Mortality by Christopher Hitchens – Scott's Book Review

Christopher Hitchens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens) died at the age of 62 on 15th December 2011. The cause of death was pneumonia brought on by esophageal cancer. He had been highly productive writer, polemicist and debater. He had also been a heavy smoker and drinker.

This book includes the six elegant pieces he wrote for Vanity Fair chronicling his illness and a closing chapter of dying reflections from what he called ‘Tumourtown’. The trademark Hitchens style is on display – his mastery of irony, his range of reference, his contempt for euphemism, his intellectual power. ‘To the dumb question, ‘Why me?’ he writes, ‘the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: ‘Why not?’ He knew his death would be no more, nor less significant, than anyone else’s.

Hitchens rejoiced in being a contrarian. His motto could have been ‘I argue, therefore I am’. Mortality continues his longstanding confrontation with religion and the religious, which he despised. Though he occasionally adopts a tone of indignation towards those who contend that his cancer is a punishment from God, more often than not he appears to relish the dialectical combat. ‘Those who say I am being punished are saying that god can’t think of anything more vengeful than cancer for a heavy smoker’, he laconically observes. Wit, irony, the consolations of philosophy – these are the reserves we draw on when medicine can do no more. And rarely are they more formidably or convincingly offered to us than by Hitchens. The man had more style and wit than many civilisations I could name.

Read this alongside Thinking Clearly about Death by Jay F. Rosenberg (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Clearly-About-Death-Rosenberg/dp/0872204278/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)

Watch Hitchens debate in one of the many compilations of video recordings available, for example, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqjfGFHes0w

Check if this challenging polemic of Hitchens is in stock at your local library by consulting the online catalogue at https://www.sllclibrary.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/OPAC/BSEARCH

128 pages in Atlantic books

First published 2012

ISBN 978-1848879232

Christopher Hitchens

Related Posts