Last week, Vanity Fair magazine, for which Christopher Hitchens was a contributing editor, held a memorial service in their late star's honor. Among those sharing memories of Hitchens and reading extracts from his mountainous body of work were Stephen Fry, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Christopher Buckley — to name a few. (Martin Amis's rather funny 'eulogy' turned out to be something of a highlight, comically, and was delivered in the author's typical sardonic and irreverent manner, peppered with obvious fondness for the departed "Hitch".)
But, as David Remnick, I think correctly, noted, the most poignant moment came from the poet James Fenton, who delivered a solemn recitation of his own verse:
What would the dead want from us
Watching from their cave?
Would they have us forever howling?
Would they have us rave
Or disfigure ourselves, or be strangled
Like some ancient emperor’s slave?
None of my dead friends were emperorsVideo tribute by documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney here, part two of the memorial service here, and earlier posts regarding Hitchens here.
With such exorbitant tastes
And none of them were so vengeful
As to have all their friends waste
Waste quite away in sorrow
Disfigured and defaced.
I think the dead would want us
To weep for what they have lost.
I think that our luck in continuing
Is what would affect them most.
But time would find them generous
And less self-engrossed.
And time would find them generous
As they used to be
And what else would they want from us
Than an honoured place in our memory,
favourite room, a hallowed chair,
Privilege and celebrity?
And so the dead might cease to grieve
And we might make amends
And there might be a pact between
Dead friends and living friends.
What our dead friends would want from us
Would be such living friends.