (although one certainly can't forget Mark Twain in this context), they still don't seem to understand it. Alexis de Tocqueville's `Democracy in America' set the bar very high for French intellectuals, and it's become something of a great-great-grandfather complex for them. Tocqueville threw down the gauntlet, and Bernard-Henri Lévy has picked it up in his `American Vertigo.'

Whatever else they disagree on, French intellectuals - of which Bernard-Henri Lévy is certainly one (his initials BHL are often compared in France to a fashion brand, and he prefers shirts that can't be buttoned to turtleneck sweaters) - seem nevertheless destined to share one thing in common: at some or other point in their careers they are compelled to try and 'understand' America. This is the pretext for Lévy's new book, a fast-paced jog through the US that aims to sample the patchwork that makes up the fauna (the political animals, Amish people, strippers, etc.) and the flora (usually restricted to natural wonders like the Space Needle, megachurches and certain well-known prisons) of our American culture, or American Vertigo. Lévy travels to America precisely because he doesn't understand it. America inspires vertigo, and so the title of Lévy's book is already given before he voyages to the New Continent, like a modern day Alexis de Tocqueville who Lévy says explicitly underwrites his entire book, and so invites comparison on a few points. Lévy is decidedly not Tocqueville, of course, who had astute political and cultural things to say regarding the character of early America. Instead, BHL's insights are journalistically profound, or what amounts here to the same thing, profoundly journalistic.

The cultural myopia that Lévy starts out with does not improve during his travels, as is evident on any page of the book, and instead of rejecting it Lévy embraces this myopia as the guiding principle of his voyage, as it allows him the liberty of seeing America differently. This inevitably produces some interesting juxtapositions, but what it does not do - and moreover, it's not meant to - is provide any clarity. Throughout the book, Lévy flits from one venue to the next, with nothing more than something 'interesting' to say - in the way that we say, 'hmm, that's interesting,' and then promptly drop the idea because it really doesn't lead anywhere. Now, this is not a critique of the book per se: Lévy is not aiming for anything more from his thoughts than the production of an interesting read. He doesn't intend to understand America, and that is precisely what his book is about. As the title suggests, it still gives him vertigo. In this sense Lévy sets out in the opposite direction from Tocqueville's `Democracy in America.'

American Vertigo instead intends to be provocative, even if that means simply placing any two things that are American side by side (say, Arlington Cemetery and baseball) and observing: 'isn't that interesting! I wonder if this isn't somehow a key to grasping America?' Unfortunately for us, but more so for the French public who won't know any better in their edition of the book, the fact that Lévy has selected himself as the major guide and muse for his trip to America ultimately leaves the reader none the wiser for having read it. Lévy's no Virgil. But then perhaps that's because Virgil wasn't flashy. He has questions, but he intentionally sets out to raise them, not to answer them. Never mind that Lévy doesn't quite understand what causes the acute American vertigo that he suffers from: he's interested at the moment in the attraction (or distraction) that America affords him with.

Nonetheless, when it comes to America, Lévy likes what he sees, and his anti America-bashing stance has won him friends here in America. This book doesn't bash America, and that does set it apart from most other books written by French intellectuals on the topic of `America' since Tocqueville's praise and his sharp eye for truly defining characteristics of Americans, even if these also included well-perceived faultlines. It's clear that at least one of the reasons why the French are obsessed with 'understanding' America is because Tocqueville kept comparing the French to Americans in his 'Democracy in America.' And as Tocqueville's insights into the characters of both Americans and French are still relevant today, it seems that if one if wanted to read a book that explains America to the French, or America to Americans, Tocqueville's is by far the first and best guide. One thing that Tocqueville decidedly did not suffer from is vertigo. For all of Lévy's gushing about how wonderful a place America is, one gets the sense by the end of the book that for Lévy, it's a nice place to visit but that he wouldn't want to live here.

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars engaging anti-anti-American writing, February 14, 2006

By	immortal pickwick "cinncinatusc" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

After reading Garrison Keillor's review of this book in the NYT I feel compelled to weigh in my opinion of American Vertigo, by Bernard-Henri Levy. Keillor's review, for those of you who have read it and are consequently skeptical about shelling out the money for this book, was one long shamelessly insulting piece of invective, totally unfair, totally off the mark and illustrating a complete lack of understanding and forebearance. Because Levy was at times (admittedly, quite often) long-winded, philosophically minded, and revelled, it's true, in frequent references (sometimes obscure) to novelists, philosophers, movie directors, to support his theses, Keillor trampled all over this book without digging any deeper. He accused Levy of being superficial, harping on his writing style, and hypocritically wrote an embarassingly superficial review of this admirable book.

What can you expect from this book? Don't go in hoping for all of the answers. No one person, American or not, understands all of the nuances of this broad and diverse country (Whitman of the US: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes"). But I consider this perspective from an outsider commenting on our culture, a la Tocqueville, to be an invaluable insightful piece of journalistic writing. He sets out on a cross-country ramble, with the opinions and misconceptions of his countrymen surely ringing in his ears, and reports with admirable honesty having been shocked by how many of his preconceived notions were utterly shattered. True he is still set, and couldn't possibly budge (what would be the use to us?) from his French-ness. And so his itinerary is surely not one an American would choose in pursuit of cultural enlightenment. He visits seven prisons (hence, in the footsteps of Tocqueville) including Guantanamo Bay, the Mall of America, Cooperstown, the Space Needle, a brothel outside of Las Vegas, a strip-club within it, a gun show, and many other diverse instances of Americana. He interviews a wide swath of people of myriad colors and stripes. The result is a pastiche of observations and reflections, sometimes frustrating, often insightful, poignant, even poetic. For someone who grew up in the Southwest, it was marvelous to read his deconstruction of the sprawling, decentralized cities there, and once again his fresh, outsider's perspective was naive, engaging, insightful, incomplete, but absolutely worthwhile.

It's a shame that so many reviewers on this site gave the book such a crummy rating. Did they read a couple of passages and fling the book into the waste bin after feeling embarassed that this French author was far more cognizant of contemporary and 20th century American literature and politics? Maybe they were encouraged by Keillor's self-indulgent tirade. In any case, I recommend this book to anyone who is willing to sit down, concentrate, and resolve to stick it out to the end.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing to do this weekend ?..., February 14, 2006

By	Anna Clark "Anna" (NY, USA) - See all my reviews

Take a one way ticket with Bernard Henri Levy and his text, "American Vertigo" and make the most astonishing journey you ever thought you would do. This book just makes you plunge into the deepest part of yourself - as an American, as a person, as a citizen, as a human being... Though sometimes I feel reluctant to follow Mr Levy in his "clichés" (what about our image of the infamous baguette and French arrogance???), what a wonderful delight to leap into his steps and discover (or rediscover) the marvellous landscapes we share as a nation and to become aware, just for a while, of our differences - the ones we forget or ignore in our everyday lives...

I'm a New Yorker - not black, nor poor... I could be Chinese or Jewish, a politician or a gay, I could live in Savannah or across the Mexican border... I could dream of a better future or I could guard myself from the others, with guns, alcohol, money, priests... Whatever, I'm an American ; I'm part of this endless puzzle, I was developed under this wonderful rainbow where all the colours are obliged to mix...I suddenly realize that I'm proud of me, whoever I am ... This is the fabulous program of Mr Levy's trip (sorry, `book) ; you travel alongside Sharon Stone, Jim Harrison, James Ellroy, Hillary, John, George...you take a walk on the wild side before returning to the light of ideas and debates ... You meet grey people, bizarre characters, charismatic tycoons, even normal employees ... but in the end, when you reach the final stop, after the winding bends and detours, you're in the place where Bernard Henri Levy wanted you to be, provided you've read between the lines, that is!

This landing place is called: Freedom and Democracy.

Believe me when I tell you the journey is worth every second of the ride. I would do it again just for the feeling of reaching the final stop. Take a ticket for this quick trip, open your mind, but prepare yourself for a shock - the other passengers aren't exactly like you... But this is all a part of the adventure and maybe the most exciting thing in the book ! Differences....Thank you Mr Levy to remind us that our differences and weaknesses are also our forces, that we will always have this foolish willingness to make it better everyday, even if we fail sometimes! This was your final conclusion, wasn't it ? Whatever your detractors may think...