The Blow-by-Blow
Recap of the “Why Orwell Matters” debate with Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, Michael Walzer, and Vivian Gornick:
The short summary: Gornick gets roasted. Hitchens and Sullivan do most of the roasting. Walzer watches in amusement.
Poor Vivian Gornick. She probably walked through the doors of Jurow Hall anticipating a nice friendly conversation about Orwell—one in which she would perhaps ruminate upon the virtues of the erstwhile Mr. Eric Blair, displaying a socially acceptable level of humility at the inevitable suggestions of successorship, and occasionally making the obligatory rhetorical nod to her fellow members of the cosmopolitan intelligensia. A mannerly discourse would surely be had–something along the lines of “Was Orwell Great or Was Orwell Great?” Everyone would ultimately nod and agree that Orwell Was Indeed Great, and the evening would culminate in the polite exchange of customary parting pleasantries, with the usual promise to get together on some future occasion, perhaps at a fundraiser for the ACLU, or at the Greenwich Yacht Club. (Or, possibly, a fundraiser for the ACLU at the Greenwich Yacht Club.)
Gornick likely expected a polite exchange of ideas, interspersed with bits of humor and thoughtful personal insights. She got, instead, two rapacious Englishmen in the mood for a brawl.
A recent Village Voice article began with the line, “Christopher Hitchens has a problem with halos,” an assertion well-supported by Hitchens’ eagerness to remind the audience that “all saints are guilty until proven innocent.” Hitchens idolizes Orwell (inasmuch as Hitchens is capable of idolizing anyone) but takes great pains in his recently published book, Why Orwell Matters, to avoid romanticism.
“The Hitch” is, in fact, the classic anti-romantic. Orwell once wrote that “autobiography is not to be trusted unless it reveals something disgraceful,” and Hitchens seems to apply the rule with maximum effect to his biographical and literary examination of the same. No stone is left unturned; no wart unexposed. Hitchens has neither the time nor the inclination to be polite.
One of the first questions posed to the panel concerned Orwell’s skills as a journalist, and Gornick launched into a rather mawkish analysis of Orwell’s “My Ideal Pub” essay. She described Orwell with what Hitchens apparently viewed to be the same puerile sentimentality exhibited by American tourists who visit third-world countries and return with enthusiastic descriptions of “quaint little villages” and “charming local customs,” oblivious to the inherent condescension of such statements. She may as well have described him as a “strange little man” who wrote “lovely little essays about perfect cups of tea.” It may be the case that Gornick sincerely admires Orwell, but her effusive praise about the more trivial of his qualities effectively undermined any claim that she took the man seriously.
Even so, no one was expecting Hitchens’ opening response. Hitchens, appalled at the prospect of Gornick trivializing Orwell by turning him into a repulsive pile of harmless fluff, derisively informed Mrs. Gornick that There Would Be No More of That.
“Lest you think,” he addressed the audience, “that we’re going to spend the entire evening engaged in languorous fellatio…”
Gornick’s jaw dropped.
“Not to disparage your traditional approach…” he nodded at Gornick, before continuing with a slightly less flattering portrayal of Orwell’s abilities.
Hitchens has somewhat of a reputation for ruthlessly–and sometimes cruelly–skewering his opponents with a scathing wit and formidable rhetorical arsenal supported by an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure revolutionary movements. “May his targets cower,” Susan Sontag once said—finding herself, ironically, on the receiving end of a Hitchens skewering shortly thereafter. No one is immune. Not even fellow panelists who would prefer to play nicely.
Gornick was visibly offended and she made a point of physically broadcasting her discontent with indignant little huffs and body language that implored the audience to feel collectively insulted on her behalf. If the howling laughter was any indication, the audience wasn’t very sympathetic.
Gornick then made the “unconscionable” suggestion that V.S. Naipaul was analogous to Orwell in that both managed social critique in fiction as well as nonfiction. Hitchens nearly exploded. He gave Gornick a fiery oral dissertation on Naipaul’s support of the Hindu nationalist BJP, furious that she had the audacity to compare Naipaul to The Great Orwell.
“And I will say no more about it!” he thundered. The room grew silent.
“Unless challenged!” he added with a mischievous smile. The lecture hall erupted in laughter.
Gornick was speechless. It was clear that she wasn’t very familiar with Naipaul’s work or politics. She probably had no idea that she was broaching a hyper-sensitive subject that would precipitate a ruthlessly scathing reprimand. She may not have been aware that Hitchens’ “Good Friend,” Salman Rushdie, is a well-known critic of Naipaul’s and that each tends to reinforce the other’s outrage. Hitchens certainly didn’t explain his personal prejudices during the tirade. She was woefully unprepared, at any rate, for the public castigation she subsequently received at the hands of The Hitch.
Andrew Sullivan was sitting on the opposite side of Gornick and seemed to both anticipate and relish Hitchens’ caustic little barbs. He had, a few minutes earlier, given a short speech on Orwell’s influence that was moving and sincere without Gornick’s sentimentality. Sullivan—a gay right-winger and Catholic—was essentially explaining his admiration of a notoriously homophobic left-leaning atheist. He couldn’t afford to be maudlin.
Gornick’s comments were beginning to raise his ire as well and it wasn’t long before he joined what was quickly becoming an intellectual pile-on. Gornick made the assertion that Orwell couldn’t or wouldn’t write about patriotism in this day and age and in this country, as “patriotism” doesn’t really exist in the U.S. She alleged that any “flag waving” since 9/11 was entirely the product of fear, and couldn’t possibly be authentically patriotic.
Sullivan’s reaction was a mixture of utter disbelief and disgust. He stammered that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He talked a bit about what the U.S. meant to him as an ex-pat outsider and his own love of country. He gave numerous examples of American resilience in the face of crisis. He spoke of increased levels of democratic participation and a unity of core values.
“What then,” he demanded of Gornick, “is your definition of patriotism?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t answer that.”
“Well, that’s very eloquent!” Sullivan snapped.
Michael Walzer had been fairly quiet the whole time, observing the more acrimonious exchanges with a sort of detached amusement. He was, however, slightly disturbed by Gornick’s suggestion that the increase in patriotic displays over the last 18 months was nothing more than collective insecurity masquerading as civic engagement. “In my day, Vivian,” he said, “we called it ‘solidarity.’”
Hitchens added–rather calmly, for a change–that none of the looting, pillaging, and persecution predicted after 9/11 occurred because Americans were acutely aware of the danger of turning into something completely antipodean to American values. The New York audience unsurprisingly murmured agreement.
The discussion inexplicably morphed into a conversation about the military and the relative powers of the soldier and state. Hitchens remarked that wars typically made governments more powerful, and Sullivan quipped that he didn’t understand the Left’s virulent anti-militarism, given that increased military might facilitated more government control rather than less. Hitchens remarked, of Sullivan’s support for the soldier, that you could “take the gays out of the military,” but you couldn’t “take the military out of the gays.” Both snickered. Walzer smirked. Gornick resolutely continued making a concerted effort to stay pissed off.
The Q&A session oddly consisted of audience members giving the panel elaborate little speeches until the moderator interrupted with “and your question is?” One questioner ranted at Sullivan for “not speaking out against” the uglier parts of the Republican party, and began cataloguing everything Sullivan had said over the course of his lifetime that could be remotely construed as hypocritical with increasing vehemence and at increasing volume.
He also took a jab at Hitchens, quoting a bit from a magazine article. Hitchens replied that he wasn’t familiar with the piece. The inquisitor informed him that it had appeared in The Nation. “That’s the last place I’d find out about it,” Hitchens snorted, having resigned his position as a columnist there the previous month.
The questioner resumed his vitriolic excoriation of Sullivan. Sullivan, who was being remarkably diplomatic given the seemingly personal nature of parts of the attack, stated that his highly vocal and visible record of critiquing the Republican party spoke for itself. The audience appeared to agree, and the inquisitor was shortly hissed into submission.
Sullivan seemed to be more offended by a later question involving an article by Michael Wolff in which Wolff insinuated that Sullivan thought himself a latter-day version of Orwell. Sullivan protested that Wolff’s reporting was an outright lie, and that he had simply been asked whom he admired, and had responded that Orwell was a great influence. “He lied,” Sullivan said of Wolff. “And he won the National Magazine Award for it.”
The one audience member that didn’t insist on pedantically lecturing the panel modestly confessed ignorance of Orwell’s views on church and state and inquired about the significance of the burning churches in Homage to Catalonia. This ignited another discussion about the role of religion in public life, in which Sullivan came close to halfway defending a moderate role in an attempt to defend religion in general from the inevitable Hitchens indictment.
Hitchens then recalled his disgust after 9/11, when the Reverend Billy Graham stood in National Cathedral and told the relatives of the victims that their loved ones were “safe in Paradise,” and that even if they could come back, “they wouldn’t.” The only thing missing from the glaringly obvious parallel, Hitchen said, was “the 72 virgins,” the subtext of which he joked that many Muslims missed–72 mothers-in-law. “They didn’t read the fine print.”
The panel ended with Walzer chuckling softly to himself, Hitchens smiling, trademark cigarette already between his lips, and Sullivan surrounded by enthusiastic groupies. Gornick stood by the door with a supportive friend, still reeling.
