There are several things that I find unfathomable: how mind might arise from matter; how an atom or an electron can be both a particle and a wave; how a hack such as Christopher Hitchens can become a celebrated writer.
Before I discovered Christopher Hitchens, I seriously doubted that non-fiction prose could be savoured and reread. How wrong I was. As a writer, Hitchens has the style of Byron, the depth of Faulkner and the wit of Wilde. Possibly the most well-read man on the planet, Hitchens has the ability to communicate complex arguments with a warmth and economy that can engage the dullest layman. [1]
I should like to see it as some kind of joke, than which, at the expense of the self-congratulatory philistine-inheritors of Western culture, I could compose no better and few crueller.
.....
[1] Max Dunbar, “A Secular Symposium: The Portable Atheist”, Butterflies and Wheels, 5th March 2008.
8 comments:
Not a fan, then, I take it.
Ha! You detected my antipathy. (Does it come through strongly?)
unio europeae (sic) delenda est
oh, dear. somebody needs a lesson in basic latin, don't they? how humiliating for an anti-philistine poseur....i'm sensing a shortarse bristling with unmet needs. get well soon x
Indeed, it should be "europaea". Much obliged.
"get well soon" - I shall do my best.
i'm sensing a shortarse bristling with unmet needs
Yet another tiresome English perv raises his unsightly head.
Surely the quoted author was more likely referring to Chris's brother Peter, in which case he would be guilty of hyperbole, not absurdity.
Hitchens is no mystery. Once long ago, at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, I heard a bird sing "I Left My Heart in San Fransico". He was tremendous, and he may have only been singing for peanuts, so to speak.
I suppose you are the kind of person to scoff at his rare artisty only because he was a birdbrain.
Come now, D. You'd probably agree that the man writes well, if you agreed with what he writes.
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