Hitch-22: A Memoir

With exquisite articulation and guts, Hitchens uses his well-examined life along with switchback roads to literature and history to create a story with himself as the protagonist. If you pay attention, Hitchen's words cut through conditioned emotional bogs with sturdy reason and titrated wordage. The use of so much of his private life is bold, although in that regard Hitchens comes across as Gen Y "who cares?" modern, rightly calculating that the time is already here for this. The group psychology described seems so archaic as to belong in a time capsule, yet it is captured within a lifetime. Plenty of old cultural scripts are personalized, such as the opinion against divorce, unfair obstacles to education and class separation; Hitchens wrote how he felt straightforwardly-enough in his worst circumstances, there being a number of worsts. One thing that struck me was how uncontemporary the past seems in tone; harsh good against harsh bad, and vice versa. To his credit Hitchen made vivid his personal stories with candor and self-analysis; this isn't a flat memoir; it's written in the full 360 degrees. Hitchens is admirably fearless in these things. Previews didn't lead me to anticipate depth and scope of this work, nor its' astuteness and charm, nor the elaborate writing style. That said, the audiobook can be edgier. Parts of it are akin to being on a train tour through abandoned foreign towns, one after the other, with a rambly guide on the microphone. But, that's pretty much the way it would have to be when a densely historical book is done on audiotape. The sound of his voice is rich and easy to listen to and he keeps his upward lilting voice going for the whole time; his stamina amazes. (For book and author references I refer to the text.) If I had to choose between the text and the audiobook, I'd choose the audiobook as, at points, it breathes life into the interesting story of this man's life, become a WiFi transfer of emotions; emotions caught in Hitchen's voice, loaded empty spaces of pause, an occasional sharp intake of breath and shifts in cadence and volume insinuate an emotional charge into like-minded parts of the listener's brain. This creates an unexpectedly intimate felt experience, personalized beyond that which even this well-writ text can deliver. Gotta admit, I'm pretty taken aback by the vindictive reviews here which are not in the majority, but still... what's the beef? This is a memoir and it has insurance in the sense that you got his story of his life, just like the cover said you would.

Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Christopher Hitchens is a masterful writer. While reading Hitch-22, I found myself thinking "with some editing, this could almost be Orwell" -- sometimes I think he's just a bit too in love with the sound of his admittedly well-crafted words to be able to throw them out, and become the true master of pithiness that was Eric Blair. But though he's not a master of pithiness, he is a master of his craft, and a very convincing writer. I defy you to read his passages on Iraq and not for a second believe -- or at least entertain the possibility -- that the 2003 invasion was justified. I'm not saying you'll be convinced, but I'm saying that while you're reading this book, you will at least consider the possibility. A very powerful writer indeed, and I haven't even touched on the many other subjects Hitchens touches. As always, a good memoir turns into a chronicle of the times, and that's what this is. Interesting times they were, too, and an interesting life Hitchens has led, to put it mildly. I think in lesser hands, it wouldn't be so interesting a read -- but in Hitchens's hands, almost any story is worth a look. Highly, highly recommended.

Let's get the most important bit out of the way first. You ought to read this book. If you love good, insightful, literate, compelling writing then you must read it. You will not agree with all of it, maybe not even most of it. That's OK. Echo chambers are sterile places: creativity and energy comes from conflict. It's tempting to adopt a personal approach to this book. After all, there are a number of points of commonality between Hitchens' life and mine - our origins in post-war England, our youthful socialism, our migrations to the United States at the beginning on the 1980s, our uncompromising atheism, and anger at institutionalized mumbo-jumbo. But it would be a mistake for me to try to take this too far. At our cores, we are very different. Hitchens is an actor, a performance artist, a painter. He paints with words. He's a passionate romantic, with the creative energy and curious myopia which this engenders. Above all - and even though he is ambivalent about the term - he is a contrarian. He is defined by his oppositions, his targets. Mother Teresa. Henry Kissinger. Bill Clinton. Saddam Hussein. Ayatollah Kohmeini The Pope, and religion in general. And his opponents have to be big, controversial, and deserving of his attention. I searched the book in vain for any opinions of George W. Bush, and eventually concluded that Hitchens didn't consider him worth comment. (And Hitchens chooses his targets because they trigger his passions - he feels no obligation to be even-handed or consistent.) This is also an account of friendships of various kinds: the mentor, the partner in crime, the defender and advocate. I came away with the strong impression that for Hitchens, friendship is more important than love, which is an old idea that is rather out of fashion. It is not about intimacy, unless this is taken to include the intellect. At the end, both I and the author seemed to come to the same conclusion: the memoir is not exactly a natural vehicle for Hitchens' extraordinary literary talents. How does one end such a work? In my case, I set aside "Hitch 22" and turned to what I regard as his best work: his slim volume on Thomas Paine's Rights of Man.

I suppose we all tend to read memoirs and autobiographies of writers and thinkers whom we admire, and I am one of those when it comes to Mr Hitchens. For one so widely published (does the man ever put down the pen?), he's spoken relatively briefly about his personal life. Here he goes back to his youth, and speaks in strikingly personal detail, and at some length, about his family and his schooling in Great Britain; then on to his decision to move to the US and become a citizen. Along the way he's met some fascinating people, and in his usual bluntness, speaks of both their ideas and his personal relationship with them. For example, he speaks at length of his relationship with Edward Said, which was increasingly fraught with the despair as their views diverged. For Hitchens, ideas always come first, and he gives no quarter. But here he often talks of the people themselves, and of the pain which arises as those we love espouse ideas and values which we find distasteful. Some say Mr Hitchens has "turned to the right" because of his views on Iraq, but this is a vastly simplistic view of an truly complex man living in a very complex world. One has only to read his descriptions of many on the right such as Jerry Falwell ("tethered gas balloons of greed and cynicism "), and Ronald Reagan (with "his appallingly facile manner as a liar") to dismiss such simplification. Bottom line, this book is invaluable for those interested in placing a remarkable man and his ideas in a broader context and I recommend it unreservedly.

"Hitch 22" is a memoir, not an autobiography, by Christopher Hitchens, who seems to go out of his way to ensure that everyone in the world has at least one compelling reason to disagree with him. Those well familiar with Hitchens will know what I'm talking about, but for those that only know him from one of his guises, a little perspective. Hitchens works as a book reviewer for "The Atlantic", a political and culture commentator for both "Slate" and "Vanity Fair", a "talking head" on too many news shows to mention, a "semi-professional atheist" ('God is not Great'), an all around activist and speaker for the causes he deems important, and I'm sure a half dozen other roles I'm not aware of. I defy anyone to agree with every single one of the comments below: - Margaret Thatcher is kind of sexy - Communism is good - Pre-Glasnost Russia was bad - Gore Vidal is full of it - God does not exist - Henry Kissigner is best viewed as a Mass Murderer - George H.W. Bush knew that Iraq would attack Kuwait well beforehand - The USA was justified in attacking both Iraq and Afghanistan post 9-11 - Bertie and Wooster are hilarious - Mother Teresa was a sadist - The USA is a great country - British Boarding Schools are twisted Well, we can probably all agree on the last one, but see what I mean? He does indeed "contain volumes", and his views have shifted over time - to the right in many cases, as he admits. His memoir does not "explain" who Hitchens is, nor does he intend to. What he succeeds in doing admirably and engagingly is to give his perspectives on the people he's known, and the experiences he's had, not necessarily in chronological order. I don't have enough background in contemporary English Literature to appreciate everything he's written about the authors he's known, but even there, one finds that the people one would think both stuffy and reserved were in their time a "bawdy" and lewd group of jokesters, fond of obscene word games, and experiences both Cerebral and Slummy. What I found most enlightening about his memoir is his memories of boarding school. Many reviews and articles about Hitch 22 will focus on the Hitchens' statements about the high degree of homosexual activity that he says existed in the boarding schools he attended. His claims (which I have no logical reason to doubt) seem pretty stunning to me, a small town boy from the midwest, but what I find most interesting how his perspective on religion seems to have been shaped by his schools. Most Americans "get religion" through their families, and in my experience, see God and Church as something personal, rather than public. Hitchens on the other hand experienced religion as something that forbade the sexual experiences that he says were common in his schools (an oppressor of feeling and emotion), the presence of the State (Church of England) and "one more obligation" in his curriculum (compulsory attendance). The "hitch" however, was that while Hitchens HAD to go to C