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A review by neilrcoulter
Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens by Christopher Hitchens
3.0
Fans of Christopher Hitchens often say what an amazing writer he is, and so I’ve wanted to see if I agree. Suspecting that there’s little value to be gained from reading one of his books specifically about atheism, I picked up this collection of essays and reviews instead. And at 750 pages, “picked up this collection” is no small feat. Included are over a hundred essays from the early 2000s, originally published in places such as Slate, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic. The man wrote. The selections include book reviews, journalism, and opinion essays. Of these, I most enjoyed the book reviews, even though they were all of books I haven’t read and usually on topics I know nothing about. But as a book reviewer myself, I learned a lot from observing how Hitchens puts a review together. His style is not a general template for every writer, because it’s dependent on his ability to bring together many facts from different places into one conversation (an ability I admire greatly); but it’s helpful in seeing how a book review doesn’t need to be “I read this book, by so-and-so, about such-and-such...Here are the three sections of the book...now I’ll explain what each chapter talks about...etc.” For my writing (I wrote a book review for publication while I was in the midst of reading this Hitchens collection), it’s helped me feel freer to bring my whole self and whatever I’m thinking about into a coherent, conversational book review. For my students (I’ve just shared one of Hitchens’s reviews with my writing class), I hope it will push them out of that generic template and into other modes of writing reviews.
The further Hitchens gets away from the grounding of talking about a specific book, the less I enjoy his writing. In his writing about everyday-life topics, he sometimes comes across as a whiny, privileged baby. When he writes of “the failure of the upper crust and the cream of society to have the remotest glimmer of an idea of what life is like for others” (699), I thought, “Do you not think that this group includes you?”
In addition, the nearer Hitchens gets to any topic related to religious faith, the shabbier his otherwise excellent thinking becomes. He demonstrates an incredible appetite for learning the minutest details about any topic in the world . . . except, oddly, religion. In those moments, he glides across the surface of tired old questions that have answers, if he wanted to look. I read something recently (by an atheist) suggesting that outspoken atheists tend to be much more fundamentalist than fundamentalist Christians, and I find that to be true in Hitchens’s writing. He comes to the Bible expecting it to be a certain specific thing, and then when he discovers something that contradicts that expectation, he triumphantly declares the whole thing to be worthless. In one essay, Hitchens derides the Ten Commandments for being “situationist ethics,” and then unironically proposes his own new set of commandments which includes “Turn off that fucking cell phone” (422). Facepalm.
Those criticisms aside, however, what impresses me about Hitchens is that he was deeply, holistically pro-life. Though he abhorred certain beliefs among certain people, in no way would he ever have abided by limitations on anyone’s freedom of speech. It’s an attitude that often seems absent in public discourse today: the ability to disagree with a person’s beliefs but not wish that person would fall off the face of the earth; and also, the patience to put together arguments and conversations that are really meant to educate, not to attack or “win points” against “opponents.”
Hitchens fans also frequently praise him for how funny he was. Though I didn’t find him extremely amusing in this collection (his wit often felt a little forced or obvious to me), he does express some things really well—for example, in an essay about political campaign jargon:
The essays in this volume aren’t grouped chronologically, but more into lightly connected themes—so you might read three essays in a row on the topic of the Holocaust, or current events in Iran. It was an interesting arrangement, and kudos to the editor for working through all that material and finding a structure to contain it all. Reading this book also showed me some of the dominant themes in Hitchens’s writing and thinking. George Orwell, for example, is never more than a couple of pages away, with references to P. G. Wodehouse lagging only slightly behind. I knew Hitchens’s reputation as an atheist, but I’m glad to know more of him now. It’s a shame that he is so well-known in that one area (where I think he wasn’t at his best), when his mind was constantly bringing together information from many, many areas of life, literature, and history. This didn’t translate into him becoming a “wise guide for life,” but it makes him an interesting author to try to keep up with.
Reading this collection is almost certainly more Hitchens than even the most devoted fan needs, but I’m glad to now have this overview of someone who was such an intellectual force during his lifetime. It’s enough Hitchens for me for a long, long time, but I have gleaned a number of lessons from his writing that will enhance mine.
The further Hitchens gets away from the grounding of talking about a specific book, the less I enjoy his writing. In his writing about everyday-life topics, he sometimes comes across as a whiny, privileged baby. When he writes of “the failure of the upper crust and the cream of society to have the remotest glimmer of an idea of what life is like for others” (699), I thought, “Do you not think that this group includes you?”
In addition, the nearer Hitchens gets to any topic related to religious faith, the shabbier his otherwise excellent thinking becomes. He demonstrates an incredible appetite for learning the minutest details about any topic in the world . . . except, oddly, religion. In those moments, he glides across the surface of tired old questions that have answers, if he wanted to look. I read something recently (by an atheist) suggesting that outspoken atheists tend to be much more fundamentalist than fundamentalist Christians, and I find that to be true in Hitchens’s writing. He comes to the Bible expecting it to be a certain specific thing, and then when he discovers something that contradicts that expectation, he triumphantly declares the whole thing to be worthless. In one essay, Hitchens derides the Ten Commandments for being “situationist ethics,” and then unironically proposes his own new set of commandments which includes “Turn off that fucking cell phone” (422). Facepalm.
Those criticisms aside, however, what impresses me about Hitchens is that he was deeply, holistically pro-life. Though he abhorred certain beliefs among certain people, in no way would he ever have abided by limitations on anyone’s freedom of speech. It’s an attitude that often seems absent in public discourse today: the ability to disagree with a person’s beliefs but not wish that person would fall off the face of the earth; and also, the patience to put together arguments and conversations that are really meant to educate, not to attack or “win points” against “opponents.”
Hitchens fans also frequently praise him for how funny he was. Though I didn’t find him extremely amusing in this collection (his wit often felt a little forced or obvious to me), he does express some things really well—for example, in an essay about political campaign jargon:
Pretty soon, we should be able to get electoral politics down to a basic newspeak that contains perhaps ten keywords: Dream, Fear, Hope, New, People, We, Change, America, Future, Together. Fishing exclusively from this tiny and stagnant pool of stock expressions, it ought to be possible to drive all thinking people away from the arena and leave matters in the gnarled but capable hands of the professional wordsmiths and manipulators. (731)He would be disappointed but not surprised to learn that things in that area haven’t improved since he died.
The essays in this volume aren’t grouped chronologically, but more into lightly connected themes—so you might read three essays in a row on the topic of the Holocaust, or current events in Iran. It was an interesting arrangement, and kudos to the editor for working through all that material and finding a structure to contain it all. Reading this book also showed me some of the dominant themes in Hitchens’s writing and thinking. George Orwell, for example, is never more than a couple of pages away, with references to P. G. Wodehouse lagging only slightly behind. I knew Hitchens’s reputation as an atheist, but I’m glad to know more of him now. It’s a shame that he is so well-known in that one area (where I think he wasn’t at his best), when his mind was constantly bringing together information from many, many areas of life, literature, and history. This didn’t translate into him becoming a “wise guide for life,” but it makes him an interesting author to try to keep up with.
Reading this collection is almost certainly more Hitchens than even the most devoted fan needs, but I’m glad to now have this overview of someone who was such an intellectual force during his lifetime. It’s enough Hitchens for me for a long, long time, but I have gleaned a number of lessons from his writing that will enhance mine.