On Wednesday Christopher Hitchens (ill with pneumonia in Washington, D.C.) was fêted in an event at Royal Festival Hall. Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry were the hosts, but a gaggle of luminaries weighed in by video. As The New Statesman reports,
Richard Dawkins, Hitchens’s fellow anti-theist, appeared on stage with Fry in London, and Martin Amis, his dearest friend, appeared via video link from New York, as did James Fenton and Salman Rushdie. The line-up also included actor Sean Penn (who Hitchens enjoys pool games with), former Harper’seditor Lewis Lapham and novelist Christopher Buckley, son of the late conservative intellectual (whether there can be such a thing is a subject for another occasion) William F. Buckley, whom Hitchens often debated on US TV show Firing Line. It felt like a hyper-intelligent version of Question Time. . .
. . . But the most significant and poignant intervention came from Ian McEwan, who was watching the event live with Hitchens in Texas. “I talked until late last night with Hitch, we were discussing the non-communist left of the early 50s,” he wrote in an email read out by Fry. “He can’t run a mile just now but be reassured his Rolls Royce mind is purring smoothly.”
Sadly, the Rolls Royce is running out of gas. The Statesman describes the evening, which appears as an elegy/eulogy. I fear it won’t be long now, and when Hitch is gone we have absolutely nobody to replace him. They say that no one is indispensable, but “they” are wrong.
Miranda Hale paid the $7 fee to watch this via computer livestream, and I expect she’ll report on what she saw. I also understand that at least one of our readers was at the event, and if you were there, or saw it, do weigh in below.
I was there, and I enjoyed it.
It was as much fun as if Hitch had been able to attend, but I think most of us understood that the event had to be re-arranged on short notice.
Note to those posing questions afterwards: Please ask a concise question — don’t ramble on for minutes without actually asking anything. There are thousands of people waiting for you.
One small correction: it was in the Royal Festival Hall, not the Royal Albert Hall.
Sorry — I meant that it was not as much fun as it would have been had Hitch been able to participate.
I also got a glimpse into how much of Hitchens’ work I had not read (yet).
I appreciated Prof Dawkins coming out to participate on short notice, too.
I corrected the venue, thanks.
I was there too. I liked how the ten minute questioneer started by saying (and I paraphrase) “sometimes people wonder where the next generation of great minds are – well, here I am!”
It’s a shame there was such time pressure for the various guests. I could’ve watched Stephen Fry talk to Amis or Dawkins for the full ninety minutes.
We’ve all got to “go”, but if only I could have contributed a hundredth of a percentum toward the edification of the human condition as has Christopher, I should die very proud.
Well, at least Hitch gets to die unquestionably knowing how much of an impact he’s made upon the world, and how much he is appreciated. Even amongst those whose lives have been as influential as his, few have had the opportunity to enjoy such an unequivocal confirmation of the fact.
b&
I also had not realised just how talented and accomplished Hitch’s circle of close friends were. And yet he takes time to talk at length with a 9-yr-old about which books he recommends. Now, I think that’s an indication of great character.
IMO, too much of the conversation kept coming back to Hitchens’ stance on the Iraq war. (Something that I and millions of others disagreed with him strongly about.)
I mean, geez, can’t the guy be wrong sometimes without everyone going on and on about it? It’s not the only controversial position that the man took.
Finally Hitch himself sent a text to Fry: ‘More Bosnia, less Iraq’. Unfortunately we had run out of time for Bosnia by then.
That’s because the Iraq thing was controversial but his stance on Bosnia wasn’t. Nobody wants to talk about something we all agree with
Hitch’s controversial Iraq position speaks to his influence as a public intellectual, and for me, his reasons (or the ones I’m aware of) for supporting war were deeply confusing, given the already secular nature of the Hussein regime (albeit a tyrannical one). Even today, I’m not sure I understand his reasons, and as I read more of Hitch’s work, I hope to improve my understanding.
I think he does a pretty good job explaining it in Hitch-22. The short version is – Saddam was an evil madman dictator (which to Hitch is about the worst thing one can be), we screwed the Iraqi people when we convinced them to rise up in 1991 during the first gulf war and then left them alone to be massacred by Saddam once Kuwait was free, and we owed it to those people to get rid of Saddam and give them a chance to govern themselves. Agree or disagree with the premise or the method, I think at least he’s internally consistent. He’s pretty much always been in favor of outside intervention to free people from totalitarian regimes.
Yes on the great character.
On the Iraq invasion, he defended his position quite handily I thought. Didn’t convince me though!
gah
Snooker?
Grammar.
😉
“I fear it won’t be long now, and when Hitch is gone we have absolutely nobody to replace him”
That would be a fête worse than death.
The man is a part of every freethinker. He dies with the satisfaction he helped this struggling world. His Legacy lives on.
No one really knows how anyone else is dying.
I’ve seen too many deaths. Never seen anyone “dying with the satisfaction that…”
That’s exactly the kind of ampulla pathos that Hitchens keeps puncturing.
And “helped this struggling world”? “Legacy”?
Thou makest the Ceiling Cat cringe!
I was there, and because I booked in the evening of the day that the tickets became available, I only got seats in right at the back in the gods – so to speak.
It definitely did have the feel of a eulogy, so whenever Stephen Fry went back onto his (beloved) iPad to check if there was any email from those who were with the Hitch, it came as a reassuring reminder that he was apparently watching the event live.
It was a very pleasant evening, and despite the fact that it was quite a large venue, it did feel very intimate. We were very amused by Fry’s gleeful lusting after the youthful and dashing pictures of Hitch early in his career.
I agree with Ray above w.r.t. the first questioner liking the sound of his own voice too much. Everyone cheered when a member of the audience in the gallery shouted at him to get on and ask a question!
‘Anti-theist’: that’s the very word.
Perusing last night “The Quotable Hitchens”: truly the most incisively devastating rhetorician of our age. But I’m wondering whether Hitchens does approve of all the balmy, sycophantic, hopefully still premature eulogies pouring upon him from too many sides. Where he was wrong, he was egregiously, devastatingly so: on Henry Kissinger and Indochina; on Iraq; on Dubya. It feels like Hitchens, to paraphrase Wilde, put all his genius into being a contrarian, and only his talent into being right.
Fortunately, that talent is still immense enough.
But, as Marlene Dietrich’s Tana said at the end of Touch of Evil about Orson Welles’ Quinlan:
“What does it matter what you say about people?” He is some kind of a man.
Agree. While he’s certainly far more talented (and entertaining) than most of us, he’s imperfect, like all of us.
I’m inclined to agree with most of what you said, but where do you think Hitchens was wrong about Henry Kissinger and Indochina?
I watched the event live (from a cinema in Norwich, UK) and thought it was a great event. There were a couple of times when it felt like people were talking about a dead man but the majority of the time it didn’t, and it was great to know that Hitch was watching along with us. It made me really want to go and read his stuff regarding Kissinger.
Two minor things, one excellent, one very annoying:
1) Dawkins saying “my dick is like a red, red rose”.
2) That idiot first questioner declaring “here I am”. What an arse.
The other questions were also a waste of time.
I think for future events, the would-be questioners should be required to write the question on a notecard and hand it in to moderators, who would then pick out a few that are concise and relevant. The alternative of giving a microphone to any yahoo who wants to drone on is an insult to everyone present.
I thought it was beautiful. Very moving, lovely, fun, and bittersweet.
I would like to post a bit about it on my blog. However, as Jerry says, I watched it on my laptop, which makes it impossible for me to describe what the event was like for those who were actually there, and I thus feel sort of unqualified (for lack of a better word) to post anything very substantial about it.
If any of you who were there would like to send me a paragraph or two about it (or give me permission to reproduce the comments that you’ve made in this thread), that would be fantastic. I’ll put your accounts up on my blog. If anyone wants to do so, email me at mirandchale at gmail sometime today. Thanks 🙂
I really enjoyed it on Wednesday night. Although it was far too short. It could easily have started earlier, as 8.30pm seems quite late, and it seemed like an awful lot of people had turned up early patiently waiting outside the doors to the auditorium. This lack of time meant that their was little time for questions, and not enough time for the individual for the guests on the video link. Plus, as already noted Stephen Fry seemed to be under a certain amount of pressure to wrap it up quickly. Shame, the event really could have done with another 1/2 hour or so at least.
Although the audience members asking the questions have been criticised here (the guy who said “well, I’m here…” deserves it), I do have a little bit of sympathy for them as it wasn’t actually that obvious if the questions were supposed to be Hitchens related or about ‘the Hitch’. Of course, there are any number of things one could ask either Dawkins or Fry, but it was Hitchens’ night and somehow just asking Dawkins/Fry any old thing didn’t feel quite right to me!
Stephen Fry was a superb host though, and all of the people who appeared via video link or on stage did a very good job on such short notice. My congratulations go to Intelligence Squared for finding so many star names at such short notice.
( subscribing )
I have to agree that the 8:30 start seemed to be a bit late, I was also dissapointed to see their was only one protester. An Anti-secularist I have seen before.
I was led to belive that all the seats had been taken but it looks like only the £15 had been all sold, as there were a few boxes empty, as were some on the side of the hall.
The atmosphere was interesting as it did seem to be a elurgy, it was also the only theater I have been in when no one in the crowd was talking, everyone was totally silent, seemingly trying to take in as much as we could. Hoping that this would not be the last time we would be hearing about Hitch.
We heard from Sean Pean, who got lost thanks to Google Rooms.
Then Dawkins came on the stage, and stayed until the end, filling in the gaps with reminnising, while the next guest was getting ready in the US.
Salman Rushdie said how outraged Hitch was how a man in robe could order the death of a writer.
James Fenton recited his poem “The Skip”
Christopher Buckley told how Hitch would have huge parties in the premises of the Russian trade delgation building, and how Barbra Streisand caught fire at one of them.
Lewis Lapham told of how Hitch was unlike many of the other journalists in Washington, in how he wrote stories. Then I think he spoke about Hitches book on Henry Kisssinger.
My hightlight was when Martin Amis was describing some photos taken when they where much younger.
Such as http://www.andyross.net/brit_lits_3.jpg
http://www.angelagorgas.co.uk/mediaX/withthehitch.jpg
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw193184/Christopher-Hitchens
We heard about games they played like swapping “hysterical sex” for “love” in the titles of movies, songs and novels, resulting in titles like “Stop in the Name of Hysterical Sex.”
Then Richard Dawkins told a dick joke!
I could have listened to much more from Martin Amis.
I learned a lot about “Never call me Christoper” Hitchens that I never heard before. Listening to them talk about each other, and how they stayed friends for so many years, and the success they had in their lives was very touching.