Hurtling Through Space

So I’m reading that Christopher Hitchens — one of the now-legendary Four Horsemen of New Atheism, and all-round modern iconoclast — has managed to get himself beaten up while visiting Lebanon.

It sounds pretty dire at first blush, with my first thoughts wondering about some kind of retribution for one of his books or his regular column in Slate, Fighting Words, but the original source of the news indicates that he’s fine and just has a bit of a limp, some bruises and, presumably, a bruised ego.

I have a mixture of respect and repulsion for Hitchens, as I think his God Is Not Great is a fantastic rational book that summarises, in his unique way, how religion gets in the way of basic human functions at best. My repulsion comes from the way he goes about conveying his message, his apparent wildly-variable political standpoints, and for his all-round attitude to things that has culminated in this event. But I suppose in my attitude he has achieved his desired goal — polarisation of opinion, generation of thought, and getting people talking.

Anyway, reports state that while out drinking he chose to walk around a neighbourhood known, to the locals at least, to be sympathetic to an extremist political party — the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) — and to indiscreetly deface one of their posters in plain sight. And they didn’t take kindly to it, as you might expect from any of the extremist parties wherever you live.

It can’t be just me that sees the madness of this on multiple levels, surely? If nothing else, then how about:

• Out drinking (presumably alone) in a country known for political and religious strife.
• In an area that seemed to be sympathetic or supportive of the SSNP.
• Walking around said country while drunk.
• Brazenly defacing a poster for a political party of another nation.

Without wishing to impugn any nationality: to the Lebanese locals he must look like a drunken, intemperate American tourist defacing an advertisement for another country’s political system. That’s like walking around parts of New York or London wearing a racist t-shirt, or strolling outside one of the growing number of wartime Green Zones with USA No.1 emblazoned on your shirt: you’re not going to get away with it without a limp — sorry. In fact, he’s lucky to just have the limp.

Don’t mistake me: I by no means wish ill of the man, but this has to go down as one of those “What the hell was he thinking?” moments. I hope he learns from it and re-thinks his next surreptitious political protest. Preferably not one in another country where the locals intolerantly see him as an Imperalist Capitalist Pig try to foist his nation’s idea of peace, politics and way of life upon them.

Despite all that, I do applaud his conviction and fearlessness.

There were a few problems with the previous theme I was using, so it was time for a change. I hope you like it.

For those of you reading this blog via the website, what do you think?

I thought I’d continue the book meme found at Nullifidian’s site…

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here, though the closest BBC reference I can find to it is The Big Read from 2003. Either way, it’s time to find out:

Instructions:

1. Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read ENTIRELY (and not just seen the film!)
2. Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3. Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4. Tally your total at the bottom.

The BBC reading list:

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien x
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling x
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee x
6. The Bible x
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell x+
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman *
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens *
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott *
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller x
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare *
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier x
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien x
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger x
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens x
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams x+
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky *
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll x
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame x
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy *
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis x
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis x
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini *
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne x
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell x+
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown x
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy *
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding x
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan *
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel x
52. Dune – Frank Herbert x
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens x
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley x+
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck x
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov *
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas *
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac *
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding x
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie *
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville x
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens x
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker x
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce *
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White x
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Alborn
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery *
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks *
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams x
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas x
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare x+
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl x
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

If I’ve tallied correctly, that’s: 34 x / 5 + / 15 * I’ve not read nearly as much as I’d have liked in recent years, but amusingly I have a number of those “want to read” books sitting in a pile in my living room. So much to do, so little time…