I haven’t seen a bad review of Hitchens’s last book, Mortality, about his struggle with cancer. It collects his Vanity Fair pieces on Tumorville and has a foreword by his editor Graydon Carter and an afterword by his wife Carol Blue. There’s another positive review by Lorenzo Milam at reason.com that includes this statement, which makes you think differently about the cliché that someone died after “battling with cancer”:
Did those 18 months turn Hitchens into some kind of a hero? “I love the imagery of struggle,” he tells us. But “when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring in a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into you system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you.” In less than 100 words, he not only is able to defuse the fake heroic image (“battling cancer”) but manages to leave us with a delicate and elegant irony: “kindly people” delivering “a huge transparent bag of poison…a venom sack.”
I’ve been dipping into Hitchens’s last essay collection, Arguably, and it’s just what I expected: a wonderful group of provocative and beautifully written pieces. The man was a journalistic genius: he had an entire library in his head and could summon up just the right literary allusion at the right time—without seeming pompous. I simply have no idea how he retained all that stuff, and could still spew it out at a breakneck pace, even while drunk or hung over. There’s nobody alive that can do what he did.
I’ve not seen Mortality, but you should read Arguably. One of my favorite pieces is available free on Slate: “Wine drinkers of the world, unite.” It’s his criticism of the barbaric custom of wine stewards pouring out the wine for you at table instead of letting you do it yourself. I agree with him 100%: the host should pour the wine, and tailor it to the tablemates’ consumption. Ad lib wine pouring by sommeliers or waiters is designed to do only one thing: help the reastaurant sell more wine. I regularly ask, when one of these tries to pour for me, to allow me to do the deed.
But of course Hitchens’s take on the subject is far, far funnier and engaging than mine; go have a look, and never allow anyone to pour for you in a restaurant.
Oh yes, I recall him saying something about how, if the waiter really insists, they should wait for a gap in the conversation before pouring the wine. But, if they’re paying that close attention to the conversation, they might as well pull up a chair and join in! Brilliant Hitch.
The best part is his opening, imagined scenario in which waiter interrupts him in mid-conversation, starts cutting up his food after seizing his knife and fork, and then spreads some of the food pieces to the plates other diners. Wonderful analogy that drives home the absurdity of the unsolicited wine distribution.
Having read Arguably all the way through, my only quibble is that a few of his essays are a bit overloaded with strings of rather esoteric references – ordinary references to Hitchens, perhaps, but not to most of us. This can distract the average reader. Such a tendency was transparent in the later essays of Stephen Jay Gould, who seemed to be trying too hard to show his breadth of knowledge. Of course, Hitchens would never simplify or dumb down any argument for anyone. Arguably is still a great collection.
What struck me in the article was the bit at the end that ladies were still “withdrawing” at dinner parties up to the 70s. I’d always assumed that this was a pre-WW1 habit that had died out at around the same time that you didn’t have to shoot yourself if you passed the port the wrong way.
Having lived through the 70s, I’m not surprised that such things still happened then. Even in the 80s I recall one or two instances of waiters being taken aback when my wife presumed to order her own meal instead of letting her man speak for her.
And in the 1980s there were still restaurants where they gave the woman a menu without any prices printed on it.
Now to be fair: they gave a menu without prices to everyone in the group (men and women) but the host. If a woman introduced herself as the hostess of the group I think she would receive the menu with prices (but I don’t claim certainty on that point).
I’ve not spent much time in the circles that have such parties, but I do recall going with my partner and another couple to a fancy restaurant, and both men got prices on their menus.
mors aurem vellens ‘vivite,’ ait, ‘venio.’
I will raise a glass of ale to that…
Are you saying we are making a pour choice?
I’m reminded of a story my dad told me… from when he was at a Howard Johnson’s in the midwest somewhere. The folks had gotten some screw-top wine with their dinner. The waitress, not knowing what was expected, unscrewed the top and gave it to my dad saying “here… smell it.”
It’s his criticism of the barbaric custom of wine stewards pouring out the wine for you at table instead of letting you do it yourself. I agree with him 100%: the host should pour the wine, and tailor it to the tablemates’ consumption.
Yes!!
Ditto on coffee!!!!
I would drink it all – I drink too fast!
Another interesting review on NPR, with an ongoing comment section, which is unfortunately rife with godbotherers.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/159995528/how-christopher-hitchens-faced-his-own-mortality
I read Mortality one evening last week. It was bitter-sweet to have access to his last writings. I dearly miss him.
“Mortality” was too short for me. Just like his life. They both left me wanting more. More of him. How lucky we are to have his writings. How sad for his family, his friends and followers to see such a blindingly bright light go out, to be reduced to stardust, all too soon.
I have to disagree about the idea that a cancer patient taking chemo is not “battling” the cancer. In the case of esophageal cancer, the patient is given choices of different mixtures of chemo and has to choose between deathly illness from too much chemo or too many different types of chemo to fight off the cancer or actual death from the cancer from not taking enough chemo. These are very tough choices given to the patient who is indeed deciding which battle to fight and how hard. At some point death becomes inevitable and the chemo almost impossible to take and the patient has to choose to die from the cancer because the chemo will kill him if he doesn’t. It surely seems like a battle to me.
Life is so much about how you choose to perceive it. As an oncology nurse, I must tell you that my patients that “battle cancer” do much better than those that get connected by a “kindly soul” to a “venom-bag” and then either read or don’t read while their treatment happens TO them. When someone is actively involved with their treatment they do better. Cancer, in its simplest terms, is a cellular condition where cell reproduction mutates and runs amuck. These aberrant cells run rampant and invade the normal cellular structure causing dis-ease and malfunction. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery are a way of “battling these invading cells” and attempting to bring back a homeostatic environment in the body. I do see cancer as a battle; and when a patient visualizes the battle they often have better outcomes. I am a firm believer that the mind is a powerful healing tool; perhaps the most powerful heeling tool we have. This is not why I think that patients that “fight the battle” do better – they do better because they have taken some control of their lives back when everything seems out of their control. Someone may indeed see themselves as being hooked up to a bag of poison and they are letting the medical community have their way with them, or they can chose to see the chemotherapy that is dripping from the translucent venom-bag as the cavalry advancing on these rebel cells and pushing them back from their position of domination in this medical battle of “king of the hill”. All in all, life can happen to you, or you can participate in life happening. Battle on.
Now if you really want to see a rant – I could discuss my feelings about “dying from cancer” and “living with cancer”. Actually, the same thoughts from above apply to that discussion. Life can happen to you, or you can be a participant in life.
I suppose one thing does ring true, about the “battle” analogy. Collateral damage.
“without seeming pompous”
This is quite arguable, IMO.
“I simply have no idea how he retained all that stuff, and could still spew it out at a breakneck pace, even while drunk or hung over.”
And, often, standing in front of 1,000 people!