Customer Reviews

Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere

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Admiring Christopher Hitchens is very easy and for excellent reasons. He is cultured, witty, humane, passionate and principled. Most people compared to George Orwell are humbugs and frauds, but Hitchens is one who shares Orwell's indignation, passion for truth and unstinting honesty. Hitchens often quotes Orwell, and indeed prays upon him in aid. Unlike Orwell, Hitchens is not one for the ascetic life, and his deflation of cliche and euphemism owes more to Dwight Macdonald. This collection praises many writers, such as Oscar Wilde, Salman Rushdie, and P.G. Wodehouse. It offers nuanced portraits of other writers, such as Philip Larkin, H.L. Mencken and Anthony Powell. And it provides slashing polemics against the likes of Tom Wolfe and Tom Clancy, and details the sad declension of Conor Cruise O'Brien. What unites this collection is a rather vague disquisition on the clash between politics and literature. Naturally enough, says Hitchens, one should avoid crass politicization and ideological traps, and instead be generous, open-minded, but not uncritical.

For so controversial a writer these are rather anodyne sentiments. There are disturbing signs that Hitchens is becoming an "unpredictable" socialist, who is hardest on his own side and generous to the other side. What is wrong with that, one may ask? Well there is the problem that this refrain has been echoed for two decades by the New Republic and by the Bill Clinton that Hitchens so sincerely loathes. And while Hitchens is very generous to Rudyard Kipling and Philip Larkin, and perhaps even a bit too generous to T.S. Eliot, I don't think he would treat the Catholicism of Waugh and Greene with the same respect. It is one thing to concede Alger Hiss' guilt, but must we concede Sacco and Vanzetti's as well (especially when the book by David Kaiser and William Young screams reasonable doubt at every stage of the proceedings)? And is Allan Bloom's Love and Friendship really superior to say, F.R. Leavis or Joseph Epstein, let alone Frederic Jameson simply because his fellow Straussians wouldn't tolerate his homosexuality? (Personally I think Bloom's dogmatically presented paraphrase amounts to Coles Notes with megalomania.) Finally, praising Jorge Luis Borges' criticism of the Falklands war (at Gabriel Garcia Marquez's expense) foreshortens Borges' consistent support for Argentinian military regimes not led by Peron. One may also point out Hitchens' complete failure to appreciate or understand the religious impulse. Much religious discourse in the United States is empty, but that's no excuse for comparing Christmas to Stalinism or saying that Stephen Hawking is more awe-inspiring than Genesis or Ezekiel. Similarly even if one concedes that Gore Vidal is a brilliant essayist and that Saul Bellow is too uncritical about Israel's aggressive policies, one cannot deny that Bellow is clearly the superior novelist.

At his best though Hitchens is a brilliant and stimulating critic. The attack on Tom Wolfe is well worth reading, as Hitchens convicts Wolfe of self-importance and self-plagiarism. He is particularly acute on the shabby writing and self-pity of the conservative espionage novel. On the one hand he quotes the grim relish Tom Clancy has on giving orders about prisoners of war that got Keitel and Jodl hanged at Nuremberg. On the other hand he shows how Clancy could be so incompetent as to write several passages twice while at the same time imagining that a germ warfare specialist would glibly spill infected blood on himself thinking it was tomato juice. An article on Michael Frayn's Headlong shows that Hitchens shares with John Leonard the vital quality of arousing an enthusiasm for the work in question. Here in the best sense, Hitchens is a propagandist for literature. An article on Wilde (there are several in fact) really arouses the proper indignation one feels of seeing this fine man crushed and destroyed. He is acute on how the young Bellow criticized the workhouse condescension of social workers, while in his old age seems to wish such regimentation be applied to Chicago's "minority" population. And consider this damning passage that reveals the fatal flaw of H.L. Mencken: "About the rise of Fascism in general, Mencken was sanguine; more sanguine, let us say, that he was about FDR. That might be condemnation enough. Yet it is not. Think of the incredible LITERARY failure that is involved in Mencken's failure that is involved in Mencken's refusal to write a serious polemic about Hitler. Here, aside from the grotesque embodiment of all hatred and superstition, was the quack, charlatan and crank to end all quacks, charlatans, and cranks. Such a target! And from the pen that flayed and punctured the `booboisie,' there comes little or nothing." It shows all of Hitchens' finest literary qualities: accuracy, juxstaposition, and moral outrage that is no less sincere for being carefully modulated. More mixed are essays on Anthony Powell and George Orwell. Before praising Burnet Bolloten and Noam Chomsky's essay on Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship as the last word on the Spanish Civil War, Hitchens should perhaps take the time to read Paul Preston and the upcoming work by Helen Graham. (Preston's The Coming of the Spanish Civil War shows clearly that Largo Caballero could never have led a successful revolution). On the other hand there is a fine essay on Isaiah Berlin which points out his love for Anna Akhamotova and the genuine admiration that surrounded him, but reminds the reader of his unfairness to the Palestinians and his disgraceful conduct towards Issac Deutscher. If you liked No One Left to Lie To you will love this book. If you hated No One Left to Lie to you will still like this book, because here at least Hitchens demonstrates that is not what to think, but how, that is most important.

I recommend this volume to my friends not only as a great collection of literary essays but as a rare event for Hitch-watchers: for most of the book, Christopher Hitchens is not kvetching! Granted, he gets in some very nice digs at Right-wing ideologues Tom Wolfe and Norman Podhoretz,and manages to include a laughably ignorant piece on the Ebonics debate, but the majority of the essays here are encomia to authors whose writing and political actions the Hitchster admires! It's uplifting, informative, and very moving. Oh, Hitchypoo's usual detractors will come up with the usual non sequitors: he doesn't like religion, he whitewashes George Orwell's sins, he fails to distort a rumor spread by Frank Harris about Oscar Wilde, he's abonded his old political loyalties since he wrote this book. But Unacknowledged Legistlation will remain a generous and valuable work, respected by all who care about literary courage.

It's great to spend some time with some old friends - Conan Doyle, Wilde, (contemporaries who shared a publisher) Orwell, etc and a few new names, all given the inimitable Hitchens analysis. This is a different writer than the political one; here CH is kind, sympathetic, understanding. As much as I have read, and read about the Victorian authors in these interesting essays on literature, there is yet something fresh and insightful in each cameo portrait. Ah, they just don't write like this anymore! Craftsmanship is fast disappearing from all types of work. Many people have never read a well-written novel; many have never seen a well-made piece of literary criticism. One may have both by picking up this collection of essays and following Hitchens to any of these authors.
The title refers to a quotation by Shelley: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."
And on a personal note, many thanks to my Amazon Friends and others who have appreciated my reviews and comments here. There will be many more reviews as I write them, no comments, but you know how to reach me if you wish.

Chrisopher Hitchens gives ground to no one (except to his brother by whom he is regularly bested) but I thorougly agree with the previous reviewer. There is a hole in Christopher's heart somewhere. Not only does he not understand the religious impulse(escpecially the Catholic Confession) but he writes history in a brilliantly polemical but incomplete way--he does not give the whole story. One example: Wilde his favorite comes off as a hero which he was. But Hitchens neglects his constant betrayals of his wife--as though that did not figure ar all in the calculus of a life. He also neglects Wilde's refusal to engage the Dreyfus affair. Indeed and you can look it up Wilde loved to dine with Count Esterhazy one of the causes of Dreyfus' torment, a torment (and I say this carefully) besides which Wilde's torment pales. Hitchens rightly points to Jean Jaures as a socialist who combined politics with humanity. Alas Hitchens is no Jaures. Having sad all this I must admit I almost gave this book 4 stars. Hitchens writing is always superb and his insights eccentric and provacative. But here the flavor is a bit rancid. The stories are more complex than Hitchens paints them and he should know that.

Christopher Hitchens synthesizes his daunting knowledge of politics with his love of fine literature and letters in Unacknowledged Legislation, arguably his best collection of essays to date. Hitchens seeks to bridge the gap between art and politics through a critical review of the major English-speaking author's political views in the 20th century. Perhaps this critical effort could be construed as showboating as Hitchens' profession is political journalism, and this is one of his few collections which fits squarely into the literary criticism section. However, Hitchens is a fine writer and he knows his literature as well as anybody still living.

In this collection, we get a wonderful set of essays about Oscar Wilde and his contribution to the art of play-writing and support for socialism followed by his horrendous victimization as a homosexual. There's a passage from this section that I cannot resist quoting, "Wilde was able to be mordant and witty because he was, deep down and on the surface, un home serieux. May his memory stay carnation-green. May he ever encourage us to think that the bores and the bullies and the literal minds need not always win. May he induce us to rise from our semi-recumbent postures" (pg. 9).

Hitchens proceeds to run through nearly all of the crucial English writers of our era. He of course writes about Orwell, which I thought was a mute point after his Why Orwell Matters, but hey, the guy loves his Orwell. He discusses the anti-Semitism and fascism in T.S. Eliot, the racism of Rudyard Kipling, the historical depth of Gore Vidal, the heavy-handedness of Norman Podhoretz, Allan Bloom's influence on Saul Bellow, and of course, his solidarity with Salman Rushdie upon the declaration of the fatwa among Islamic Jihads, an action for which Hitchens rightfully boasts.

Hitchens also provides critical summaries of the arch-sensationalist Tom Wolf, and hack, Tom Clancy. He offers simply biting criticism of the former, and much needed as Wolf as enjoyed ludicrous financial and critical success for his quasi-journalism over the last few decades. Hitch examines Wolf's reliance on the cliché, and the cultural and racial stereotype for the sake of provocation. Clancy, while less deserving of a critical review than Wolf, is quickly wrapped up in a body bag and tossed overboard by Hitch.

Unacknowledged Legislation may be Hitchens' finest blend of the political and the literary, and it may be the best example of his prolific gifts. Don't miss this volume.

From Tom Clancy to Oscar Wilde, this collection provides an excellent array of essays and reviews. Hitchens has been extremely popular (or unpopular), lately, for his views on anti-theism and the war in Iraq, but it is in the literary realm that he kicks the most ass. His vast historical/cultural/political knowledge enables him to see his subjects wholly, in all of their context, or at least as close as any primate can get, which Hitchens displays is rather far, indeed.

In this book can be found various articles previously published by different magazines by the famous political comentator Christopher Hitchens. Here we see another side of "Hitch", that of the critic of modern English literature, ranging from the witty 19th century plays of Oscar Wilde (whom he admires), to the leaden prose of the neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz (whom he most certainly destests). Even if you don't always agree with him (I find his views on religion repugnent) you don't have any appreciation of the English language if you don't get SOMETHING out of this book. As a student of the history of ideas I was fascinated by his account of Isaiah Berlin, and there are similar riches here for anyone interested in anglophone writing from the late 19th century until the turn of the current millenium. This is a fascinating book by a great prose stylist.

I miss the old Christopher Hitchins, the comic genius who liked to call himself a Leftist while bragging in the pages of 'Vanity Fair' about how much the meals he consumed with Martin Amis cost. The irrepressible wit who could always be counted on to rouse Edward Said to bigger and better lies. The man who volunteered to betray his friends to the Kenneth Starr Committee. The one person who was never afraid to take Charles Heston on in a televised debate.

Where many of my fellow progressives look on Hitchins as an embarrassment on par with Naomi Wolfe or David Foster Wallace, I've long felt they missed the point. For some time now Christopher has been on a mission. And as such he hasn't been afraid to come across as a buffoon. In our irony-saturated age perhaps that's a blessing.

When he first hit our shores, Hitchins was dismissed as an Alexander Cockburn clone. An industrious hack who tried to palm off his middle-class Brit snobbery and anti-Americanism as a Marxist critique. A lesser man might have quite at that point, but Hitchins pressed on. He adopted Gore Vidal as his new hero. Knowing he could never match Vidal's biting wit, he wisely decided to go the other way. He embraced the role of the clown. He lampooned all the he found ludicrous in himself and by extension the politics he ostensibly advocated. It's as a clown that we'll always love Christopher.

Alas, in his latest, shockingly tedious volume the author seems to have forgotten the grease paint, the giant shoes and the red rubber nose he's wearing. All too often the shameless name-dropping, the fulsome self-congratulation, the omnipresent and inexplicable smugness and bluff literary judgments that constitute his ongoing oeuvre are presented without the grotesque exaggeration of his past satire. It's almost as if he's forgotten the joke.

Where once a reader sympathetic to the Left was begrudgingly forced to laugh at the ludicrous figure Hitchins had made himself out to be -- and thus found herself ultimately pondering the serious question of how best to enact a progressive agenda in American and the greater world without it in any way resembling anything Christopher Hitchins represents or exudes -- she now just finds herself getting exasperated. Exasperated and very, very sleepy.

A grave disappointment. Here's hoping it's an aberration.