[S]uddenly, with death breathing down his neck, what he has to say is of no use to him, and is no use to us, either. He has failed us, and in his blunt way he comes clean about the fact....
We needed to rouse ourselves from the sleep of superstition, but in doing so we have collapsed into the narcosis of materialism. And waking from that to the reality of death is a far nastier matter.
"We treated him like a wise man, but it turns out he was just a clown."
Writes Peter Popham, about Christopher Hitchens:
