And Yet ... Essays by Christopher Hitchens - review

Even from beyond the grave, the Brit who became a fervent American remains the master of the broadside, says Melanie McDonagh

Easy target: Hillary Clinton

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Melanie McDonagh

21 January 2016

Christopher Hitchens, nearly five years after his death, seems in his writings as pertinent as he ever did. This, the latest — and, we are told, the last — edition of his essays written for periodicals such as The Atlantic and Slate, touches on a remarkable range of subjects and those that aren’t timeless such as his literary criticism have the knack of being all too relevant.

His diagnosis of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “xenophobic demagoguery” (in the context of the Armenian question) is even more valid now than it was in 2010 — one would love to have his take on the EU’s present courting of the man — while his amusing essay on Ian Fleming and his taste for the “southern hemisphere” (bottoms, and the spanking of same) could easily have been written to coincide with the recent release of the latest Bond film Spectre.

His polemic against Islamic fundamentalism had al Qaeda in mind but the sentiments are equally true of the so-called Islamic State, only more so. Actually the one theme that hasn’t worn well is his support for the Iraq war, but this accounts for only a few essays in this collection.

The Case against Hillary Clinton may have been written in 2008 but bears repeating now, in the light of her presidential campaign. In fact, one would wish for a larger readership for his trenchant conclusion: “Indifferent to truth, willing to use police-state tactics and vulgar libels against inconvenient witnesses, hopeless on healthcare, and flippant and fast and loose with national security; the case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut.” You don’t have to buy every element of his demolition of the woman to be struck by the force of others.

This is very much a book by the American Christopher Hitchens, since it focuses on how he came to see himself as an American rather than a Brit — a feeling that crystallised when he was interviewed by the conservative Pat Buchanan and accused of being a foreigner bringing alien atheist values to the US; he never tires of reminding us of the counter-Christian views of Thomas Jefferson.

Some of the reasons for his embrace of the US seem curious from the other side of the Atlantic — the libel laws here may be often preposterous but do they seriously impede the practice of his trade? The one thing that he did bring with him from Britain — wonky teeth — got tidied up and whitened when his colleagues at Vanity Fair decided he should be beautified and weaned off fags, which leaves us a comic account of the horrors of male depilation, Brazilian-style.

More book reviews

1/18

At one point he writes of the literary critic Edmund Wilson that “one test of un homme serieux is that it is possible to learn from him even when one radically disagrees with him” and that is true of Hitchens too. And there is much to disagree with.

His broadsides at religion, at least here, are cheap if not cheerful. While there can be few Christians who wouldn’t agree with him — as he acknowledges — on the interminable duration and relentlessness of commercialised Christmas, you can’t help feeling repulsed by his insistence that any public celebration of the feast should be more severely curtailed. He is very much a Protestant atheist. Indeed, his vigorous defence of another, George Orwell, from his critics — his exculpation of Orwell’s blacklist of Communist fellow-travellers is masterly — suggests a fellow feeling with the great man: we often praise the qualities in others we like in ourselves. It is Orwell whom he most strongly recalls — can there be higher praise?

Must this really be the last of his posthumous works? One hopes not. But if it should be, And Yet ... serves to remind us of what a splendid journalist and essayist he was.

MORE ABOUT

Christopher Hitchens

Hillary Clinton

George Orwell

And Yet ... Essays by Christopher Hitchens - review

Read More

More book reviews