“I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice.”
This is one of the nastier and more aggressive cancers.
Whatever one’s opinions of him, his books, his journalism — wish him well. (I was about to say Godspeed — a thought he would hardly have encouraged.)
Author: Cynthia Haven
Cynthia Haven has written for The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, World Literature Today, and other publications. Her work has also appeared in Le Monde, La Repubblica, The Kenyon Review, Quarterly Conversation, The Georgia Review, Civilization, and others. She has been a Milena Jesenská Journalism Fellow with the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. Peter Dale in Conversation with Cynthia Haven was published in London, 2005. Her Czestaw Mitosz: Conversations was published in 2006; Joseph Brodsky: Conversations in 2003; An Invisible Rope: Portraits of Czestaw Mitosz was published in 2011 with Ohio University Press / Swallow Press. She is currently a visiting scholar at Stanford. Her biography René Girard, A Life will be published next year.
Join me at twitter: @chaven
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4 thoughts on “Wow. Why Hitchens won’t be in Palo Alto.”
I met him once at Hoover. Since his views are deliberately designed to be provocative, you don’t need to agree. It would just spoil the fun of debating with someone that aggressively articulate…It reminded me that our excessively polite subculture squelches a lot of good conversation. Such a shame that he has to undergo chemotherapy for cancer… We could use more public intellectuals of that caliber.
He’s written some first-rate stuff, and an awful lot of shlock, too. I’m with you. I still read opinions I disagree with violently. That’s half the fun. Why read people who will simply confirm your preconceptions?
Christopher Hitchens was a great man, and I’m terribly sad that he cannot be here today to help lead the movements that his ideas and writings helped to inspire.
I met him once at Hoover. Since his views are deliberately designed to be provocative, you don’t need to agree. It would just spoil the fun of debating with someone that aggressively articulate…It reminded me that our excessively polite subculture squelches a lot of good conversation. Such a shame that he has to undergo chemotherapy for cancer… We could use more public intellectuals of that caliber.
He’s written some first-rate stuff, and an awful lot of shlock, too. I’m with you. I still read opinions I disagree with violently. That’s half the fun. Why read people who will simply confirm your preconceptions?
Christopher Hitchens was a great man, and I’m terribly sad that he cannot be here today to help lead the movements that his ideas and writings helped to inspire.