Arguably by Christopher Hitchens
Letters -Song and Verse
“He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.” -Hamlet
The last set of essays published by Hitchens, is haunted by his impending death from cancer. He has set out to leave a legacy in this book. His books focuses on being a man of letters, a traveler and a journalist. The book begins with a heavy dose of book reviews over the vastness of 19-th to 20th century English literature. He starts with American Letters then moves to English Orwell to Graham Green, Poets focusing on the contemporaries of Larkin. Like his hero Orwell his book reviews are more of interest to me than many of the books he covers. He makes a strong case for several books I will not read but he may sell you on one or two. He does cover some international novels. A man of letters can write an essay on a book you will not read and make it enjoyable he and Orwell are the masters of this genre of essays. He does have wit and also a sharp tongue, he changes his mind on people as they change such as John Updike.
He praises Rushdie’s prose which I find pretty hard to stomach as I find him nearly unreadable. Yet his appraisal is honest and he took great risk to protect and maintain his friendship with Rushdie. He also has love for Woodhouse and Graham Green which is heavily nostalgic.
His journalism is experiential and his travel writing also is top notch. He is very bellicose about war on terror and is a strange and troublesome bed fellow to the neocons. His fear is abandonment of allies as the US sours on Iraq and Afghanistan. He is troubled by US lack of support of dissidents in Iran. The intresting thing is this is not arm chair journalism he travels to hot spots and is unwilling not to be human to people in the conflict. He holds a lot of irritable and contrarian opinions, in a messy situation he honestly isn’t making allies of convivence so even when one strongly disagrees with him, you know he is honest in his opinion.
His essay on Water Boarding (and the youtube video of him being waterboarded) is one of the most honest and complex essays ever written. He takes two honest and respectful position which makes this essay worth reading.
He is wonderfully comic on his trashing of a Twain biography and his essay on the American lead in the art of the Blow Job is really a good bit of fun. He as Cormac McCarthy (and myself) comments on over aggressive wine service and the need to put our foot down.
He is a naturalized US citizen and has shown his Americanism in a similar manner to Orwell’s British patriotisms, critical but friendly and hopeful with a view to making the world more cohesive. Like Orwell a man of the left that is critical of the failures of the left and its darker side, he wants to move towards a left that is more fair and non-totalitarian. His essays on the totalitarian are his most Orwellian and striking.
This book does not include criticism of the Four Horsemen of Atheism he does take strong views on choice and guilt which makes me long for a critique of Harris’s Free Will. I think he gives these fellows a pass and I long for an essay.
It is a book of fine essays, and one you will have disagreement with, but then Hitchens was a champion of respectful and when time called for it disrespectful debate. Unlike Hitchens I will endorse a book in review. This is well worth reading. The introduction and the final acknowledgements are poignant as the talk about the ideas behind the collection and the will to live when death approaches and the people who made his ending worth living. He sets out to be a man of letters and an essayist in league with Orwell it is worth reading to find out if he has met his goal. He was a truly a man of worth.