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We return to the legendary and problematic writer, quipster, and socialist-turned-warmonger Christopher Hitchens. We discuss notable essays from his not-particularly-good late-period essay collection ARGUABLY, including his purplish prose on Harry Potter, Gore Vidal, and pesky waiters at restaurants. We also analyze why we remains a figure of fascination for us, despite everything. PLUS: random attacks on writers we don't especially like.

Our first Hitchens episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/124-fahrenhitch-30842827

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murt pie

I dunno, Hitchens just seems like a really superfluous person. What did he actually contribute? Besides taking down Bob Hope, I guess.

Tony Mines

This is probably more of a rationalising mechanism I designed for myself, to account for growing out of Hitchens, than it is an analogy I stand by... but upon his death I decided to view him as an Anakin Skywalker character. He was once, maybe not the *best* pilot in the galaxy, but someone who had their heroic moments (Mother Teresa, Ricky Ray Rector), but then for most of my young adult life was decidedly "more machine than man". But I retain a certain admiration for his writings around his own cancer, the de-mythologizing of the oft spoken 'battle' against such. This, to me, was the bit where he takes his hat off at the end. It's not a perfectly analogy because I don't know that he ever threw his proverbial Emperor down a shaft, but I felt there was a closing moment there, which the podcast neglected to cover, wherein that defiant rationalism was again turned toward something noble...