Hitchens Hits Hard: A New Collection

I confess that Christopher Hitchens’ erudition and wit can sometimes be intimidating: His writing is just so damned smart, caustic, and rhetorically relentless. Imagine an Oxford-educated Robin Williams at warp speed with, I guess, a First in Classics, perhaps, or whatever degree is most impressive to the hoi polloi (and yes, I know, the British just say hoi polloi). 

So I recommend this book of previously uncollected essays and reviews, some of them quite scathing, to be sampled slowly, like an 16-year-old Lagavulin. Because this stuff is definitely peaty.

Consider the essay titled “Spanking” in which Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher made Hitchens lose “all independent volition” when they met at a book party. He actually obeyed when she ordered him to bow lower and lower until she could “thwack” him on the butt.  Yes, it was with rolled-up papers, but still. . . .

The opening of that piece is a treasure house of finely-tuned mockery:

Sometimes in the late autumn of 1977, I went to a book party that was held in the Rosebery Room of the House of Lords. Why I went I can’t think–the volume was some piece of unreadable bufferdom* extruded by Lord Butler, who as “Rab” had never in his life done anything to live down the sobriquet “flabby-faced old coward.” He himself was vaguely present, moving about the carpet like a terrible tortoise.

I thought instantly of the grotesque bejeweled tortoise that Rex Mottrom gave Julia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited.

There’s much to feast on here, like the gimlet-eyed portrait of Princess Margaret having the full weight of the British government suppress her quite ordinary need for love and deny her marriage to the divorced man she loved.  It’s hard to read those sad, boozy pages without seeing Lesley Manville’s riveting performance–the glamor and clamor–in The Crown. Hitchens has no love for royalty and its discontents and while the essay is brutal, it’s also surprisingly compassionate.

The book is heavily political from politics in the Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon years to the sexual hypocrisy of J. Edgar Hoover.  Hitchens hated all four men, and gives readers good reasons why.

And people who feel Barbie was “snubbed” might find the surprising “At the Oscars” illuminating. Or infuriating.  Either way, it’s masterful reportage and analysis.

One fascinating feature of the book is published letters responding to complaints about various articles of his. In Hitchens’ ripostes, he often seems to be dueling an unarmed–or at least unskilled–opponent.

Hitchens’ essays frequently quote Oscar Wilde  and I found myself deeply grateful for his reference in one essay to a master of humor almost equal to Wilde: H.H. Munro who wrote under then pen name of “Saki.” Saki’s Edwardian tales are priceless in their dissection of the period’s arrogance and self-love. Read them when the world is too much with you, late or soon.

The author was known by many people as “Hitch” and the publishers went with a punning title and cover, but honestly, a stiletto or rapier would have been a more fitting implement.  ★★★

Lev Raphael has reviewed books for The Detroit Free Press, The Washington Post and other newspapers as well as for NPR stations in Michigan.  Guests on his interview show on Lansing Public Radio included Salman Rushdie, Erica Jong, and Julian Barnes.

*the state of being foolish, old-fashioned, and incompetent

Did Winston Churchill Really Say That?

Read any book about World War II and you’re bound to find inspiring quotes by Winston Churchill, along with some withering comments he made about rival politicians. One of his favorite targets was Clement Attlee who inspired these classic lines:

–A sheep in sheep’s clothing.

–A modest man, who has much to be modest about.

–An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and when the door was opened, Attlee got out.

 

My multilingual mother–given to quotations in Latin, German and French–especially loved the middle one above. She also credited Churchill with the line “Every time he opens his mouth he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.”

When I looked for the source, the brilliant line didn’t show up anywhere on Churchill web sites. But there’s a cinematic connection: The Dark Horse, a forgotten 1932 political satire starring Bette Davis.

dark horseIt features a nitwit politician whose adviser has instructed him to answer tough questions with “Well yes, but then again no.”  The politician is classed as “so dumb that every time he opens his mouth he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.”

The line’s political lineage extends further back to the powerful Republican Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed, who was nicknamed “Czar Reed.”

In 1909, Pearson Magazine no. 22 reported Reed explaining why he ignored one Representative while paying attention to another:

“Whenever A takes the floor, the House learns something, but when that fellow B speaks, he invariably subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.”

We have to assume the line had filtered into political discourse enough so that the script writers of Dark Horse could use it to comic effect not too many years later.  Did Reed come up with it on his own?  At first it seems likely, since his recent biographer says he was renowned for his wit.

Teddy Roosevelt, though, would seem to get ultimate credit for the phrase.  Biographers Peter Collier and David Horowitz wrote that TR used it to dismiss an opponent on New York’s Civil Service Commission when he was the Commissioner from 1889-1895. He put down his rival with these words: “Every time he opens his mouth, he subtracts from the sum total of human wisdom.”

Theodore-Roosevelt_The-Talented-Mr-Roosevelt_HD_768x432-16x9Lev Raphael’s comic mystery series, set in the hothouse world of academia, has been praised by The New York Times Book Review and many other newspapers. You can find them on Amazon.  Lev teaches online writing creative workshops at writewithoutborders.com.

Tracking a Quote To Its Surprising Source

Read any book about World War II and you’re bound to find inspiring quotes by Winston Churchill, along with some withering comments he made about rival politicians or anyone he thought deserved his scathing wit. One of his favorite targets was Clement Attlee who inspired these classic lines:

A sheep in sheep’s clothing.

A modest man, who has much to be modest about.

An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and when the door was opened, Attlee got out.

 

Clement Attlee 1945My multilingual mother–given to quotations in Latin, German and French–especially loved the middle one. I seem to recall her also crediting Churchill with the line “Every time he opens his mouth he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.” She may have been referring to Spiro Agnew.

I could be wrong about her target and even her crediting Churchill, but for years I’ve thought that the line was his.  I’m wrong.  When I recently looked for the source, the brilliant line didnt show up anywhere on Churchill web sites. But there’s a highly tangential Churchill connection: The Dark Horse, a forgotten 1932 political satire starring Bette Davis.

dark horseIt features a nitwit politician whose adviser has instructed him to answer tough questions with “Well yes, but then again no.”  The politician is classed as “so dumb that every time he opens his mouth he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.”  You’re wondering about the connection?  His opponent is played by an actor named Churchill.  I know, that’s a stretch.

But the line’s political lineage isn’t just fictional.  It goes a few decades further back to the powerful Republican Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed, who was nicknamed “Czar Reed.”

In 1909, Pearson Magazine no. 22 reported Reed explaining why he ignored one Representative while paying attention to another:

“Whenever A takes the floor, the House learns something, but when that fellow B speaks, he invariably subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.”

We have to assume the line had filtered into political discourse enough so that the script writers of Dark Horse could use it to comic effect not too many years later.  Did Reed come up with it on his own?  At first it seems likely, since his recent biographer says he was renowned for his wit:

On one occasion, when a Democratic colleague “was rash enough to quote Henry Clay’s line about rather being right than president,” Speaker Reed shot back the assurance that, “The gentleman needn’t worry. He will never be either.” Harry Truman’s oft-quoted line that “A statesman is a politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years,” is actually a direct steal from Reed’s earlier, more polished quip that “A statesman is a successful politician who is dead.” Reflecting on his chances of winning a long-shot bid for the presidential nomination in 1896, Reed said of his fellow Republicans, They can do worse. And they probably will.”

Reed did more than quip, though: he sped up action in the House by ending what was in effect an institutional filibuster (too bad he never made it to the Senate).

Teddy Roosevelt, though, would seem to get ultimate credit for the phrase.  Biographers Peter Collier and David Horowitz write that TR used it to dismiss an opponent on New York’s Civil Service Commission when he was the Commissioner from 1889-1895. TR put down his rival with these words: “Every time he opens his mouth, he subtracts from the sum total of human wisdom.”

So many of our current politicians fit that description, don’t they?  Too bad we don’t have more wits like Churchill, Reed, or Teddy Roosevelt around to put them in their place.

Theodore-Roosevelt_The-Talented-Mr-Roosevelt_HD_768x432-16x9Lev Raphael’s comic mystery series, set in the hothouse world of academia, has been praised by The New York Times Book Review and many other newspapers for its wit and one-liners. You can find them on Amazon.