Brendan Bernhard

Bernard-Henri Lévy; Credit: Alexis Duclos

French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy on McCain, Obama and the Left

Brendan Bernhard
Originally written for a French audience, Gallic philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism is a paradoxical work that chastises the political left even as its author continues to support it, and injects a Parisian flavor into the deluge of nonfiction books about to......
Thomson: Fascinated by marginal characters with a precarious purchase on life (Newspix/Alan Pryke)

Murder and Me

Brendan Bernhard
Too bad the phrase “dark night of the soul” is a textbook cliché, as it fits Rupert Thomson’s new novel, Death of a Murderer, rather well. Thomson is a writer of extraordinary poetic gifts, as such works of kaleidoscopic imagination as The Insult, Soft! and Air and Fire have proved......
(Photo by Adriane Clark)

Eurosuburbia

Brendan Bernhard
Rachel Cusk is one of those writers who seem to have been born with seven or eight laser-like senses rather than the usual poorly functioning five. She can write about almost anything — a shopping mall, a teenage schoolgirl, even a kitchen — and render each so vividly it’s as......
(Illustration by Jed Alexander)

Spy vs. Spy

Brendan Bernhard
Although it’s scarcely a secret, Americans tend to forget that very few of us wanted to fight in World War II. If you think the country is anti-war now, consider the fact that up to 80 percent of the population was in the peace camp prior to Japan’s assault on......
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Orange Crush

Brendan Bernhard
The basic story of Ian Buruma’s Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance is fairly well-known. In 2004, Van Gogh, a heavy-drinking, chain-smoking Dutch filmmaker, television personality and all-purpose provocateur — imagine a cross between Christopher Hitchens and Michael Moore — teamed up......

Reuters' Image Problem

Brendan Bernhard
It’s been a good week for Los Angeles’ most controversial political Web site, Little Green Footballs, widely reviled by some because it takes global Islamist terrorism more seriously than, say, a Dick Cheney hunting accident. On August 5, Little Green Footballs (LGF) provided convincing visual evidence that a Reuters photograph......
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The L.A. Word

Brendan Bernhard
For a critically acclaimed novelist who has just received the worst notices of her career, A.M. Homes seems remarkably unfazed. Dressed in shapeless black pants, gray sneakers, garish red socks and a Fred Segal shirt emblazoned with images of Santa Monica lifeguard stations, she bears only a wan resemblance to......
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Hans and Fooligans

Brendan Bernhard
As a quadrennial sporting event, the World Cup has a single rival: the Summer Olympics. But while the Olympics are bewilderingly diverse and often numbingly tedious (curling, triple jump, water polo . . .), the World Cup is a spectacle ferociously preoccupied with two things: soccer and national glory. For Americans, the......
Taki to the max: At play with his wife

Something to Offend Everyone

Brendan Bernhard
In a more amusing world, the acid-tongued Taki Theodoracopulos — known simply as Taki — would by now have been the host of a late-night television chat show for at least three decades. Given his penchant for delivering outrageous remarks at machine-gun speed, he would have needed an attorney as......
Tom Verlaine Around/Songs and Other Things Thrill Jockey Live: The Roxy June 16

This Is Not Earth Music

Brendan Bernhard
Tom Verlaine walks into a café out of the winter cold, reeking of tobacco and looking like a man who finds much of life wincingly painful. Long, strong guitarist’s hands (good hands to be strangled by, Patti Smith once said) and spindly, crooked teeth. Watery blue eyes that only occasionally......