{"id":264956,"date":"2008-10-02T12:57:22","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T12:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2008\/10\/02\/hate-letter-books\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T17:29:48","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:29:48","slug":"hate-letter-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2008\/10\/02\/hate-letter-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate Letter Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more intriguing books coming out of France this fall is Public Enemies<\/em>, a series of letters between Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy. <\/p>\n

As described in the Financial Times<\/em>:<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

Mr Houellebecq is a novelist who – in the words of the American writer John Updike – has a “thoroughgoing contempt for, and strident impatience with, humanity”. Mr L\u00e9vy is the bare-chested “new philosopher” and human rights champion whose modesty is as hard to locate as his shirt buttons.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The publishers say the book, which takes the form of an exchange of letters, allows the writers to express their views on a variety of subjects – including each other. Both authors are intellectual bruisers who revel in provocation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This could be a lot of fun to read . . . And as John Thornhill speculates, could lead to a new genre:<\/p>\n

\n

The publishers’ concept is certainly intriguing, though, and could evolve into a whole genre of hate letters. Love letters, written by people revelling in how much they have in common, can be soppy and exclusive. Hate, on the other hand, is a far more democratic emotion: anyone can participate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Hate letters could highlight the ways we differ from each other and tell us far more about the human condition. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina<\/em>: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more intriguing books coming out of France this fall is Public Enemies, a series of letters between Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy. As described in the Financial Times: Mr Houellebecq is a novelist who – in the words of the American writer John Updike – has a “thoroughgoing contempt for, and strident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[15306,1836,7436,15296,14016],"class_list":["post-264956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-bernard-henri-levy","tag-cwp","tag-financial-times","tag-hate-letter-books","tag-houellebecq"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356676,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264956\/revisions\/356676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}