Hitch 22: A Memoir

A long, arduous, often rambling but nearly always interesting trip through the life and thoughts of a colorful and opinionated writer, Hitch-22 offers a unique look at events and people so varied that it's worth the trip simply for the breadth of knowledge and experience contained within. One is struck again and again over the head by Hitchens's extreme literary promiscuity and knowledge by way of his near constant onslaught of references, allusions and block quotes. The impression left is that it must be tiring to live inside such a brain, so entangled with the works of past literary genius and folly, not only because the memoirs themselves are quite tiring.

Especially admired, though, is his ability to write simply enough, but without pretense and staleness. His prose is continually charming and pleasantly diverse. The narrative, if there is a consistent one, mirrors the volatility of his life. One gets the sense that Hitchens really isn't trying to impart any large lesson or derive a set of morals from his life, but rather just to convey it as it came: confusion, violence and shifting ideologies throughout.

There is no specific overarching benefit to be gained from reading Hitch-22, but it is a holistically rewarding book, even if barely so. I hesitate even to say that it is worth the tiresome effort required to finish it, but at the same time I don't feel remorse for having done so. I think I may have learned a thing or two, and perhaps some seeds of wisdom have been sown through my vicarious experience of his life. Either way, the memoirs feel appropriate to the man, which I suppose is all that a man could ask for.