‘Friends are God’s apology for relations.’
– Christopher Hitchens
Friday, 13th April, 2012: Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and James Fenton share their memories of their friend, Christopher Hitchens, with Charlie Rose.
James Fenton: He was a leading figure of the revolutionary left in Oxford. I don’t think it’s a secret, but he was a very bad Trotskyite. He was on the lazy side. I went to his revolutionary group, which I wasn’t yet a member of. They used to meet in rooms above pubs; rooms that were used by an organisation called The Elks, with elk horns everywhere. I said the reason Christopher hasn’t been coming to the meetings, is that he’s been working hard, proselytizing, and here I am as a new member of this group. I saved him from being thrown out of the Trotsky movement.
Ian McEwan: Hitch came to my house two years ago in London. He said, “Before I come in, before you pour me a drink, there’s a woman on the other side of the square being harassed by some yobs. We’ve got to go across and sort them out.” Martin and I looked at each other. He said, “There’s only seven of them. Come on, there are three of us.” So we set off – two of us very reluctant soldiers in his little private army – and when we got there, thank God there was no-one there, they’d all gone. I think of this story because he was a street fighter. Intellectually, but he also chased villains down the street. He did it in Washington, some mugger he pursued.
Salman Rushdie: I first met Christopher at the Notting Hill Carnival. He was suspicious of me, because I had friends on the Left who were not the kind of Left that Christopher approved of.
James Fenton: What sort of friends do you mean? Name names.
Salman Rushdie: I’m not going to name names! (Relents.) … Tariq Ali. He was relieved to find that I was more suitable than he had feared.
Charlie Rose: Martin, was George Orwell to him what Saul Bellow is for you?
Martin Amis: Maybe. Hitch stressed that Orwell wasn’t a genius. His strength was exalted common sense. It’s amazing how often Orwell was right, and also to have said the best thing about any number of subjects.
Salman Rushdie: Christopher is a good hater, hating a sequence of people who were worth hating. Henry Kissinger. Mother Teresa. Bill Clinton. They were highly articulated and thought out hatreds.
James Fenton: He liked being rude to people.
Ian McEwan: That’s the paradox, a socialist and man of the people, and if you saw how rude he could be to cabbies.
Martin Amis: He’d say to waiters, if you’re so smart what are you doing in a dump like this. Or a taxi driver, if you’re so smart why are you steering this bed pan around town.
Ian McEwan: We got into a cab together and Hitch said we are going the Natural History Museum and the guy was Ukrainian. He said, “I don’t know where it is.” Hitch said, “We’re getting out. You’re living in this country you don’t know where the Natural History Museum is, you don’t deserve our fare.” Hitch got out and almost fell over on the pavement, he was so ill. We got another, approved cabbie, who knew where the Natural History Museum was.
Charlie Rose: James, write the first line of the obituary.
James Fenton: Oh, to me he was the revolutionary spirit of ’68. He said and did many fine things. So engaging.
(© Charlie Rose LLC.)
James Neophytou