Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere

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Summary: A very different Hitchens
Review: I recommend this volume to my friends not only as a great collection of literary essays but as a rare event for Hitch-watchers: for most of the book, Christopher Hitchens is not kvetching! Granted, he gets in some very nice digs at Right-wing ideologues Tom Wolfe and Norman Podhoretz,and manages to include a laughably ignorant piece on the Ebonics debate, but the majority of the essays here are encomia to authors whose writing and political actions the Hitchster admires! It's uplifting, informative, and very moving. Oh, Hitchypoo's usual detractors will come up with the usual non sequitors: he doesn't like religion, he whitewashes George Orwell's sins, he fails to distort a rumor spread by Frank Harris about Oscar Wilde, he's abonded his old political loyalties since he wrote this book. But Unacknowledged Legistlation will remain a generous and valuable work, respected by all who care about literary courage.

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Summary: Buy it if you're interested in modern English literature.
Review: In this book can be found various articles previously published by different magazines by the famous political comentator Christopher Hitchens. Here we see another side of "Hitch", that of the critic of modern English literature, ranging from the witty 19th century plays of Oscar Wilde (whom he admires), to the leaden prose of the neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz (whom he most certainly destests). Even if you don't always agree with him (I find his views on religion repugnent) you don't have any appreciation of the English language if you don't get SOMETHING out of this book. As a student of the history of ideas I was fascinated by his account of Isaiah Berlin, and there are similar riches here for anyone interested in anglophone writing from the late 19th century until the turn of the current millenium. This is a fascinating book by a great prose stylist.

Rating:
Summary: Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere
Review: Taking inspiration from Shelley's description of the poet as an "unacknowledged legislator", Christopher Hitchens shows that while the encounter between writers & those in power is not always smooth, it generally embodies a dialectic that is well worth pursuit. Unacknowledged Legislations includes essays on Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, George Orwell, Salman Rushdie, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Philip Larkin, Patrick O'Brian, Walter Mosley, Tom Wolfe & Susan Sontag.