Obligatory Smoking Photo that Accompanies Every Article About Hitch Since his Death
Hitchens was the Most Commanding English-language Virtuoso Conversationalist in the last 100 years. He had a preternatural ability to call up the exact word needed in every instance and situation. His vocabulary was colossal, ney towering, ney…prodigious. While many people employ 50-cent SAT-words in their own writing, they are likely hard-pressed to recall them during an extemporaneous speech or brave enough to attempt in conversation. If it sounds like Hitchen’s confab was pretentious, it wasn’t. He had that great shield against verbal haughtiness called a silky BRITISH baritone voice. To say nothing of his glass-cutting wit.
He is most notorious in America for being a member of the Neo-Atheism movement. His book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was at once celebrated and reviled. At the very least, it was amusing, and it gave birth to some fascinating public debates between eloquent locutioners and Evangelical dolts on the subject of God, her existence and her followers.
God is Not Great also happened to be the first work I’d ever read of Hitch’s back in December of 2010. I’d been slogging through his dense monthly book reviews in The Atlantic for years before I realized his greatness. It wasn’t until the debates were raging that I’d become obsessed and began consuming everything else I could pull up on the Internet. He was growing on me quickly and pervasively.
I think so much of what I like about Hitch is that sense of the schadenfreude of the Christianists that he played the catalyst in. I loved that this Wizard of Words romped around like an intellectual bull-in-the-china-closet when it came to making a point. They never stood a chance. Of course, there are some notable exceptions – Hitch v. Tony Blair and Hitch v. Alister McGrath.
Finally, I don't want to say much about the content of Hitchens arguments. That's for you to discover. Sometimes, it's as much about your Leader's ability to articulate rather than what he is articulating, though I agree with many of his points. I also respect that he changed his mind about Marxism and came around to being more of a Libertarian. I disagreed with his views on Iraq (he supported the war), I understood his points and respected his convictions. Unfortunately, he ravaged his body with a lifetime of drink and smoke. It ravaged him back with cancer which won out on December 15, 2011, about a year after I really fell in love this man and his work.
There is a ton of Christopher Hitchens material out there, and you could do worse than investigate this lion of the english language. I haven't even touched on his encyclopedic knowledge of and sober opinion on George Orwell. Fall down the rabbit hole on YouTube and watch his interviews and speeches. Read his memior, Hitch-22. Start with this and you won't be disappointed.
He is most notorious in America for being a member of the Neo-Atheism movement. His book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was at once celebrated and reviled. At the very least, it was amusing, and it gave birth to some fascinating public debates between eloquent locutioners and Evangelical dolts on the subject of God, her existence and her followers.
God is Not Great also happened to be the first work I’d ever read of Hitch’s back in December of 2010. I’d been slogging through his dense monthly book reviews in The Atlantic for years before I realized his greatness. It wasn’t until the debates were raging that I’d become obsessed and began consuming everything else I could pull up on the Internet. He was growing on me quickly and pervasively.
I think so much of what I like about Hitch is that sense of the schadenfreude of the Christianists that he played the catalyst in. I loved that this Wizard of Words romped around like an intellectual bull-in-the-china-closet when it came to making a point. They never stood a chance. Of course, there are some notable exceptions – Hitch v. Tony Blair and Hitch v. Alister McGrath.
Finally, I don't want to say much about the content of Hitchens arguments. That's for you to discover. Sometimes, it's as much about your Leader's ability to articulate rather than what he is articulating, though I agree with many of his points. I also respect that he changed his mind about Marxism and came around to being more of a Libertarian. I disagreed with his views on Iraq (he supported the war), I understood his points and respected his convictions. Unfortunately, he ravaged his body with a lifetime of drink and smoke. It ravaged him back with cancer which won out on December 15, 2011, about a year after I really fell in love this man and his work.
There is a ton of Christopher Hitchens material out there, and you could do worse than investigate this lion of the english language. I haven't even touched on his encyclopedic knowledge of and sober opinion on George Orwell. Fall down the rabbit hole on YouTube and watch his interviews and speeches. Read his memior, Hitch-22. Start with this and you won't be disappointed.
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