Mortality

By: Christopher Hitchens

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 2 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

On June 8, 2010, while on a book tour for his best-selling memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was stricken in his New York hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest and thorax. As he would later write in the first of a series of award-winning columns for Vanity Fair, he suddenly found himself being deported "from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady." Over the next 18 months, until his death in Houston on December 15, 2011, he wrote constantly and brilliantly on politics and culture, astonishing readers with his capacity for superior work even in extremis.

Throughout the course of his ordeal battling esophageal cancer, Hitchens adamantly and bravely refused the solace of religion, preferring to confront death with both eyes open. In this riveting account of his affliction, Hitchens poignantly describes the torments of illness, discusses its taboos, and explores how disease transforms experience and changes our relationship to the world around us. By turns personal and philosophical, Hitchens embraces the full panoply of human emotions as cancer invades his body and compels him to grapple with the enigma of death.

Mortality is the exemplary story of one man's refusal to cower in the face of the unknown, as well as a searching look at the human predicament. Crisp and vivid, veined throughout with penetrating intelligence, Hitchens's testament is a courageous and lucid work of literature, an affirmation of the dignity and worth of man.

©2012 Christopher Hitchens (P)2012 Hachette Audio

All too short and fleeting

Much shorter than I would have liked, but in the two hours of audio, Hitchens brings to life the struggle of a man in the throws of a losing battle with stage 4 Esophogeal Cancer. This is a particularly nasty cancer that leaves little doubt as to outcome, just a question of how long. Hitchens brings his brand of insight and eloquence to a situation that is in some sense hopeless.

In the course of doing so we will all be able to better understand what thoughts, what emotions have gone through the minds of all those whom we love but have struggled with some form of a serious hopital stay. I don't know, but perhaps this would have shifted the tone and topics of conversation I had with loved ones who didn't make it through. It is incredibly difficult to put yourself in their shoes unless you've been there. Having been there recently and having read this viciously short, eloquent and insightful bit from Hitchens, I don't think I'll approach sickness and hospitals in the same way.

I do wish that there had been some more of self-indulgence and/or self-pity, but he didn't want to revel in those feelings, yet clearly it is something with which all in such situations suffer. A man with such eloquence and insight would have certainly shed new light on this aspect of serious / terminal disease.

Much has been made about the "fact" that Hitchens didn't change his world view when confronted with the end of his life. Unfortunately the brevity and scope of the book I don't believe would have allowed any of these issues to be addressed. There was talk at the end of the larger book he had still hoped to write. He at some point rails against the Randy Pausch approach to passing, but at the end perhaps the book I had hoped to read would have been Hitchens' version of that approach. I didn't want to hear more argument about or criticism of religion and how others choose to live, but I wanted to hear about the beauty and virtue of Hitchens' secular humanism.

Nonetheless, this book will touch you and change the way you empathize with terminal disease / serious hospital stay patients and for that reason alone it is highly recommended.

the good misfortune of hearing a voice eulogized

What did you love best about Mortality?

the raw beauty of an amazing soul pondering the inevitable to be or naught

Who was your favorite character and why?

Hitch

Would you listen to another book narrated by Simon Prebble?

mayhap

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Doing Death in the Active

Any additional comments?

My affection for Christopher Hitchens has really only blossomed in his wake, thanks to his echoes reverberating on youtube. Learning of this book, I checked reviews in part to confirm that the "sample" was not an accurate reflection of the book's contents; the sample was a bit of a foreword/eulogy by someone other than "the Hitch" from whom I was interested in hearing on the terribly intimate topic of "mortality."

I scrolled through many glowing reviews and snagged on one that seemed angered by the narrator's high speed disregard for Christopher's trademark eloquent cadence... briefly I wondered if I should take the trouble to read his words (so I could "hear" Hitch saying them in my mind)... but audio is often an easier option. A little ways in, I realized that angry review had infected my thinking and my frustration at the lack of cadence had initiated a letter writing campaign in my brain that would be demanding a "do over" - a more respectfully read version of Mr. Hitchen's final book, forthwith! ...I began to wish I hadn't read the complaint... but further on, when I heard this narrator speaking Christopher's words as he eulogized the very loss of his own physical voice, I felt the pain of our loss more clearly, as this bloom's procession inevitably advanced. Poignant book, whether read

Hitch goes out with a bang.

Any additional comments?

If you've enjoyed anything written by Christopher Hitchens, you must listen to this last hurrah. He faces death with reality, and anger, and fights to the end, but and leaves the reader with a sense of loss. This is as it should be. Hitch was a great contributor to our society, and we should have a sense of loss at the end.

Mortality or immortality

Hitch died years ago. His words still echo in millions. Life is not worth living without death. Our ultimate enemy is the best motivator and end one could ever have.

Thanks Hitch.

Thanks Hitch for your work that has been a strong influence in my path towards enlightenment

Chillingly awesome

Chilling awesome book by one of my favorite authors. Took me a while, obviously, to get to it. Gone to soon.

Death IS the DARK backing

This short collection of writings done by Christopher Hitchens detailing his experience with cancer, dying and mortality reminds me in no little way of a 21st century Montaigne. While I was expecting Hitchens stoic materialism to jump off the page, I was also surprised by his gentleness. This is a man who loved life. He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved to think, to write and to speak. Is there any greater testament to a life well-lived than to read or listen to a man's final words and walk away from that experience made better by his spirit and his strength. If "death is", to re-use Bellow's phrase, "the dark backing a mirror needs before it can give off a reflection," than Hitch's life and words were that same mirror's silver.

No gimmicks, just the facts

Would you listen to Mortality again? Why?

Yes. Well written, expresses the reality of the battle of the human spirit when faced with its mortality, specifically cancer.

What did you like best about this story?

Very factual and real. I could feel his pain and his anguish.

What about Simon Prebble’s performance did you like?

Very well done, cognicent of the late writer himself.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The afterward by Christopher's wife.. very difficult not to break down with her. My heart goes out to her.

Any additional comments?

I am in the medical field and was moved and enlightened by Christopher's ability to express and describe his emotions and consequences. He is a huge loss to talent.

Mortality: Death Finds a Hitch

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this audiobook to a friend but only if that friend was familiar with at least some of Hitchens's vast volume of work. It would be a disservice to said friend, and to the late Hitchens himself if his observations about the process of dying were taken without some understanding of the man behind them.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Christopher Hitchens takes the reader with him through all the physical, medical, social, and cultural indignities that those dying from terminal cancer experience. His commentary on what starts as hope, and ends as resignation is witty, wry, and incredibly sad. I am one of those who was unaware of Hitchens during his life, and only came to appreciate him after he was gone. He was a brave man - it can rightly be said that he lived the hell out of the life he had, and he kept going past the point where stronger people might rightly have quit.

Which character – as performed by Simon Prebble – was your favorite?

The author and his battle against cancer were the characters of the book - I thought Simon Prebble did a great job, particularly at the end of the book, at which point the narrative ceases, and there are a number of notes Hitchens had left behind relating to the book. Prebble read them in a thoughtful, considered way, that breathed Hitchens into them. It could easily have come out sounding more like a To Do list.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

My overwhelming reaction was sorrow that there was no more of Christopher Hitchens in this world to be had. Despite his talent and the huge body of work, both in letters and in speeches and debates that can be found in any number of places on the Internet, there's no more of that cutting intellect and brilliant reasoning that was the essence of Hitchens. He was a finite resource, and Mortality at least gave me some room to mourn what I'd discovered and lost, all within a short period of time.

Any additional comments?

It's not a happy book. There is no happy ending. If you've found Hitchens already, then you're probably aware of Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris, just to name two of his peers who have some very interesting views in common. If you haven't read them, you should. They, too, are entirely logical, unrepentant atheists, and represent angles of atheism that Hitchens sometimes touched on, and often discussed with both of these gentlemen. Look them up on YouTube when you get a chance.

W O W

"Mortality" is a treasury of a man, his thoughts and words. "Mortality" is an unvarnished eyewitness transition from one's old familiar world to the unknown new.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST