(3/3) Jennifer Byrne Presents: Christopher Hitchens

do you think it is that you prospered I mean you really succeeded in America Martin had Sutton was given such a tough time you mean by Londoners by London oh yeah well in London there's nothing but spite and resentment towards Martin why well they're jealous of him oh yeah they're wrong wishes they could be him and they'd love him to fail and if something goes wrong in his life they all celebrate it it's nauseating I can't believe he hasn't left already mmm you know what the Americans will it's another London can be a nasty spiteful little village it was it was that way to someone for after a bit too much pretending to be in solidarity with him against theocratic terrorists and a death squad of Chapman's oh and they all started complaining about his security costs 10 Bob that we don't want to pay and he's in he's beam seemed going to cocktail parties when he's supposed to be in hiding you know as if hideous grudging resentment I'm very glad I got out of that dump when I do it didn't happen to you yeah that was jealous of me it had to see me go why more likely didn't even notice idler you said that you decided make long ago you said this that you didn't have the stuff for fiction yes what was the stuff you were lacking well I didn't know what I knew was that friends I did have did have it Martin was one in McCune was another Salman or Julian burns I was very lucky to have these people as colleagues when I was young and friends and all I thought was well whatever it is that it takes to write what they're writing I don't have it it took me ages to work out what it was this x-factor that I don't have so I thought okay Hitchens don't bore people with your bottom drawer fiction and poetry keep that to yourself and years later I was was actually in course of a conversation with someone that I mentioned in the book I realized what they had got and I didn't have and it's it's music knowledge of an appreciation of music doesn't mean they have to be able to play an instrument that they mainly can it doesn't have to be that they're good at it but they have some music circulating in the system and I'm I'm abnormally bad at music and you think it will be ever thus well I've told of spoken to some people who have much better literary critics than I am and said do you think I want to something with this theory and they said oh yes you should go into it you could if you did a bit more work on it that might turn out to be quite an interesting hypothesis because you check it well Shakespeare is full of music Shakespeare as a factory a musician Chaucer to the Romantic poets full of music strong tests very strong test the idea and a book of the sort of author who makes you feel why do you bother didn't like music but could write about it quite well he didn't he wasn't musical but he had musical capacity so far in every case I can test that's the x-factor in people who have perjury and fiction that's what and they grab me and I know I don't so the the test would then be would it be true if I wrote about say why well is much better essayist than novelist probably yes because he shows no interest in music at all you wrote a book will lead us to a contrary which is one of the ways I think people took up to calling you a contrarian but you don't like don't like so what do you like for your particularly virulent branch of Eros argumentativeness insistence on rightness passion for argument and you find for it I mean I'm asking seriously intense well it will to read I mean a charming input I'm trying to do it so as to improve my own style I mean I want I like arguing because you get better at it not so that you can leave the other person in the dust begging for mercy nice there that is he's in richly they're they deserve it if any argument that you've lost nonetheless an argument worth having well hey old argument no I say in my confessional bit my answer to the Proust questionnaire that probably the weakness and the sign of my insecurity is that because I like arguing so much and because it means so much to me I probably in small things in private life I'm bad at giving way I don't like to lose even a tiny argument and that may make me difficult live with say surely not well whatever you cut oppositionist provocateur contrarian is that something that you gradually move towards or you just jumped and that was you I'm not always in oppositionist I mean the most trouble I've ever got into was by taking the side of the government being as we're on the establishment side as some would have caught it I would have still said on the radical side about the decision to try and remove the Taliban and and da Qaeda from Afghanistan and the buffest fascist regime from Iraq I mean at that point I was not I wasn't in the streets with the anti-government opposition as I had so often been I was wishing I could advise the government on some slightly smarter tactics than the ones they actually adopted which has generally been described in shorthand as moving to the right we come in a new conservative well people know you people people use these phrases as if they were already lurking in the keyboard days of your time they touch the keyboard and the cliche comes into their fingers and then goes through the brain and then back onto the paper he sold out or he's moved to the right it's too boring for words you mentioned your children before you have an adult son you know what it's like to be the child of a dull man a dull father what do you think it's like to be the child of Christopher Hitchens rather irritating I would think well embarrassing probably well certainly children when they're younger even if they disapprove of what their parents do they don't particularly want to be reading about it in any paper where their schoolmates could read about it you just don't want attention drawn to yourself you said you weren't much of a father when they were young no you better know much I get better as people get older but most men are pretty hopeless when newborn bundles arrive and they're they're so incredibly impressed by how women appear to know what to do and then they think well I'll go off and do extra work and make some money and they justify it in that way Christopher I've heard you say this yeah you're hearing me say it again no but my point would be that I think after the 70s that is actually not true that may have been true but I don't think that it's true that men are so less capable of dealing with children and it's better they got go off and earn money you know maybe the mother could go and earn some money never any one of mine there's work you know you know they don't need what they can work they can if they like they don't have to you are joking no I'm not no I would expect tell me I would expect it's okay work if you want but you have to you have the commander's son thank you yes yeah you really mean that sure you don't think women should go and work yeah I think they're welcome to do that I'm thrilled if they want you if they don't want to have to this is your famous attachment to irony yeah what's so difficult about it it's just wrong no they're called the gentle sex for good reasons want to see them you want to see them coarsened in their in their coarsened in the labor market think what an irony is that someone who loves irony like you should go and live in the country which doesn't appreciate it I remember sitting with this very nice woman in new I think I'm think I mentioned in the book publisher and for a clever who said why she thought I might be a good writer for the book she had in mind she said and of course you guys in from England you you have you have irony you I suppose which of course we don't and I thought I can't say nothing so I thought as I said well apparently not and she somehow congealed at that I did it which was proved the point yeah yeah well well it's it's also danger when you try and be funny in print or invoice people are writing it down there should be a special typeface called eight-point ironic bold or something to he would say this was where he was trying to be ironic but no one got divided using you every single chance to opt out of that laugh oh no I mean no that's my leader I don't think that mrs. Hitchens should have to work it's been lovely to have you thank you so much it's very nice if I may please a huge thank you to the sexist for charming that was this yeah you have to say is thanks a lot and then till we meet again on the first Tuesday of next month good night and very happy reading

Channel: DailyHitchens22

Views: 25,887

Rating: 4.9252338 out of 5

Keywords: 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Jennifer Byrne, Hitch-22

Id: thXnNVOrri8

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2010