RIP Gore Vidal

[Prospero]

By his own estimation Gore Vidal who died yesterday was one of America's greatest writers. I suspect history will judge him to have been a rther minor figure but a great egoist.

He somewhat lost the plot in his essays suggesting the US Government was behind the Oklahoma City Bombing.

But he hit the nail on the head when he described the American Conservative movement as an attempt to create massive piles of tax exempt money by creating an plutocracy. Shame he isn't around to offer his surely acerbic judgements on the present election campaign.

Myra Breckenbridge was, of course, a book that those in the Transgender community might find of interest. Anyone here a fan?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?_r=2&hp&pagewanted=all

[trish]

I first encountered Gore Vidal brilliance when I picked up a copy of Live From Golgatha in a bookstore...Bookstore?...What are those?

[Prospero]

I remember bookstores

[Stavros]

By his own estimation Gore Vidal who died yesterday was one of America's greatest writers. I suspect history will judge him to have been a rther minor figure but a great egoist.

He somewhat lost the plot in his essays suggesting the US Government was behind the Oklahoma City Bombing.

But he hit the nail on the head when he described the American Conservative movement as an attempt to create massive piles of tax exempt money by creating an plutocracy. Shame he isn't around to offer his surely acerbic judgements on the present election campaign.

Myra Breckenbridge was, of course, a book that those in the Transgender community might find of interest. Anyone here a fan?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/books/gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies-at-86.html?_r=2&hp&pagewanted=all


I tried the novels but they were not to my taste; I liked the essays that were in the book On Our Own Now; and I shall remember him for the essays on American politics. Yes, he was an elegant writer, but too prone to sarcasm and ridicule to be taken more seriously. He may have impeccable Democrat credentials, but he wasn't a generous man in debate. He had a few weeks of knockabout correspondence with Clive James in the TLS a few years ago, arguing about the Bomb and whether or not it made a difference in 1945, whether or not the Japanese were about to surrender when the bomb was droped and so on. Neither one was really conclusive, but it was a lively exchange.

One of the greatest American writers? Not sure, I think that is an accolade too far, he doesn't measure up that well to the 20th century candidates like Edmund Wilson; none of his novels can match the superb craft and imagination of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying or The Sound and the Fury; if he did write poetry it will have been no match for the best body of poetic work produced in 20thc America, by Robert Lowell. Vidal was sparkling and witty, but was he ever profound?

[Prospero]

I agree with your judgements almost entirely Stavros.

[broncofan]

Have not read any of his novels but many of his political views were of the crankiest and most paranoid variety. I'm sure others were on the money. In every television interview I saw with him he came across as extremely pompous. His attitude towards other writers and thinkers was not just ungenerous but often full of contempt. He wrote the prologue of the copy of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage that I have in front of me. I remember reading the prologue a while back and thinking it was a steaming pile of judgmental, condescending manure. Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I read it.

Perhaps I should pick up a novel of his before I make a posthumous judgment of the man. Speaking of American writers, I read The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer about a year ago. It was a great read. It's a pity I've seen live interviews with Norman Mailer. Extremely verbose, domineering, and ridiculous. I've heard it said that you can judge a man's writing by how he speaks. If that were the case, I would not come within ten miles of anything Mailer wrote. The same can be said of Gore Vidal, but since I don't actually believe that saying bears out I should probably read some of his work.

[broncofan]

Actually, I remembered Vidal taking apart Maugham for his stylistic deficiencies but his review of Maugham's work subtly does the opposite. He defends Maugham not just against his contemporaries' barbs but also his own, which he labels part of his great invention (that he was was a second-rate laborer whose only asset was his ability to tell the truth).

I read an obit of Vidal that says he rates Myra Breckenridge as his greatest work, even though the critics don't necessarily agree. So perhaps that's what I'll take a look at now.

[Prospero]

Great anecdote about Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.

Vidal reviewed one of Mailer's books very badly, so when Mailer saw him in a bar he punched him and knocked him to the floor.

From the floor Vidal said: "Words fail Mailer once again."

[onmyknees]

Immensely talented writer, who's style is not to my liking, however that's irrelevent. Despised his politics and some of his zany unfounded theories. The only good thing I can say is that he managed to get Ms. Welch and Ms. West to get along long enough to feed our fantasies. I won't speak ill of the dead, but know what he said about William F. Buckley on learning of his death.... "RIP WFB — in hell". So forgive me if I can't find the sympathetic words to eulogize.

[Prospero]

True - Vidal would never speak well of anyone if he could speak ill of them.

[Ben]

I read the City and the Plllar when I was a teen. Just over a decade ago.
He's a favorite of mine.
He said about homosexuality, which was rather interesting, that no one is homosexual. What?!?!?! ha ha ha! Well, according to Vidal, homosexual or homosexuality describes an action. Not a person. I tend to agree with that. But then again he pointed out that President Franklin Pierce was probably gay. And Vidal described him as: good looking.
Oh, he pointed out, and was quite happy about this, that Noam Chomsky read his novel Creation.

[Ben]

Gore Vidal Obituary - Channel 4 News (1st August 2012) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Mh8hSCdY8)

[Stavros]

Immensely talented writer, who's style is not to my liking, however that's irrelevent. Despised his politics and some of his zany unfounded theories. The only good thing I can say is that he managed to get Ms. Welch and Ms. West to get along long enough to feed our fantasies. I won't speak ill of the dead, but know what he said about William F. Buckley on learning of his death.... "RIP WFB — in hell". So forgive me if I can't find the sympathetic words to eulogize.

I am surprised that you despised his politics -he was a fierce critic of Lincoln because of what he believed was that President's creation of the 'Imperial Presidency' which Vidal believed had undermined the USA as a popular democracy. In other words, his views of the dominance of Washington DC chime well with much of the Tea Party's critique of power in the USA today.

The 1863 Conscription Act was seen by many as the way that people with money could buy their way out of military service; and although allowed for in times of crisis some felt the suspension of Habeas Corpus went too far during the Civil War; Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward was authorised by Lincoln in 1861 to arrest and harass anyone who tried to publicise Mrs Lincoln's financial problems, which included forcing White House staff to lie under oath in court. The point being that the preservation of the Union was considered more important than fidelity to the Constitition; just as the preservation of Mrs Lincoln's reputation was more important than the truth. You will find all these arguments in Vidals' Lincoln; in addition to which is his judgement of JFK as a 'bad President', the New New Times as an establishment paper that claims to print 'All the News That's Fit to Print' but does the reverse, and so on.

Ok so he claimed that BobbyK was determined to trash the Mafia and it was New Orleans capo Moncello who put the hit on JFK in Dallas -but other than that, consider:
On the Presidency and the Constitution, Vidal was a political conservative, but on matters sexual he was a social liberal...ring any bells?

[thombergeron]

Excellent point, Stavros. It's deliciously ironic that the statist authoritarians currently occupying the right-wing of political dialog in this country don't recognize a small-c conservative when they see one.

OMK, Vidal despised lazy thinkers such as yourself, and would certainly have been contemptuous of your fake piety. So you should really feel free to widely criticize the man's life and his works. Unless, of course, your sole familiarity with his works is a movie somebody else made of one of his novels.

[broncofan]

Great anecdote about Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.

Vidal reviewed one of Mailer's books very badly, so when Mailer saw him in a bar he punched him and knocked him to the floor.

From the floor Vidal said: "Words fail Mailer once again."
I remember hearing that. Vidal also made fun of Mailer's relatively small size by referring sardonically to the night Mailer landed the punch as the "Night of the tiny fist." That was a fairly good one too I think:D.

[Ben]

Immensely talented writer, who's style is not to my liking, however that's irrelevent. Despised his politics and some of his zany unfounded theories. The only good thing I can say is that he managed to get Ms. Welch and Ms. West to get along long enough to feed our fantasies. I won't speak ill of the dead, but know what he said about William F. Buckley on learning of his death.... "RIP WFB — in hell". So forgive me if I can't find the sympathetic words to eulogize.

I'm not sure what his politics were. I mean, he described himself as a correctionist. If there was a problem, well, he wanted it corrected.
I mean, the terms "conservative" and "liberal" have been rendered kinda meaningless. To me anyway.
I mean, I'm supposed to be on the so-called left. But I'm not opposed to gun ownership. And I'm not entirely opposed to the death penalty.
But I'm in favor of gay marriage.
So, does this move me to the right or to the left of the political spectrum? Again, I think these terms have been evacuated of meaning.

[Ben]

Based on Vidal's novel.

Myra Breckinridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myra_Breckinridge)

Myra Breckinridge - Trailer (1970) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezSsK3SgVk8)