The Book of Duh and Other Thoughts
May. 3rd, 2006 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitriSo I finally finished Henri-Bernard Levi's American Vertigo. I am deeply underwhelmed. It's attracted a fair bit of press for being "Anti-American" (even though it isn't), and for being a book on America written by a man from France. Apparently this is an astonishing idea, particularly since, y'know, another French guy did back in 1831.
Yes, that is the big deal.
There's nothing controversial in it, no big insights. Over three hundred pages, and all Levi can say is that somepeople are for the war in Iraq, some aren't, some people think Bush is dumb, strippers have big boobs, prisons aren'tvery nice places to be if you're a prisoner (and neither is Guantanamo Bay), after 9/11 we put the flag on everything and we still do, and lots of black people died in Katrina.
In short, a lot of "No, really?"
Maybe the French will be surprised by all this, but I don't think we should be.
~~
Got the new Goo Goo Dolls album, and honestly it's a bit of a bummer after a five year wait: overly balladey. Maybe it will grow on me, but meh!!
~~
Also got the latest issue of X-Men. SPOILERS FOLLOW. Okay I totally dig the Emma/Scott/Dead Phoenix manipulations, but what is up with the Kitty/Colossus sex? Joss, Colossus is a dick, okay? I know you're remembering the kinder gentler days circa 1984 when Kitty and Piotr were all cute and everything, but since then the man's whole family died, he became one of Magneto's freaky Acolytes, he has ABUSER written all over him (hey, remember how he beat Kitty's last boyfriend into BLOODY PULP??), and his sacrifice to cure Legacy wasn't so much nobility as nihilism. Now show this instead of happy fluffiness, dammit!
SIGH.
Yes, that is the big deal.
There's nothing controversial in it, no big insights. Over three hundred pages, and all Levi can say is that somepeople are for the war in Iraq, some aren't, some people think Bush is dumb, strippers have big boobs, prisons aren'tvery nice places to be if you're a prisoner (and neither is Guantanamo Bay), after 9/11 we put the flag on everything and we still do, and lots of black people died in Katrina.
In short, a lot of "No, really?"
Maybe the French will be surprised by all this, but I don't think we should be.
~~
Got the new Goo Goo Dolls album, and honestly it's a bit of a bummer after a five year wait: overly balladey. Maybe it will grow on me, but meh!!
~~
Also got the latest issue of X-Men. SPOILERS FOLLOW. Okay I totally dig the Emma/Scott/Dead Phoenix manipulations, but what is up with the Kitty/Colossus sex? Joss, Colossus is a dick, okay? I know you're remembering the kinder gentler days circa 1984 when Kitty and Piotr were all cute and everything, but since then the man's whole family died, he became one of Magneto's freaky Acolytes, he has ABUSER written all over him (hey, remember how he beat Kitty's last boyfriend into BLOODY PULP??), and his sacrifice to cure Legacy wasn't so much nobility as nihilism. Now show this instead of happy fluffiness, dammit!
SIGH.
