/lit/ - Literature

there were like 30 threads about him when he got cancer.

He's a polemicist who doesn't write literature.

I will pray for him!

GOD BLESS YOU, MR. HITCHENS.

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE BLASPHEMING.

He thinks he's Orwell but he's really Conor Cruse O'Brien.

>>914835
He thinks he's Orwell...but really he is running dog lackey scum.

dude is brilliant

>>914835

>>914897

>>914918

I was surprised he called it "Hitch-22".

Given his late-blooming political apostasy, I was sure he would call it "The God That Failed Is Not Great."

Have there been any updates on his condition?

What did he write about his mum?

Currently reading Infinite Jest, but I'll move on to this as soon as I get done. God is not Great was pretty good as far as anti-theist books go, and the Missionary Position was amazing.

Has anyone read anything else?

>>914980

Letter to a Young Contrarian. It's an inspiring read and has proved useful to me at times.

>>Has anyone read anything else?

I had to write a piece about him a few years back, so I've read everything he wrote up until now.

As far as leftist political journalism goes, "Prepared for the Worst" and "For the Sake of Argument" are pretty amazing books. It's worth tracking them down and reading them, because when he makes up later anthologies (after becoming famous in the USA) he gets VERY selective about what he chooses to reprint. Like, later work he stops dropping hints that Tom Driberg used to suck him off when he was an MP.

"Unacknowledged Legislation" is competent book-reviewery.

The stuff on the Elgin Marbles is pretty standard, reads like he wrote it because he had a Cypriot wife.

The book on the Anglo-American "special relationship"---can't remember the title---is middle of the road stuff. Nothing really fascinating.

The book on Clinton is simply deranged and inexplicable. The book on Kissinger is perfectly argued and nobody cared.

Then after 9/11, he basically morphs into a completely different person.

But if you track down the earliest books I mentioned and read his several contrasting pieces on Conor Cruise O'Brien, you will really see that somehow, he turned into Conor Cruise O'Brien and didn't notice. Literally, his collected profiles of the Cruiser would be a better autobiography than the self-serving "Aren't Salman and Martin and Craig Raine wonderful? Aren't I brave for having all kinds of friends in the 3rd world? Aren't you wondering what in the hell I ever actually stood for in the first place?" horseshit he just published. Wit and style aside, because he can still write.

Best review of Hitchens' autobio I've read was in the LRB. Here's the link if you're curious:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n12/david-runciman/its-been-a-lot-of-fun

I'd rather castrate myself.

>>915030

There is a difference between biography and memoirs.

>>915030

I'll read the review after I've finished reading Hitch-22

>>914835

He hates the comparison.

>>915030
Yeah, I'll write some of those down and try to find them. Thanks.

>>There is a difference between biography and memoirs.

Yes. Hitchens wrote a memoir because he doesn't rate a biography. Kind of like Norman Podhoretz, which is who he is slowly morphing into. Although the cancer will probably claim him before he can become that obnoxious. Also, being English, he knows not to present himself in his memoir as a COMPLETE asshole, the way Poddy did.

He was hot when he was young and bicurious. Dude's a total poseur but I kind of enjoy him as a character anyway...I almost impulse-bought this while flipping through the ipad book store but I think I'd have to be in a particular mood to read a whole book's worth of him talking about himself

He has cancer because he converted to American for the good teeth.

>>914759
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>>916545
>He was hot when he was young and bicurious.

straight male here, agreeing with you.

Obama's taller, but Hitchens could probably just lay into him and start pounding away...

>>916623
pft i bet hitch was a greedy bottom

>>916623
>>916727
oh /lit/. i love you.

>>916604
>>916545
Drink in moderation, children

Explain the hatred for hitchens guys

>>917393
He's a tedious racist with a punchable face.