Thursday, May 24, 2007

Hitchens v. God

Reader J.H.M. has written in in response to my post yesterday about Christopher Hitchens's public reaction to the death of Jerry Falwell and about Hitchens's new book, "God Is Not Great":

There is a wonderful irony in some of the differences between C. Hitchens's new book in the UK (his country of birth) edition and the US (he was just naturalized an American) one.

UK version

US version

While I much prefer the US cover, with the sun-mustard and cloud grey lettering (with a soupçon of poisonous vino tinto), the subtitle, so to speak, ruins the effect by its, as you put it, pugilism (perhaps pugnaciousness would be a better form). On the other hand, the UK has what I consider the much to be preferred subtitle: "The Case Against Religion," but the cover is a brimstone nightmare.

I would add that it is curious that the US cover, with its more inflammatory subtitle, has the word "god" in lowercase and in such small type. Perhaps the intention is to reflect Hitchens's belittling of Him/him, but instead it reads as if there is a fear of openly insulting God.

Posted by Evan Hughes at 11:48 AM

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