The End Is Nigh

Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, who is said in passing to have "arrived at the Parti Socialiste with Das Kapital in one hand and a crowbar in the other," has written a book, Le Génie du Socialisme. The reviewer feels the need to remind us in a footnote that the title is "probably" borrowed from Chateaubriand's Le Génie du Christianisme. If la culture générale has withered to the point where readers need to be reminded of the title of Chateaubriand's opus, it is probably worth reminding these same readers that the work heralded the death, agonizing and slow to be sure yet ultimately irrevocable, of Christianity in France. To claim that Cambadélis' work will do the same for socialism is not only premature but no doubt gives Camba too much stature by treating his calque of Chateaubriand's title as something more than a joke. Still, ça donne à penser ....