I have to admit, and not without some degree of shame, that prior to picking up this book I had shunned the author for the most part as someone whose views diverged too sharply from my own to be of any interest to me. Christopher Hitchens professes a great admiration for Oscar Wilde in this book - mainly for Wilde's wit, but you can see that Hitchens is also influenced by Wilde's public facade.

As is his trademark, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast to stagnant attitudes across the ideological spectrum. Which is to say, you can ignore those things you do not agree with and still benefit greatly from the more general reflections of a mind that is nothing if not uncompromising and devoted to personal freedom above all else.However, I promise you that if you take him at his word, at eye level, and come at it honestly, your thinking is going to be much richer for it. So, like Hitchens, whose face apparently forms an unintended sneer, I don’t fit the old description of a gentleman: one who is never rude except on purpose.

I suppose my only criticism of it is that it is far too short to provide an even view of the examples described therein, but I repeat that this is a synthesis: it is not enough to make an informed decision on big issues, but enough to comprehend the author. At once indignant and intellectual in Hitchens' now inimitable style he winds up his advice beautifully by quoting the Hungarian dissident, George Konrad, "Have a lived life instead of a career. But I'm back in Saturnine dude's asteroid belt, the not-always-yes-man of a gravity-fed, dissent-spouting, impossibly well-read Oxbridge wit.All I can recommend, therefore (apart from the study of these and other good examples), is that you try to cultivate some of this attitude. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they 'felt', not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. When told of the death of the late Jerry Falwell, a bigoted charlatan if ever there was one, Hitchens exclaimed "Give him an enema and you could bury him in a matchbox. This is of course an encouraging finding; it helps arm you against news programs back home that show seething or abject masses of either fanatical or torpid people.