"A Letter to the American Left" (Feb. 27) by Bernard-Henri Levy (aka BHL) ignited a firestorm of (mostly) angry mail. Readers described Levy's writing as "inane," "tripe," "blather," "windbaggery," "merde," "condescending and crass," "shortsighted" and "best left to line the bird cage." They called Levy a "fashionable lightweight," "motor-mouth," "posturing populist," "narcissistic" and an "arrogant," "self-promoting" "rock-star philosopher." Kevin Beavers of Freiburg, Germany, suggests that BHL has been "bumbling about America more like Inspector Clouseau than Tocqueville." Many wrote to inform Levy that Susan Sontag is dead (an ambiguity of translation caused some to mistake his complimentary invocation of Sontag as referring to her in the present tense). --The Editors

THE ABCS OF BHL

Minneapolis

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.