I have a love/hate relationship with Christopher
Hitchins. Some days I pick up an article of his and laugh myself silly,
savoring his wit and erudition as if it were a vanilla cream-filled chocolate I popped in my mouth. But as we all know,
chocolate boxes are filled with disgusting, mint or cherry-filled candies, too, that can almost bring you close to
vomiting. Such is the case with much of Hitchins writing as well. Sad to say, I just read Hitchins’ rancorous,
frothy attack on Garrison Keillor in Slate, and was forced to grimace
and spit as if I had picked out and bitten into a chocolate-covered turd.
Hitchens excoriates Keillor for
his front-page NYT book review of Bernard-Henri
Lévy’s American Vertigo. I read all the Atlantic dispatches upon which the review was based, and I have to
say I agreed with Keillor. Levy’s writing was simple and hopelessly romantic, as if he aspired to BE the next
Tocqueville.
He (Levy) would draw deep, pseudo-meaningful conclusions from his experiences, many of them
Blink-like first impressions that he blossomed into flowery generalizations about the state of American democracy.
Hitchens says that Keillor’s piece was infused with the kind of anti-French stereotyping that gave rise to
Freedom Fries, but I thought it was not only funny, but much less harsh than this and rather funny. Anyway, judge for
yourself. Read both the essay series and the Hitchens and Keillor pieces, and tell me if you think Hitchens just likes
to bitch.