Pierre Lemieux is a French-Canadian professor, libertarian, and master literary stylist. In 2001, he penned "Confessions d’un coureur des bois hors-la-loi" (Confessions of an outlaw woodsman), to protest against the growth of oppressive, intolerant, anti-gun, anti-self defense laws in Canada. (Or as he says, "pretend laws"--an appellation that has been used for the "laws" of Vichy France.)
The book has recently been re-issued in electronic version by "Les Classiques des sciences sociales," which is one of the most important Francophone on-line social science publishers. I finished reading it yesterday, and I recommend it highly.
I have been studying Canadian firearms policy since 1986, so I was apprehensive that book would contain a recitation of various arguments with which I was already very familiar. Au contraire. The book is collection of passionate essays on the spirit of liberty, on the "Redneck of the North" culture of rural Quebec, and on the rising danger of the soft tyranny of the nanny state.
If you can read French at the high intermediate level or better, you will be able to enjoy the book. If you are highly proficient in French, you will especially appreciate Lemieux's beautiful writing--including the first chapter, in which he describes walking around his rural property, carrying his .223 carbine in violation of the pretend law. The best chapter imagines his meeting on Judgment Day with St. Peter, which begins with Lemieux remonstrating St. Peter for addressing him with impertinent informality ("tu").
I read Lemieux in French in the manner that many students used to read Cicero in Latin: to improve my language skills by carefully studying every word and phrase from a master of rhetoric, and to savor the pleasure of a brilliant writer animated by the deepest love of liberty. "Les Classiques" also has several other libertarian books written by Lemieux.
Beautiful French literature on Liberty and the Right to Arms:
[DK: It's not a violation of Godwin's law for a book reviewer to mention a point that the book's author makes about a collaborationist government. See http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_01_29-2006_02_04.shtml#1138736303 ]
[DK: I compared Lemieux to two other French works I am currently reading. I thought that Lemieux's word choices were not quite as clever as those in 50 Fables of La Fontaine, but I got frustrated that La Fontaine kept introducing new characters every page. The other work was the French-language Microsoft Windows Vista User Interface; some of the word choices in the UI are clear and forceful, while others are opaque and indirect--yet intriguing because they drive the reader onward to discover their secrets. However, the UI is very dull in terms of plot or story-line.]
[DK: Thanks for the tip! I just ordered American Black Box. Interestingly, Amazon.ca was out of stock, but Amazon.fr had it.]
Now that is indeed high-brow philosophy. And quite evolved.
Come up with a better way than the .223, and I'll buy it.
[Thanks. I'll fix it.]
That's about right: freedom requires the power to do wrong. Did you think it doesn't carry risks?
Grumpy this morning, Prof?
DK and other interested in improving language skills may want to have a look at classical writers (Victor Hugo, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Émile Zola, Maupassant, and such). More contemporary literature would include authors such as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Alexandre Vialatte, Hélène Carrère-d'Encausse and many, many to choose from. It may surprise some (at least, it did for me, as I generally find the original superior to the copy), but Edgar Allan Poe's stories are a better read in french than in english, for they had been translated by Charles Baudelaire (who you may already know, mostly for his unrivalled poetry).
Interested in French Canadian literature? Plenty of choices. Some names that come to my mind: Gabrielle Roy, Guillaume Vigneault, Anne Hébert, Nicolas Dickner, Yves Thériault, etc.
This being said, I must insist, I still find Lemieux has a fairly good writing, but far from being one to kill for. The great french (or french canadian) essayists don't suffer the comparison.
Touché!
I trust the answer would be quite similar throughout the French-speaking world:
Although he had antisemitic views, his work was contemplated as an inspired one well before he openly supported the fascist regimes and their policies. For the later reason, his influence as a writer (and, to a greater extent, as an intellectual) was greatly diminished. He is not popularly known over here in Québec, although he fathered true chefs-d'oeuvres free from his radical leanings. Nevertheless, people who heard of him seem afraid of opening a Pandera box if they come across one of his cover books.
Who knows what his fame would be today if he had not embraced the dark side?
Re: Godwin, this book cited opens with a short quote from Hitler.
What's wrong with beating someone that calls you a fascist? That is an extreme insult to me. Would you blame me for beating someone that called my wife a f-ing whore?
I reserve civilized behavior for civilized people. If you call me a fascist (and I'm not), you are not civil. And you do not deserve civility from me.