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Love, Poverty, and War : Journeys and Essays

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Christopher Hitchens is one of those writers whose prodigious output of letters, essays, and commentaries on the life, the universe, and everything is so pointed and provocative that he is capable of irritating anyone, sometimes repeatedly so, familiar enough with his work to have read more than just one of his essays. This should not be construed as a negative. In fact, if one is going to fall into paroxysms of anger or annoyance when reading an essay at the very least it should be well written, intelligent, and amusing. "Love, Poverty, and War" a collection of essays written by Christopher Hitchens has all three attributes in abundance and will please anyone willing to take the risk that his/her cultural or political icons may be subject to one of Hitchens' literary assaults.

As noted, Hitchens is prolific. The essays in this anthology were originally printed in
The Atlantic, Slate, the Nation, Vanity Fair, the Weekly Standard, and the Times Literary Supplement among other publications. In addition the anthology includes prefaces that Hitchens has written for new editions of classic works of fiction such Saul Bellow's Adventures of Augie March and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

It is fair to say that Hitchens does not suffer fools or cultural icons gladly. In short order he takes aim at Winston Churchill, Mother Theresa, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Mel Gibson, and allegedly oppressive no smoking regulations implemented by the Mayor of New York. Given the diversity of political and social views held by these subjects it is hard to accuse Hitchens of toeing a particular ideological line. One may wince, for example, when Hitchens takes on Churchill and then applaud when he eviscerates Chomsky. No matter whether one agrees with the substance of any particular essay it is hard to disagree with the intellect and writing style of the drafter. Hitchens' very success in advancing his point of view may explain the ferocity of the attacks upon him by those who have been subject to his rapier. Very few can best him intellectually (I certainly can't) or match the sheer breadth of the subjects he has no small amount of knowledge of. Of course the immediate reaction then becomes a personal attack on his motives.

I expected the book to be dominated by the political and literary commentary that marks most of his writings for the Atlantic and Salon. What both surprised and delighted me was Hitchens more apolitical essays. His journey on the tattered remains of Route 66 is a brilliant piece of writing. So to is his look at Hollywood's famous Sunset Boulevard.

I was also surprised by the depth of personal feelings and emotions that runs through many of Hitchens essays. This is no more apparent that Hitchens' post 9/11 essays. Hitchen's description of the deep-seated emotions that welled up in him after the attacks on his adopted country, particularly New York City is very moving. He spoke with a feeling for New York that only a true New Yorker can have. (Qualification for true New Yorker status is not limited to place of birth or length of residence. It is based purely on the quality of ones attachment to it.) This is Hitchens without the sarcasm and pointed wit. He speaks from the heart and it is quite moving.

All in all these essays have something to please and annoy just about everyone. Colette once said that the "writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen." Hitchens may be prolific but he is far from prolix. I trust it will be a long time before he lays down his pen.

This book is recommended for anyone that admires good writing and who is not concerned about damaging any particular sacred cows.

Honesty is still the best policy even when written by a noted journalist living in Washington DC! Hitchens is an atheist, secularist and first class detector of hypocrisy, evil and deceit! You may not always agree with this 21st inheritor of the mantle of such writers as George Orwell but he will engage your mind, soul and heart!
This collection of essays culled from Hitchens' articles in Vanity Fair,
the Nation and other prominent venues for his talents is divided into three parts:
Part One-Hitchens gives us several book reviews of biographies of some of his favorite writers from Marcel Proust, Kingsley Amis; Graham Green; Aldous Huxley: James Joyce and Graham Greene. He also takes a look at the life of the Communist Trotsky. Hitchens evidences his broad literary learning in these brainy articles.
Part Two: In this section deemed "Americana" Hitchens takes to the wide open American road. We go down Sunset Boulevard with Billy Wilder; take a trip on what was once Route 66 and look at the laws governing New York City. We also read his reviews of Bob Dylan's oeuvre; discover the pleasures of Hitchens' appreciation of Saul Bellows' classic The Adventures of Augie March and revist the land of Civil War reenactors.
His review of the Martha Stewart empire is priceless. He also writes judicious and on target attacks on the likes of Michael Moore and Mel Gibson. Several other articles on figures from Mother Theresa (highly controversial) and the Dalai Lama are worth reading even if you disagree with them.
Part Three is the most poignant of the three sections of this large book.
In it Hitchens reports on the tragedy of 9-11; takes a well informed look at the gruesome situation in the Middle East and its horrible madmen incarnated in such tyrants as Ben Laden and Saddam Hussein.

I do love Hitchens, and I'm quite fond of his tone. I wholeheartedly recommend his work. While he's not entirely convincing on the "War" issue(I think his abstracting of a "theocratic fascist" enemy is a bit problematic), otherwise he's always tight and if nothing else, fun to read. He's a bit tedious in the last Orwell book, but his essays have no remotely blunt areas--i.e., very sharp-like, all the time.

As to the Dalai Llama issue raised at length below...let's see, "he has no right to denigrate our religion." No. No, that's objectively wrong. He has every right to denigrate your religion. Of course there's so many moral cowards running around right now, I can see why you'd think that. Nobody's ever bothered to denigrate your religion before. One would think there were a law against it, or something. Of course if you substitute the "religious" in "anti-religious bias" with "nonsense," as in "anti-nonsense bias," Hitchens' position may be more comprehensible.

If you want to know why Hitchens is such an in-demand writer, read this book. The man has an unrivalled talent for polemicism. If this means that his essay on, say, Mother Teresa comes across as a little over-the-top, so what? It's an antidote to everyone else's sheep-like adoration of the woman, usually unsupported by any knowledge of the facts of her life. That's the function of a contrarian, and Hitchens is the best in the business.

The book is not all polemicism - elsewhere Hitchens indulges in his love of literary criticism. Readers who wish to know the details of his conversion from opposing the first Gulf War to supporting the Iraq War will also find what they're looking for. If you want to buy just one Hitchens book, this is the one.

Of all the people I have read sufficiently enough to judge, Christopher Hitchens is probably the one I would least like to debate. His knowledge about seemingly almost anything, his wit, his command of the language, and his taste for sanguinary conflict make Hitchens obviously a formidable foe. These previously published essays demonstrate him at full potency, and many still have plenty of bite years later. Hitchens must have had great satisfaction and anger at the same time when taking on Churchill, Mother Teresa, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, JFK, history teaching, and others.

The Churchill essay was a great surprise when first published in 2002, at least to many of us who placed Churchill among the greatest people of the 20th century. Except for Mother Teresa's, many of the other essays on individuals were less surprising in attitude and thesis, yet they usually made solid arguments, with potent and entertaining prose that sometimes verges on piling on the hapless victim.

The essays cover far more than just political topics. Book reviews and introductions to books form a nice diversion. In several cases, such as an essay on Waugh, I did not know enough to give the topic justice and skimmed on to another. The piece on Joyce for the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday may not quite provide the perspective you expected.

The biggest unanticipated delight was Hitchens' dip into some non-intellectual waters. The piece on Route 66 was exceptional, as was his meander along Sunset Blvd.

The section on War is both timely and dated. Hitchens' visit to North Korea in 2000 reads almost as current events here in 2006, with the rumored nukes and other spectacles. For the situation in the mideast, covered in multiple essays, the writing is powerful, as usual. However, I must admit to some Iraq and general mideast fatigue, and thus couldn't get into the arguments as much as I should have.

Hitchens is a very opinionated person. He has opinions about EVERYTHING from Mother Teresa to Kim Jong Il. Unlike most opinionated people, however, he knows what he is talking about and bases his opinion on actual experience.

We all have a view about Iraq and North Korea, but how many of us travelled to either place? We all have out views about Mother Theresa, but how many of us appeared as--literally--a "devil's advocate" arguing against her cannonization? Hitchens did all this and more, so his views on these subjects are worth taking seriously and are certainly informative. What's more, Hitchens can write. He has a knack for bringing his views to life with concrete, eyewitness examples about the experiences of those who live in the countries, or know the people, that he talks about.

(Hitchens, fanatically anti-any-and-all-religion, wryly comments that the "Devil's advocate" in the canonization process is usually a cardinal or Bishop who is assigned the role againt his will, while he, Hitchens, is the only person in history who appeared officially on the side of the Devil pro se, without being ordered to do so.)

For these two reasons, Hitchens' writings about contemporary subjects he talks about is fresh, original, well-argued, and simply fun to read. One need not agree with Hitchens: he is bound to upset and annoy almost everybody with some of his views (How many people do YOU know who are both pro-Iraqi-War and anti-Mother-Teresa?) But that, too, is for the good: we need someone to annoy us, sometimes. No fun reading only stuff one agrees with.

P.S.

The essay about North Korea is worth the price of the book all by its own.

These are his essays and lectures from 1992-2004. The title names the books three parts. His love turns out to be of literature displaying great diversity. He dissects English translations of Marcel Proust and Christopher Rick's Dylans "Vision Of Sin" with dexterity. With poverty, he is caustic in his view of hypocritical public figures. He Knocks out gas bag Michael Moore for his moral frivolity for "Fahrenheit 9/11." You could feel the punches. The war section focuses his break with the political left. He feels that they are soft on world terrorism. I agree with him. He defends U.S. foreign policy in a logical manner. Then he shows open sentiment with his nostalgic account of the world trade center towers and driving on route 66. He remains faithful to his internationalist and democratic ideals. He is truly an exceptional writer.

Christopher Hitchen's style of writing is so elegant, flowing, and humorous that reading his papers is a literal treat. I often feel sad when I see the end of one of his essays approaching. Being absorbed in his prose is too much fun. It's like having to step out of the hot tub.

One thing I will always love in particular about his writing style is his deft use of the generalization. It's only because of Hitch's immense knowledge that we allow him to get away with off-the-cuff slurs, such as when he flippantly throws around words like "thug" or "stupid" to describe his opponents. From a Coulter or a Moore we'd consider this sort of name-calling juvenile and petty, but the words are so much more poignant when coming from a person who actually knows what he is talking about.

Not every essay in this book interested me. Hitchens' own interests stretch far and wide, and as a result his essays can sometimes get a bit esoteric. I greatly enjoyed his political works, but I'm perfectly willing to admit that I skipped some of his other articles altogether. Especially in the "Love" chapter, a section which consists mostly of fawning praise for Hitch's literary heroes. The most fascinating essays were his deconstructions of Zionism, the fascist historian "and great historian of fascism" David Irving, and of course, his most infamous target, Mother Theresa.

I consider myself on the right of the political spectrum. Not a crazed libertarian, but basically a moderate conservative who cares a lot about morality and ethics in politics. Hitchens' best political writings transcend the political spectrum, and are fascinating and sometimes frustrating simply because of their contrarian nature. Are the Jews really better off with Israel than they were before, he asks. Is Winston Churchill really a genius? Is there a moral equivalence between Al Queda and American foreign policy? They're provocative matters to explore, and Hitch deals with them all, and many more, in a manner that is neither polemic nor indifferent but simply... rational. With so many tired talking points and conventional wisdom floating around these days, it's truly refreshing to read the words of a man who can only be accurately described as "independent."

Hitchen's is "prolific" and "brilliant" so it says on the cover. Prolific is not a compliment. Brilliant? He certainly wouldn't let that go unquestioned were it applied to someone else. That's part of his appeal, he is relentless, unyielding, and "pugilistic" as it says on one of the flaps. Like all good journalists and most writers, he has a gift for research and a seeming encyclopedic knowledge to draw upon. One of the benefits to reading him is that you'll discover a myriad of writers, historians, philosophers, and schools of thought that you'll want to explore further.

The best essay in the book is the first, a serious look at Winston Churchill and the tendency of historians to stick to an accepted storyline. This is Hitchens at his best, advocating for historical truth and recognizing the complexity of character. One of his least convincing essays concerns Fahrenheit 9-11. In "The Lies of Michael Moore," he doesn't name any outright lie. Hitchens finds the movie offensive, simplistic, dangerous, and manipulative--all of which is true--but he does not locate within it a deliberate falsehood. Moore's interpretation of facts may be self-serving and one-sided, but that does not a lie make. Hitchen's also resorts to name-calling, wondering if Moore is as stupid as he looks. It is beneath Hitchen's to attack Moore in this way (and inadvertently revealing) especially since Hitchens's "look" --unkempt hair, loosened tie, wrinkled suit jacket--is itself a cliche of the deadline driven journalist. I suspect, but of course have no real proof, that his vitriol for Moore and (elsewhere) Clinton has an element of the personal to it.

The rest of the book is the usual high IQ stuff on literature, history, America, religion, and war. Something good in each one. But I'm beginning to think that he's at his best when looking at the past rather than the present.

To seek out an author with the capability of combining the gentle eloquence of the Cambridge academic with the bruising pugnacity of a tabloid columnist, and to use both in such a way as to invite rage, interest and, indeed, envy from the reader, to the precision of Christopher Hitchens would be an insufferable challenge. To find one with the sheer depth and diversity of knowledge possessed by Hitchens, I submit, would be nay-on impossible. Nowhere better is this polymathy exhibited than in `Love, Poverty & War'; an collection of various articles loosely compiled under the named themes, as well as a smaller section ruminating his adopted homeland of America.

`Love' is clearly centred on Hitchens own, containing many of his literary criticisms and passionate championing of lost passion of literature. `Poverty' is much ado about culture and current social zeitgeist, particularly with regards to draconian priggishness, popular religion, political tomfoolery and David Irving. `War' is certainly Hitchen's most controversial section, as he continues to triumph the war in Iraq. As captivating as ever, one still senses a genuine desperation emanating from his writings, as if he realises that no argument will convince his past fellow Comrades to stand by him.

The intellectual is certainly prevalent, but a perfect dosage of the casual is to be found within the pages of this collection. A delightful account of the author's escapades down Route 66 is certainly within this category.

This is an extremely enjoyable and through-provoking book, regardless of one's inference of the author's conclusions.