Book Review: Hitch 22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens

Hitch-22 - Some Confessions and Contradictions: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Highly Recommended

One of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century, Lionel Trilling noted long ago - "Intellectuals have tended to embrace an 'adversary culture’: standing against the state, against the market, against the establishment, against anything and everything but themselves. Conciliation and Compromise do not come naturally to them."

Christopher Hitchens exemplifies Lionel Trilling's "adversary culture" to an extreme degree, earning a 10/10 rating who relentlessly critiqued the power structures - British monarchy, U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, Islamic Fatwa on Salman Rushdie, Mother Teresa's piety, Henry Kissinger's realpolitik and post-9/11 "Islamofascism" - often aligning against consensus on both left and right.  Who was Christopher Hitchens? Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) was a British American author, public intellectual and journalist known for his sharp polemics on politics, religion and culture. 

Hitch-22 stands as an exceptional memoir - topical, incisive, witty, and profoundly revealing - demanding your time and rewarding it richly. His memoir is more than a biography; it's an invitation to dive into the brilliant and controversial mind of Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens reflects upon the intricate tapestry of his life—the friendships forged and alliances fractured, the ideological battles fought and noble causes surrendered, the missteps taken and doubts that shadowed his convictions. The book is eminently readable, with many anecdotal details put in with figures like Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Amis and others, illustrating his life and worldview.

The book opens with his memories of early childhood moving between locations like Malta, Scotland and later Portsmouth in England due to his father's career as a Royal Navy commander.  The book traces his stay at the boarding school in Cambridge, where he encountered strict religious indoctrination that he later associated with authoritarianism and rejected early on. 

Hitchens began his career as a foreign correspondent and journalist. The book covers Christopher Hitchens' travels to various global hotspots like Northern Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Portugal, Bosnia, Cuba, Prague (Czechoslovakia) and Afghanistan. to expose dictatorships and even to Athens (Greece) to claim his mother's body amid anti-junta demonstrations.​ These visits shaped his views on tyranny, exile and resistance.

The memoir clears mark his introduction into politics at Balliol College, Oxford through the radical left in the 1960s and 1970s, but over time he grew distant with much of the organized left. Hitchens chronicles his gradual break from the traditional left, starting with the Soviet crackdown in Czechoslovakia, the Rushdie fatwa in 1989, accelerating over Bosnia and culminating post-9/11 with Iraq support.  

In his memoirs, Christopher Hitchens frames the Satanic Verses fatwa episode as symbolic of a cultural and political conflict where parts of the left offered insufficient support against religious authoritarianism. The left in England was divided about fully championing Rushdie due to the delicate balance between free speech and respect for religious identity. In contrast, Hitchens and like-minded defenders emerged as vocal advocates for literary freedom against the threat of religious fanaticism.

The book details his longstanding support for Kurdish self-determination and autonomy against Saddam Hussein's regime. He recounts visits to Kurdish areas in the 1990s, witnessing atrocities like chemical attacks, which fueled his advocacy and later Iraq War stance.

Hitch-22 was Hitchens' last book, his autobiography, considered the best for those who align with his unapologetic views and his dismissal of faith-based arguments. Shortly after publishing of the book, he left the world due to esophageal cancer in 2011. But his autobiography, Hitch-22 offers a revealing glimpse into a turbulent and inspiring life. The book is testament to his encyclopedic intellect and unorthodox shifts across political spectrums while championing enlightenment value.

In this era, it is profoundly troubling that our society has abandoned the celebration of intellectualism. The right accommodates religious extremism through appeasement, while the left, paradoxically, has capitulated to unwittingly ended up pandering to the most regressive elements. For many citizens, the distinction between genuine intellectual inquiry and demeaning judgements has become impossibly blurred, making honest discourse increasingly difficult.

We seek inspiration from a memoir that boldly reflects the journey of a public intellectual navigating the complex realms of politics, religion, culture and human nature with courage and honesty. It embraces the fearless questioning of beliefs and challenges established norms, guided by principles like Hitchens's razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." This wisdom calls for rigor and skepticisms in our pursuit of truth and understanding.

 * Slate magazine hosted Christopher Hitchens as a "Fighting Words" columnist from 2002 until his death in 2011, publishing his provocative essays on politics, religion and culture.