考研阅读精选：想哭就哭
Crying freedomDec 17th 2011, 19:21 by E.F.
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CROSSING an Athens street by foot on a warm spring afternoon in 1985, Ichecked a taxi waiting at the light to make sure it was not going tojump the red. In the back seat I spied the unmistakeable figure ofChristopher Hitchens, larger than when I’d last seen him, larger thananyone in their mid-30s ought to be, made larger still by an unnecessaryovercoat thrown over the shoulders in the manner of a ballet impresariofrom an earlier time. He saw me, called my name, threw open the doorand stepped into the street. The light was now green and traffic washooting. Heedless as ever to context but wholly in role, he let go anuncounted shower of drachma notes into the grateful driver’s hand andgreeted me theatrically with a kiss on both cheeks. Like me, he was inAthens to write about the Greek elections. The previous day, AndreasPapandreou—the father of the recently replaced prime minister—hadhandily won a second parliamentary term as leader of his country’sSocial Democrats. Though not like me, because Christopher was not likeother journalists. “I didn’t see you at the Press centre last night,” Isaid. “No,” he replied, “I was at the Papandreous.”
How the nexthours unfolded, I don’t recall. I do vividly remember that around two inthe morning, Christopher was entertaining a small group of us at arestaurant—quoting, parrying, recounting, provoking. His speed of memorywas daunting. He always seemed able to cite what an opponent inargument had said or written years earlier, deploying it quickly andwittily at the surest moment to expose them as fools, ditherers orhypocrites. That essentially 18th-century skill made him as lethal ontelevision as he was on the page. He wrote the way he spoke, in boutadesand in paragraphs, often with a blood-level of alcohol that would leavemost of us speechless. He was catholic in his love and knowledge of thewritten word, but on the whole stayed off movies, theatre, visual artsand music. Had he a trace of Puritan suspicion that such arts wereelite, effete and not morally serious? I suspect it was more that eachof those arts has its standards of performance and he was a performer ina competing medium—his own words. You had to hear him in real time, andI rate myself lucky that on a few occasions I did hear him attable—usually late on when everyone else had stopped talking, notbecause they were silenced or bested but because there and then it wassimply more satisfying to listen to him.
I don’t know, andwho does, if his copious writing will stand up in the way that the workof his politico-literary hero George Orwell has stood up. Those whofound little to admire or agree with in Christopher, especially after hebacked the Iraq War in 2003, will laugh at the comparison. Even thosewho enjoyed his overflowing talents as journalist and talker may find ita stretch. Differences of water level and achievement stand out. Yetthere are likenesses, too. Neither could tolerate camps, least of alltheir own: like Orwell, Christopher kept his harshest barbs for theleft. Neither were doctrinal and, though Christopher took on bigtopics—notably religious belief, of which he claimed to have none—hissmall-motor skills with tricky ideas were no finer than Orwell’s.Neither were really interested in policy or government, though fromsheer forensic bravado Christopher would happily take on thebest-briefed wonk. Both wrote from an essentially emotional perceptionabout the moral condition of the world. Orwell once praised CharlesDickens for the “vagueness” of his radicalism. He did not meanevasiveness or lack of clarity, but a deep conviction that something waswrong with society and that the only constructive suggestion was:“Behave decently”. Christopher’s constructive suggestions were never soclear, but his negative drive was unmistakeable and gave him aconsistency his detractors wrongly said he lacked: locate power,distrust it and take it down a peg, even if you can’t knock it off itsperch. Odd as it sounds, somewhere in Christopher was a backwoods Toryanarchist.
Status and power fascinated him as targets, not asways to discrimate among people. He was open to everyone and called allcomers by first name—that memory again!—even if they were not nearfriends. My calling him “Christopher” repays the compliment. “Hitchens”would sound both too distant and too knowing.
Now I think about it,at that restaurant in Athens it was probably closer to three in themorning. Holding up an empty bottle, Christopher waved it back and forthto get the attention of a waiter, slumped against a far wall. When thewaiter came over with a fresh bottle, Christopher raised an empty glassto him and cried with a Byronic flourish, “Eleftheria!”—which meansfreedom or liberty in Greek. In perfect English the waiter shot back,“We’ve already got that”. The exhausted man had made his point and foronce Christopher had no comeback. He’s silent now for good, and, agreewith him or disagree, it’s a loss to us all.
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