When I was sixteen years old, my favorite film was A Fish Called Wanda. I watched the movie every day after school like a lunatic. Although I cannot bear to view it now, I can still recite the key bits of dialogue from memory. I particularly enjoyed Stephen Fry’s brief encounter with the Kevin Kline character, who is trying to flee from England. Posing as a British security officer at Heathrow Airport, Kline approaches the stereotypical English twit:
Kline: “May I see your boarding pass, please?”
Fry: “Oh, yes, certainly, certainly.”
Kline: “Very good. Now, would you mind stepping over here, please?”
Fry: “Yes, of course.”
Kline: “Oh, look, the Queen!”
Fry: “Where?”
When Fry turns his head, Kline whacks him from behind and steals his boarding pass.
Stephen Fry was the only attraction that his scheduled appointment with Christopher Hitchens had for me. As Hitchens Watch readers all know, a case of pneumonia forced Hitchens to cancel. In his place, Sean Penn, James Fenton, Christopher Buckley, Lewis Lapham, Salman Rushdie, and Martin Amis all participated virtually from the United States. Richard Dawkins sat down with Fry in London.
Of course, I will only focus on the aspects of Fry’s program that interested me. If you are disappointed, dear readers, you can watch the entire program for yourselves, as long as you willing to pay for the privilege.
As much as I despise the fanboys and Hitch hens, I can make the occasional exception. Sean Penn admires The Trials of Henry Kissinger, which is my favorite Hitchens book from the old days. Penn explained:
“Yes, it was his book, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, that really focused my attention on his work… the magnificence of his language is, I think, particular inspiration to those of us in America who have undervalued it. And then the clarity of his thought, I think, made him a particularly sharp knife in the cutting of Kissinger… I think the original title of the book in Chris’s mind was Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but that was not appreciated by a publisher. But I think what Kissinger was confronted with, with Christopher Hitchens, was somebody who was not distracted by the intelligence of Kissinger or his articulation…Chris could more than match it, and had a clarity of a kind of pure and unencumbered morality that saw what Kissinger’s motivations were, in a way that was unequivocal.”
Now, Hitchens rejects the nickname “Chris” as déclassé, but I am sure that the journalist will forgive Penn because he is a movie star.
Fry introduced the writer Christopher Buckley, a humorist who has never made me laugh. In his snobbish, prep-school voice, Buckley complimented Hitchens for his ideological betrayals:
“But he has such a supple, and with a bow to Professor Dawkins if I may use the term, evolutionary, mind, that he made a rather interesting trajectory through the years, so that he became, in the early part of the last decade of the last century, one of the great proponents of U.S. military invention [intervention] in Iraq.”
Buckley, by the way, has rejected his son from an adulterous relationship. There is no need to respect the words of such an insubstantial man. If I am wrong to criticize Buckley for his private life, then his buddy Hitchens was wrong to criticize President Bill Clinton for his.
Naturally, the poet James Fenton read his poem, “The Skip.” Apparently, Hitchens likes it. I refuse to strike an intellectual pose by pretending to understand the poem. I will welcome any explanations.
For Fry’s own part, he venerated Hitchens with genuine humility:
“I made the mistake once of attempting, not to argue against the war in Iraq exactly, but even mildly to suggest that it wasn’t going very well, and I emerged a battered and bruised soul, realizing that I would have been better not to take up arms against so brilliant a mind.”
The host of the evening would have been better to consult Hitchens Watch beforehand. [Indeed.]
There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that Christopher has pneumonia. The good news is he is on the mend, but he will be unable to join Stephen Fry in conversation. His voice isn't strong enough, although it should be in the next week or so.
Stephen will now be joined on both sides of the Atlantic by close friends and colleagues of the Hitch including Martin Amis and Christopher Buckley in New York and Richard Dawkins live on stage in London. They will be examining their and his ideas of what constitutes the good life and the good death – seen against the backdrop of Christopher's career, the causes dear to his heart, the controversies that he has so enjoyed provoking and the things that make life worth defending.
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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