A deep malaise

Here is a detail that says a lot. In the French translation of this latest book by the Israeli historian Shlomo Sand, the title was followed by a question mark. In the English translation there isn’t one. The author is making a statement, not asking a question. The French intellectual is dead, finished, a thing of the past.

If this is supposed to be polemical, it is an epic failure. Even if Paris still retains its unique aura, everyone knows that it no longer rules the intellectual and artistic world: the likes of Zola and Sartre seem to have produced no weighty legitimate heirs. So what will The End of the French Intellectual tell us that we haven’t already heard?

I’ve lost count of all the books on this subject, or the end of French cuisine or simply the end of France. It’s a profitable genre in itself, and an interesting one to decipher.