Message

It was thoughtful of Carolyn to bother translating Mr. Livry's letter for the benefit of non-French readers who might otherwise have missed this gem. I had considered doing that too, but, having perused it, saw nothing much worth transmitting. I must correct her on one point: maître-chanteur means "blackmailer," a locution Livry uses not quite correctly in the feminine (I know exactly whom he has in mind). It quickly becomes evident why Livry got the boot at the Sorbonne: he is not normal, he is not logical, and he is politically bizarre. Incidentally, while peddling his book, he speaks of an article of his online; however, this piece, too, appears to have been prudently excised. But the dead giveaway, politically, comes when he speaks of the undependability of the mail service in "post-Socialist" [sic] Russia. The jargon is instantly recognizable: Lenin's massacres and Stalin's purges were the work of mild socialist idealists, right? No -- way left. Having affirmed that he is "widely respected" he promptly asks, as if quoting a putative reader, "Who is this Livry?" Not content with this paragon of logic, he prefaces it by his chef-d'oeuvre: he has it on good critical authority that his "talent and style considerably surpass those of Vladimir Nabokov." By this time I was already laughing so hard at this clown's sour grapes that it was hard to keep reading.