“Few writers can match Hitchens’ cerebral pyrotechnics. Fewer still can emulate his punch as an intellectual character assassin. It is hard not to admire the sheer virtuosity of his prose.” – Ed Luce Financial Times
“The business and pleasure sides of Mr Hitchens’ personality can make him seem, whether you agree with him or not, among the most purely alive people on the planet.” – Dwight Garner, New York Times
“I still find Hitchens one of the most stimulating thinkers and entertainers we have, even when – perhaps especially when – he provokes.” – Bill Keller, New York Times Book Review
19th century Regency England was a conversation-conscious, diary-keeping, letter-writing age; an age of dandies and of wits; when poets such as Byron entertained with their calembours; beaux such as Brummell were ever ready with their mots justes; and men such as Samuel Rogers prepared in advance their bon mots of the evening. It was an age when conversation was regarded as a fine art. That age is long past. But one man who embodies the spirit of that age of great conversation is Christopher Hitchens.
What can be said about Christopher Hitchens that hasn’t already been said? Juli Weiner, the journalist, described him as an incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant. Sam Harris, the neuroscientist, said he had more wit, style, and substance than a few civilisations. Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, said Hitchens was a man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar. But perhaps the best description of Hitchens comes from Prof. Dawkins, who once described him as “Eloquent, witty, literate, intelligent, knowledgeable, brave, erudite, hard-working, honest, arguably the most formidable debater alive today yet at the same time the most gentlemanly, Christopher Hitchens is a giant of the mind and a model of courage.”
In the face of such accolades and extolment by literary and scientific greats, my praise would seem puny and insignificant. However, I will say that it is our good fortune that Hitchens lived in the age of YouTube and the Internet. It’s easy to witness first-hand why Stephen Fry called him the greatest orator since Demosthenes of ancient Greece. There in those video clips are a clear oral expression of the devastating power and force of Hitchens’ personality. He was a man of uncommon genius, an intellectual of rare brilliance; a man with a Rolls Royce mind, who could steamroll and bulldoze over his interlocutors with his wit, charm, and colossal intellect. No one can doubt his oratory prowess or his skills as the ultimate rhetorician.
However, in his book, Arguably, we find Hitchens the master of the written word. After all the debates, panel discussions, and talking heads on news shows over the years, it’s easy to forget that Hitchens was first and foremost a journalist and perhaps one of the greatest essayist of our times – right up there alongside such great writers of prose as H. L. Mencken, Gore Vidal, and Bertrand Russell.
In this massive collection of essays we witness the breath-taking extent and far-reaching scope of Hitchens’ genius. Here are erudite essays about history, politics, and renowned figures from the past – Jefferson, Lincoln, JFK, Updike, Vidal, are all given a scholarly treatment. His reviews of literary works and figures cover everyone from Saul Bellows, Somerset Maugham, Karl Marx, Graham Greene, to his personal favourite author, George Orwell. This collection also features his more controversial essays on atheism, why women aren’t funny, capital punishment, waterboarding as torture, and his New Commandments to replace the traditional Ten.
Especially entertaining are his articles in which he describes his travels to “the axis of evil” countries: North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan. It reminds the reader that Hitchens was not only a journalist but a reporter as well – and a brave one at that. Here are fascinating accounts of how he was beaten up on the streets of Beirut, how he hobnobbed with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and a particularly heartfelt narration of his visit to Kurdistan.
The man had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of history, politics and literature. His masterful ability to recall facts and incidents and then report them with coruscating, vivid and urgent detail is often evident in these essays, but no more so than in his article titled “Vietnam Syndrome” in which he describes a visit to a hospital for victims of Agent Orange:
In an earlier age the compassionate term for irredeemably deformed people was lusus naturae: “a sport of nature,” or, if you prefer a more callous translation, a joke. It was bad enough, in that spare hospital, to meet the successful half of a Siamese-twin separation. This was a more or less functional human child, with some cognition and about half the usual complement of limbs and organs. But upstairs was the surplus half, which, I defy you not to have thought if you had been there, would have been more mercifully thrown away. It wasn’t sufficient that this unsuccessful remnant had no real brain and was a thing of stumps and sutures. (“No ass!” murmured my stunned translator in that good-bad English that stays in your mind.) Extra torments had been thrown in. The little creature was not lying torpid and still. It was jerking and writhing in blinded, crippled, permanent epilepsy, tethered by one stump to the bedpost and given no release from endless, pointless, twitching misery. What nature indulges in such sport? What creator designs it?
The prose is exquisitely horrifying and terrifyingly sublime – as harrowing as reading a passage from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
What this collection of essays leaves the reader with is not just mountains of facts, volumes of ideas, and lots of food for thought; not just an appreciation of the beauty of English prose; but also the impression that Hitchens was the very embodiment of erudition. His scintillating voice and sparkling personality shine through and through. His grace and elegance in wielding the English language, his acerbic wit, his astringent sallies, his impish turns of phrase, and his impetuous put-downs are all delightfully evident in this collection of essays.
Hitchens lived an intense life with an excess of whiskey and cigarettes. He died too soon. Quoting the poet Edna St. Francis Millay, he admitted he had knowingly burnt his candle at both ends, but what a lovely light it gave. There are many wonderful things Hitchens has said over the years. For me, this one stands out above all else:
“I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet. That I haven’t understood enough, that I can’t know enough, that I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.”
Christopher Hitchens has that wonderful ability to write insightfully, honestly and with great perception, as if he were writing just to you. Brilliant!