Ordinarily we associate him with a different sort of wand-waving

In this final volume there is a good deal of loose-end gathering to be done. Which side was Snape really on? Can Neville Longbottom rise above himself? Are the Malfoys as black as they have been painted? Unfortunately — and with the solid exception of Neville, whose gallantry is well evoked — these resolutions prove to possess all the excitement of an old-style Perry Mason-type summing-up, prompted by a stock character who says, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. ...” Most of all this is true of Voldemort himself, who becomes more tiresome than an Ian Fleming villain, or the vicious but verbose Nicolae Carpathia in the Left Behind series, as he offers boastful explanations that are at once grandiose and vacuous. This bad and pedantic habit persists until the final duel, which at least sees us back in the old school precincts once again. “We must not let in daylight upon magic,” as Walter Bagehot remarked in another connection, and the wish to have everything clarified is eventually self-defeating in its own terms. In her correct determination to bring down the curtain decisively, Rowling has gone further than she should, and given us not so much a happy ending as an ending which suggests that evil has actually been defeated (you should forgive the expression) for good.

Hitch reviews the latest Harry Potter novel in The New York Times.

The Hitchens Post

Verses inspired by Gawker's brilliant Wonka-referencing tag for posts on atheism, "Everlasting Godstoppers," and Hitch's latest runaway bestseller:

Come and think, have a drink
In a world of pure rationalization
It's not odd, there's no God,
But there's Scotch enough for a small nation

Just for spite, trash the Right,
And their blind insistence on Creation
Warn the world, as we're whirled,
Into spheres of Islamification

You will never view Paradise
It's a snare and a delusion
Only adding to confusion
Want to change the world? God's an illusion.

God's not great, so berate
Both fanatics and moderate believers
We've no use for a truce
Just rhetorical checkmate.

If you want to view Paradise
There is nothing like polemic
No matter how you pray or hymn it
Our derision... is systemic...

Damn, if I could only figure out a way to turn a minor talent for doggerel into a paying gig.

Hitch on the Grey Lady

How to ward off atrophy and routine, you ask? Well, I can give you a small and perhaps ridiculous example. Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. "All the News That's Fit to Print," it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine that most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there. Then I check to make sure it still irritates me. If I can still exclaim, under my breath, why do they insult me and what do they take me for and what the hell is it supposed to mean unless it's as obviously complacent and conceited and censorious as it seems to be, then at least I know that I still have a pulse.

You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my life span.

Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian, Perseus Books, 2001