Last Words

How foolish of me to be writing a short piece about Christopher Hitchens, master of the essay.  Did some mid-nineteenth century hack composer write a symphony dedicated to Beethoven?  Probably many, and they’re all long forgotten.  So even as I resign myself to the scrapheap of not-even-noticed-by-history, I cannot refrain from offering a few thoughts, however trite, on Hitchens’ last work, “Mortality”.  It’s a collection of pieces from Vanity Fair in which Hitchens writes about his experience with esophageal cancer, the disease that eventually killed him.  He brings his usual super-hardnosed approach even to this most personal topic, and the results are not to be taken lightly.  There is no sentimentality, no mawkishness, no self-pity.  There is a kind of helplessness that sets in as the reader discovers how difficult it is to see clearly across the divide that separates the well from the seriously ill.  Despite our best efforts, we are in fact isolated on one side or the other, and though we try to imagine what’s over there, though we try to sympathize, empathize, we try to say the right things, we try to feel the right things, ultimately we just can’t really know what it’s like to be on the opposite side peering over the canyon rim.

Hitchens was a brilliant thinker and a very effective writer.  The discussions are not stuffy, but they’re hardly light reading.  Just the kind of conversations you’d hope to have with your best-thinking friends. The book doesn’t hang together particularly well.  There wasn’t time to put it together into a more coherent whole.  But it’s well worth a few hours of your time to read it carefully.  He remained clear thinking and ruthlessly disciplined to the end.  I’ve seen him interviewed and in discussion many times on television, and that may be his strongest suit: conversation and debate.  He was always entertaining, informative, quick witted, and considerate of others (as long as they were considerate of him).  I’m so sorry I never got to see him in person.  That must have really been something to witness.  The power of that personality had to be tremendous.

For me he’s the closest thing we had in our time to William F. Buckley.  Buckley’s exterior was more elitist, and his politics were certainly different, but the energy, erudition, and strength of personality of Buckley does remind me of Hitchens. And just as with Buckley, we may not agree with some of his political stands, but his position must be heard carefully and taken seriously. There's little that Hitchens didn't take seriously.

He writes beautifully about speech and writing, about the limits of empathy, about the value of trust and of trying, about declining strength, about prayer and positive thinking, and about the compassion and wisdom of our best scientists and doctors . Just read the essays and wonder at the man that produced them during his darkest hours.  Forgive the weaknesses that creep in here and there, especially towards the end. Appreciate the strengths.  Even though we all don’t have his intelligence and knowledge base, I so wish we could have his discipline and high standards.  Something to aspire to, I guess.

Mr. Hitchens, wherever you are or are not at present, we wish you well.  We thank you for your efforts. You are and will continue to be missed.