Mortality

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Following the defeat at Bothwell Bridge, Morton flees the battle field. He is soon captured by some of the extreme Covenanters, who see him as a traitor, and get ready to execute him. He is rescued by Claverhouse, who has been led to the scene by Cuddie Headrigg. Morton later witnesses the trial and torture of fellow rebels, before going into exile. Whatever one's opinion on Christopher Hitchens' religious views, it's indisputable that the man can write. This collection of essays was penned after his diagnosis of terminal esophageal cancer and before his untimely death. Ch. 13 (26): Leaving the Tullietudlem siege with reluctance at Burley's insistence, Henry joins in an unsuccessful attempt to take Glasgow. The Duke of Monmouth is nominated to command the royalist army in Scotland.

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens | Waterstones

The book contains several essays inspired by his condition published in his usual venue of “Vanity Fair”. At first, he surprises himself by a relatively unemotional outlook: The day I found out that Christopher Hitchens had died was the day I felt as if someone from my own family had perished. Like I said, wish I had discovered him sooner. However, this means I get to look at all his material with fresh eyes. Hitch writes as he speaks, which is rough and poetic at the same time. This was an excellent collection of writings from Hitchens on the subject of death. After a rather abrupt diagnosis with esophageal cancer, he chose to write about his experience with illness, and with death on the horizon, his experiences that he endured with cancer treatment. He does this with his usual classic wit, and Hitch style. I felt that Hitchens never had pity for himself and his situation, it was what it was.Conclusion: At Martha Buskbody's request Peter Pattieson sketches in the later history of the main surviving characters.

Being Mortal | Atul Gawande

There is a great deal of suffering and slow loss as he undergoes every treatment possible. As his wife notes: "He responded to every bit of clinical and statistical good news with a radical, childlike hope." When such hope seems futile, he realises how much he is losing. With pains in his arms, hands and fingers, he writes: "Almost like the threatened loss of my voice, which is currently being alleviated by some temporary injections into my vocal folds, I feel my personality and identity dissolving as I contemplate dead hands and the loss of the transmission belts that connect me to writing and thinking." And (from my own world-view) is it wrong that I found it both admirable and tragic that he maintained his beliefs through his death? I'm sure many in my theological camp would be appalled by the remark - perhaps likening it to an unrepentant child rapist who refuses to admit he was wrong. There's nothing admirable about that. Ch. 8: Mause and Cuddie find shelter at Milnewood. Bothwell arrests Henry for succouring Burley. Mause and Cuddie prepare to leave Milnewood after she has uttered fanatically extreme Covenanting sentiments. This is, of course, nonsense. It is the selfishness of the living who are, for the moment, without pain and who want to avoid it by forestalling death at any cost. The terminal patient can be a victim of both the disease and the relatives who think their encouragement is justified by the extension of life. The medical profession will experiment endlessly, or at least as long as it is profitable, with one’s body. But it’s the family who think they own the soul, and they ain’t giving it up. Pain is an unfortunate side effect and really isn’t important in their moral calculus. stars really, but I gave it 5 because Christopher Hitchens wrote it whilst dying of cancer and because of the concept of cancer being another country foreign to the one that we live in.For a month I have been living through endless tests on my son hoping that he wasn't going to travel into this suffocating world of endless trials and tribulations. A journey like The Pilgrim's Progress but through disease with no guarantee of a triumphant end. But all the tests are negative, what he has is neither life-threatening, nor long-term and the worst had been suspected. By Christmas this will hopefully just be a nasty memory. This book was already personal enough without my own soul and flesh traversing its territory too. The point is that the medical treatments for the kinds of conditions from which most of us die today are forms of torture. I don’t want to be tortured. I don’t want to suffer. I don’t even want to suffer ‘significant discomfort’ for any extended period of time. I would like to remain conscious and intellectually active for as long as possible but not if such activity is inhibited by the threat 0f constant pain. I would like to experience the presence of my loved ones but in the knowledge that I can consider them, and they me, without pain even if this involves a certain trippiness.