Amazon.com
Who could possibly resist a novel that begins as William Randolph Hearst falls on his behind? The fifth novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire sequence (sixth, however, in order of publication) begins on the eve of American involvement in the First World War and ends shortly after the mysterious death of Warren G. Harding and ascension of the taciturn Calvin Coolidge to the presidency. Balanced against Gore's descriptions of all these political machinations is the story of newspaper publisher Caroline Sanford's foray into film acting, which places her in proximity to the scandals involving Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and William Desmond Taylor. The cast of characters includes a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt--and his mistress, Lucy Mercer--and Vidal's maternal grandfather, Senator T.P. Gore. As always, the proceedings are enlivened by Vidal's caustic wit. --Ron HoganBook Description
Over a twenty-five period, Gore Vidal created a series of seven novels, which together are referred to as his American Chronicle novels. These novels capture American history in fiction in a way in which few writers have attempted, let alone succeeded. Hollywood is the sixth volume in the series. It is 1917, and President Woodrow Wilson is about to lead the country into the Great War in Europe. In California, a new industry is born that will irreversibly transform America. Caroline Sanford, the alluring heroine of Empire, discovers the power of moving pictures to manipulate reality as she vaults to screen stardom under the name of Emma Traxler. Just as Caroline must balance her two lives--West Coast movie star and East Coast newspaper publisher and senator's mistress--so too must America balance its two power centers: Hollywood and Washington. RosettaBooks is proud to publish four of Gore Vidal's American Chronicle novels: Burr, Lincoln, Empire and Hollywood. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Hollywood by Gore Vidal
With an absolute grip on detail, Gore Vidal describes an era: the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding. Vidal's storytelling skills are venerable, however, the text often reads like a stream of consciousness rather than one marked by satisfying conclusions on his characters' actions. Rather than being swept up in the narrative, I kept getting lost in the vast number of characters introduced. Vidal's incisive wit seems to have been tempered by age to the point of blandness at times.. Hearst, Hollywood, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt drift through the pages without bringing impact to the story.
I still love anything Vidal writes, but this book disappointed me.
Judith Clancy
Kyoto, Japan

Bore Me-Dull
I stopped reading this after giving Mr. Vidal the benefit of the doubt for 150 pages.With nothing interesting happening, I finally gave up on this tedious cocktail party passing for a novel that more than overstayed its welcome.

It's not that I wanted this to be "Die Hard" in novel form; it's not that I read mysteries and thrillers and action yarns--far from it.As a reader I expect some kind of conflict and emotion in the characters and Vidal failed to provide any from his cast of thousands.In the end, I decided to just move on.

Despite the title "Hollywood" the first 150 pages are 99% about Washington DC politics at the start of World War I and about as engaging as watching CSPAN.One scene after another involves the characters--far too many to keep track off--sitting around at dinner or in an office or at a restaurant dishing gossip.As I said earlier, it's like a cocktail party with lots of rich people dressed up and gabbing about the latest gossip and scandals.

None of it makes for interesting reading.I did find the parts where Caroline goes to Hollywood and gets roped into becoming an actress to be slightly more intriguing, if only to marvel at Tinseltown's humble beginnings when movies were called "photo-plays" and there were no CGI effects to make spaceships and superheroes fly.

Other than that, this is good for a reminder that Americans did not go into The Great War with overwhelming glee--at the time it was about as popular as Gulf War II.But as dull and tedious this book is with its myriad wooden characters, I'd suggest just reading a history book and let this one gather dust on the shelves.

That is all.

Movies Are Us
The first scene is grand, with William Hearst's bulk shattering an antique chair and dropping to the thick Persian rug. The place to be now is Hollywood, says early 20th century media mogul Hearst as he bids good-by to his host and owner of the demolished Biedermeier chair, Blaise Sanford. Unlike Hearst, Washington newspaper publisher Sanford is fictional.

But it's the second scene that starts the more mesmerizing narrative thread. Madame Marcia conducts a séance for Mrs. Harding and Jesse Smith--the Hardings' Ohio friend, owner of a dry goods emporium, a dewy-eyed political groupie and an unofficiallobbyist-government contractor of sorts. Poor Jess suffers from diabetes and sees ghosts.

The shadows on the screens merge with shadows in Washington as power shapes the manufacturing of screen fantasies and conversely the making of fantasies leads to power. The wonderful movie, Wag the Dog, is many decades in the future. But as Gore Vidal presents it, the 1920s is when politics became integrated with moving pictures and the latter took over the world.

What's so wonderful, says Hearst, is that all over the world the illiterate masses are watching my Pauline. His Pauline keeps moving on the screen because otherwise the audience might move out of the theater. This vivid depiction of Hearst stays close to the real man while making his foray into the movies the emblem of a society increasingly ruled by the image.

But Hearst is a side character. President Harding, Sanford, his sister Caroline, Senator Burden Day and blind Senator Thomas Gore--quite a cast. But it's Jess who's truly unforgettable.

At the end of the book, the shadows and ghouls get Jess, in a manner of speaking. As the reader wonders how he could have committed suicide by shooting himself on the left side of his head when he is right handed, all kinds of recent events involving lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, wars and sex in the oval office come to mind. Vidal is a master in bringing the distant past alive in a way that helps you think about the recent past and the present.

The whole perhaps does not match the brilliance of some of the parts, but this historical novel, and indeed the series of five novels that starts with Burr and ends with Hollywood, are a must read for anyone who wants to understand America. And if you have any thoughts of what exactly happened to Jess, I'd love to hear.

More cabal intrigue than cinematic history
This book provides several leitmotifs from the perspectives of several major fictional characters (Caroline Sanford, Blaise Sanford, and James Burden Day) that easily intermingle with the era's most historical non-fictional figures. With uncanny serendipity, each fictional character is able to find themselves engaged with every major political player at the exact moment they are making a major international decision. As there is no real historical figure to personify the influence of Hollywood on global politics, only Vidal's historical fiction can investigate the connection. His main character, Caroline Sanford, a.k.a. Emma Traxler, has an impossibly rich life transgresses the boundaries of American socialite, newspaper mogul and movie starlet. All while raising an illegitimate daughter and having affairs with America's most powerful men (two directors and a senator). Wow! What a woman!



The story covers the transition from the pre-World War I presidency of Woodrow Wilson through the convoluted election of his successor, Warren Gamaliel Harding. As the Presbyterian Minster turned History Professor turned quixotic dictator, Woodrow Wilson, personifies utopian ideals of "peace without victory" and "League of Nations" while insulating himself personally from Americans. Wilson is the main non-fictional character of the book, but is neither portrayed as a villain or hero. He is an apparent victim; a man with vision and ideals, but unable to navigate the ruthless power struggles with Teddy Roosevelt nor the recent Republican majorities of the congress and senate. The League of Nations becomes a logomachy for the political advancement among party power brokers rather than a realistic foreign policy. The 1920 presidential campaign was characterized less by the stature of the candidates who ran but by the stature of those who could not run (Teddy Roosevelt -died suddenly; Woodrow Wilson - stroke). Warren Gamaliel Harding is, at best, the third most popular candidate in the 1920 Republican Primary. He is the ideal "middle of the road candidate" who prefers the sports pages to the editorials election and is addicted to chewing tobacco. As everyone's second favorite, he is able to slip past two more popular candidates at the republican convention, then easily pass an unsupported democratic candidate, who never has a chance because Woodrow Wilson refuses to pull out of the race, despite his physical and mental incapacities. An appreciation I have for Vidal is that he dispels the myth that political futility has only occurred in the last twenty years. Through his American Chronicles Series, he truly illustrates that politicians since George Washington have been caught in the organization of government and have found themselves spinning their myriad wheels frantically in the mud, going no where. Self-promotion, deception and manipulation were as prevalent for the founding fathers and their rowdy successors as they are today.



However, the common focus of the book is the examining a fledgling American Empire that is bent on expanding its capitalist markets while professing democratic demagoguery. For Vidal, America's top export is its military. Despite an isolationist bent and fear of foreign entanglements, America is a burgeoning market looking to expand. Although the League of Nations makes rational sense and had supporters on both the Republican and Democratic parties, it was implausible because "Americans are too used to going alone in the world. You're also at the start of your own empire, and no rising empire wants to commit itself to peace when there are still so many profitable wars to fight (p. 119)." Hence an ongoing theme for Vidal: ongoing demagoguery for democracy while implementing militant actions with the intent of enriching the nation. Not so coincidently, the term "gilded" is ubiquitous in a not so subtle illusion to Mark Twain's "Gilded Age." America is a world power with a perceivably dominant military, but still a neophyte to the international power business and the American citizenry is largely folksy, ignorant and superstitious. Vidal further points out the hypocrisy of America's "freedom" while implementing quasi-fascist legislation including the Espionage Act, Prohibition and Selective Service. There has always been tension in America between individual rights and the common good; however, the decisions about "common good" usually come at the leisure and advantage of the reigning political elite.



In his elitist style, all decisions are made by an exclusive star chamber of the rich and educated social superiors. As in past novels, senatorial cabals interplay with corrupt Party power-brokers to create historical events. For Vidal, "the American voters" act as a singular player; a pawn moving at the whim of the newspapers and politicians. Often, Vidal portrays the intent of American politicians as being as much to deceive the American voters as our enemies. For example, the Committee on Public Information was established to propagandize for the war. In this vein, Hollywood is introduced and becomes a new national player. The few small towns on the west coast become influential in international politics as the wealthy (William Randolph Hearst) and powerful (Colonel George Creel) discover that if Americans can be easily influenced by what is on the printed page, then they will be exponentially seduced by what they see on the silver screen. Vidal connects the celebrity endorsements of Liberty Bonds, which predominantly funded the effort for World War I, with the propaganda movies that vilified international enemies; first, the "Huns" of Germany, then, the "Reds" of Russia.



I would warn readers that this is first and foremost a novel of historical fiction based primarily on the political events of 1917 through 1920. If you are primarily interested in the industry of Hollywood during that era, I would recommend looking elsewhere. Hollywood is merely a tangential player in the novel "Hollywood" in that the fledgling industry propagates the political manipulation of the masses. Actors, actresses, directors and studio moguls of the times are mentioned but are not primary players. For example, Vidal provides a great monologue of Charlie Chaplin as he flits through various characters in a Robin Williams-esque manner. However, smoke filled meetings of strategizing senators are the scenes of climatic intrigue, not the dynamics of a growing silver screen industry.

brings period to life, evoking feelings and exploring the ideas
This is unquestionably one of the best of Vidal's longitudinal series on the governing classes of the US.While the cover is something of a double misnomer - Hollywood is more of a theme than the plot and it barely gets into the 20s - the book offers a deep and hilarious view of what was going on in the period.You feel what it was like (for some of the monied elite) to be there as witnesses and occasionally shapers of events, which is the essence of successful historical fiction, making the reader curious to look to history books for greater detail and analyis.Indeed, I found this volume to be Vidal's most subtle since Lincoln, full of themes and concepts that fascinate and titillate.It is often difficult to know where Vidal stands, at least for me, and that is a big part of the fun.

In addition to the usual characters of the Sanford sibs and Sen. Day, at the center of the novel is Woodrow Wilson.You watch his decline, at once political - he loses his grip on the nation's political imagination with WWI and then the wrangle over the League of Nations - and physical.While he was indeed a messianic idealist, Vidal also creates a very human portrait of him that I read as sympathetic and, while typicallysarcastic, almost entirely lacking in vidalian cynicism.You get Wilson's vision of the future as well, which events were surpassing as he dug in his heals, pointing directly to WWII.The nation at war, with all of the moral principles so blithely thrown about, also appeared to me as a prescient evocation of a key part of the American character, its narcissistic belief in the face of contrary evidence that it always acts for a righteous cause on the good guys side - just look at the current war in Iraq!More particularly, Vidal portrays the repression of free speech and the blatant hypocracy in light of our stated constitutional ideals.

But there is also WG Harding and his courtiers, who added up to a disastrous mix of executive inattention and the crudest corruption, complete with murdered scapegoats.This too is a huge part of the American system, the desire to let things go and seek the good life while the rats are chewing out the bottom of the barrel.Sound familar?Again, it seems so prescient.

Lastly, there is a taste of the power that Hollywood was becoming. This was the most unexpected part for me, as I am a hardened political junkie and quite ignorent of this part of American culture.Essentially, Vidal questions whether the incipient movie moguls' vision - that of shaping the dreams of the American psyche - will become more important than the shenanigans going on in Wash, DC.As such, his characters see a progression from politicians telling people what to believe, through Hearst's yellow journalism evoking what they should fear, to the far deeper tappng into the public's collective unconscious.That Vidal succeeds in getting a person as jaded as I am to take a new look at so many things is indeed a feat.

Recommended as one of the best of the series.Now that I have read them all, I feel I must go back through the entire series to see more subtle linkages.This series is a wonderful experiment in a new style of hyper novel. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Charles Schuyler is a personal assistant to Aaron Burr, the former Revolutionary War hero, vice president under Jefferson, andinfamous slayer of Alexander Hamilton. He's also been employed by a group of political operatives in New York journalism circles to dig up evidence that Burr is the "natural father," as the expression goes, of up-and-coming presidential candidate Martin van Buren. Schuyler's journal entries are a wondrous prose picture of Jacksonian society, while an imagined autobiographical account from Burr provides a similar depiction of the nation's origins. Like all of Vidal's historical fiction, Burr has little use for America's received iconography, and draws upon contemporary sources to puncture the legendary reputations of Washington and Jefferson. There are also marvelous cameo appearances from figures like Washington Irving and Davy Crockett, of whom Schuyler notes, "He is considered a delightful figure. I can't think why." (There's also a substantial subplot in which Schuyler falls in love with a prostitute namedHelen Jewett; readers may be interested to learn that she is, in fact, a real historical figure).--Ron HoganBook Description
Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers.

Burr is a portrait of perhaps the most complex and misunderstood of the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. Burr retains much of his political influence if not the respect of all. And he is determined to tell his own story.As his amanuensis, he chooses Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, a young New York City journalist, and together they explore both Burr's past and the continuing political intrigues of the still young United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (58)

A MOST WELCOME HISTORICAL NOVEL


Back in 1973 as a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club, I chose to receive BURR when it became the club's main selection. Since that date, I have not been without a copy of the book, while having several non-fiction studies of Burr as well on the shelves.How do I rate Mr. Vidal's work, well, the 5-stars above should pretty much sum up that question.

As Vidal stated in his disclaimer, back of the book essay of sorts, that he did not always agree with Aaron Burr's opinion on people and things, I can state the same concerning some of the opinions Mr. Vidal opines in this book. But whether Vidal is skewering or lauding individual members of our 'founding fathers' one thing many discerning readers of history will need admit, there is not much difference between the desire to succeed that all of them shared.Many were eminently more successful than Mr. Burr in that they either knew how to embellish their lives through media management, or were fortunate in their efforts to cover life's tracks better. And had Burr's papers and trunks not been lost at sea, who knows?

Some have stated here that maybe Vidal is too extreme, too opinionated, or even too lacking in historical laurels; however, for me Mr. Vidal is extremely qualified not only due his family background and years of associating with a United States senator but, when this book first came out, some have posited that back in the deep somewhere of ancestry, Burr and Vidal were relatives.

Another important consideration for me is that BURR initiated Gore Vidal's study of the United States. And for a fictional writer, and never forget that we are reading fiction with a historical background, these several books stand very tall concerning what most American authors ever attain. Mr. Vidal has left us a true treasure trove of American historical novels.

Having read Gore Vidal since about 1963, I do somewhat agree with some here who claim it can take some work accepting him as an 'historian', though he would never claim to be one. I say this because some of his work for me, and I stress only me, is much below his talent. Books such as Duluth and Myra Breckenridge will never find any space on my bookshelves. So with those books among others, I believe Mr. Vidal did himself little favor when later stepping out to assume the mantel of serious historical novelist. Be that as it may, since that is 'history' too, he not only did it, but he has done it very well.

But after reading most of these books, and being a history minor in college, I accede both adequate historical knowledge with the writing talent to this major American author insuring success. And much more, I applaud his books on American history, when most of our authors either do not care at all about their country's history or shun any part in the writing of it.Bravo, Gore Vidal. Bravo, indeed.

For any reader enjoying BURR you may wish to also read his more recent and non-fiction book on the early republic entitled: INVENTING A NATION.

Semper Fi.

Had Me Laughing Out Loud
To appreciate this novel you have to know the issues surrounding Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson. Having recently read Chernow's Alexander HamiltonandIsenburg's Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr I was glad to have the events still fresh in my mind.Vidal put it all together 30 years before these biographies, that is without the advantage of new research and contemporary thinking.This novel also, notably, predates DNA and the confirmation of Jefferson's "bright" children.

Vidal's cleverly grafts his outlook and sensibility onto Burr.We will never know, but it may be an excellent fit. In telling the tale through Burr's eyes he gives a stronger defense of Burr than the Isenburg bio.While fictional, all the events are here. At the end, Vidal has a short note clarifying the few occasions when he strayed from the facts and noting that much of Jefferson's dialog was taken from Jefferson's own, copious, writings.

I was laughing out loud at the Vidal/Burr takes on the Jefferson plantation, Jefferson's White House (the books, the garden tools and the mocking bird who lands on his shoulder), Andrew Jackson (dialog, sore false teeth and comments on Davy Crockett's demise) and of course Burr's terse comments on Hamilton.While this is all serious history, Burr (the character and the novel) doesn't take himself/itself at all seriously.

This book begs to be a movie. It would surely be a riotous and controversial one.

Scathing View of Founding Fathers
Gore Vidal's BURR is an interesting, if somewhat rambling account of a lesser known man from our nations origins.Burr has often been vilified for his fatal "Interview" with Hamilton on Weehawken Heights.This novel seeks to put a voice on a little known personage who inter-acted with all the famous founding fathers.

Vidal has taken a lot of historical research and novelized it in order to flesh out an individual who left little or no paper trail of his life.Much that we know about Burr seems to come mostly from others.He was vilified by Hamilton who became his arch-enemy.Vidal uses Burr as a means to provide a scathing and perhaps more realistic view of our founding fathers.

This book came out shortly before the Bicenntenial in 1976 and few dared at that time to have any but praise and admiration for our nations origins.Gore Vidal wanted to be controversial in his view of the early republic.In this book, Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson all come down a peg or two.The novel shows us that all these famous men were guys on the make with the insider knowledge to make themselves the ruling elite of the nation.Burr was merely one of the more controversial of the crowd.He certainly lead a fascinating life and could have been a man of great influence for his time.

The novel proceeds at a slow pace at times moving back and forth between the present and the past.The chapters which deal with Burr's supposed memoirs are by far the most interesting and entertaining parts of the book.The rest of the story tends to drag a bit, and while Burr's views are certainly interesting, much of the perspective comes from the hand of the author.Vidal has a generally bad opinion of the government of the USA, and one can see here that he believes its origins were in Burr's time.

His portrait of Washy as a stiff, arrogant elitest of little imagination will no dount rile up many of his hero worshipers.I suspect that this portrait, while exaggerated, is not that far off the mark! The same can be said for the novel as a whole:Exaggerated, but not completely so.While I am not a Gore Vidal fan, this was the first work of his I have ever read, I would say for those interested in the early republic period that it is quite worthwhile.

Fans of Vidal no doubt have long read this book as his following is a devoted one.I don't know if I will ever read another of his books, but I did find this one worthwhile.An interesting view of a man and his times.

A fascinating biography that made me laugh out loud
First, I have to admit that I have not studied America's "Founding Fathers" so it is possible that some of what Vidal included in his book is controversial among historians.However, the book was a great read that helped me understand a bit of what was going on in our country during that time.Years ago I read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" about how American History is distorted when it is taught in our public schools.Since then I've been keeping an eye out for scholarly accurate but accessible books about the early republic. I'd definitely recommend this one. I'd give it 5 starts if it included a preface that stated what aspects were "controversial" among scholars.Whether you like Vidal or not, he is a great writer.

Vidal the Iconoclast, more appropriate today than ever.
"Burr" is my very belated introduction to the works of Gore Vidal.I'm glad I waited so long to read anything of his.Not only are other authors are just now catching up with him, but also it is part of today's political and literary climate in America to topple and stomp on our triumphal presidential statuary."Burr" is at its best when burning historical idols, and burn it does -- this sure ain't Disney's Davy Crockett!Vidal may demur in the Afterword of this book that his opinions on Washington and Jefferson are not as severe as those of his title character, but they are hilarious nonetheless and may motivate the reader to consult other biographical material to peer behind these icons' magisterial facades.The book is uneven, however, with its disconcerting leaps back and forth between the two narrators and across decades.I wished for more of Burr's voice and less of his acolyte's.And that implausibly soapy surprise ending, wrapping up the two main characters in a big exclamation point, left me cold. ... Read more

Book Description

Gore Vidal—novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist—is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-three of his forays into criticism, reviewing, political commentary and controversy, memoir, portraiture, and occasionally unfettered score settling. Among them are such classics as "The Top Ten Best Sellers," “Dawn Powell: American Writer” “Theodore Roosevelt: American Sissy," "Pornography," and "The Second American Revolution.” Edited and introduced by Gore Vidal's literary executor, Jay Parini, it will stand as one of the most enjoyable and durable works from the hand and mind of this vastly accomplished and entertaining immortal of American literature.

Amazon.com
The more things change, the more they stay the same: "The last few days would have brought down any parliamentary government. As it is, the Grant Administration is a shambles, and there is even talk that the President may resign."

Charles Schuyler, the narrator ofBurr, returns to the United States after an absence of nearly 40 years, with his widowed daughter, Emma, in tow. While they try to find a suitably rich husband for Emma among the New York social set, Charles concentrates on the scandals in Washington--including accusations of corruption and obstruction of justice against Ulysses S. Grant--and the presidential race between Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden (Tilden apparently, in fact, won the election, only to have it taken away because of electoral fraud). Cameo appearances by Chester A. Arthur, Mark Twain, Charles Nordhoff, and others enliven the proceedings. --Ron HoganBook Description
        
The third volume of Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year.
------Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile. The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire.
------"A glorious piece of writing," said Jimmy Breslin in Harper's. "Vidal can take history and make it powerful and astonishing." Time concurred: "Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past."
------With a new Introduction by the author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Not his best
Vidal has written some of the most engaging and impressive works of historical fiction ever put to paper, but this one is not one of them.The characters are flat, and the Europeanized American protagonist makes it difficult to finish the book.Indeed, Vidal's leftist commentary on American history gets tiresome here.For better Vidal, try "Julian".

Great continuation of the series
Gore Vidal's historical fiction is some of the finest prose of the 20th century. It defies understanding how he can turn events that can be explored in five minutes on Wikipedia into a narrative that sustains one's interest for hours, delving deep into the closets of American history. 1876 does not disappoint in this regard. While his achievement here does not rival Lincoln (perhaps the great American novel of the 20th century), it is nonetheless engrossing, furthering Vidal's narrative of the American experiment out of democracy into something altogether different.

How The GOP Stole The Election of 2000...I Mean 1876
1876 is yet another installment in author Gore Vidal's blatantly left-slanting, non-reverent, warts and all re-telling of the parts of United States history we're never taught about in school, and far too few of us know. Bringing back the old New Yorker Charles Schlemmerhorn Schuyler, a central character from his earlier novel Burr, Vidal takes us on a journey to an America still teeming with internal turmoil as a result of the Civil War. Reconstruction is winding down but still suffocates the proud southern states, who at last, after nearly a generation, stand to play a significant role in the outcome of a national election. The corruption of the Grant administration is about to end, the depression that has hit the country in the wake of bank failures is somewhat alleviated, and the overall mood is hopeful. And then comes the photo finish 1876 Presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, and New York's Democratic governor, the southern-supported Samuel Tilden. What transpired in the wake of the vote-casting is not dissimilar to that which occurred in our own era six years back, and after much back room wrangling and governmental interference, Tilden, winner at the very least of the popular vote,was declared loser, and the morally-decent but politically-controlled Mr. Hayes was given the Presidency. Forgotten today, this close election nearly set off what could almost be called a second American Civil War, as rioters throughout the south and in the big cities took to the streets and Americans by the hundred-thousand became cynically disenchanted with the political process. Vidal, it must be admitted, writes his novels---by definition works of fiction--with a definite message behind them.He has been accused of a certain nihilism or at the very least a disrespect for American institutions of government, and in 1876 as nowhere else, that is made very clear. This is a good overview of a troubling, much-concealed moment in American history, and its authenticity as far as recreating the national mood and the goings-on at the time, and in showing how there truly were and are powers behind the scenes in our government mark it as a worthy book for an intelligent readership.

Vidal's "Tale of Two Cities"
The year is 1876, and social ills plague both New York and Washington, DC. Charles Schuyler returns to the U.S. with his daughter Emma with the duel intentions of marrying her off to an eligible bachelor and finding himself means to regenerate his meager funds.He finds the democratic utopia corrupted by a greedy and detached aristocracy. The corrupt Ulysses Grant presidency marks the transition of America from its puritan roots to an ostentatious imperial empire.Charles finds the gentry of New York City to be fatuous and fastidious, oblivious to current events and thriving off ill-begotten fortunes. In Washington, unheard of Ohio Governor Rutherford Hayes steals the presidential election despite losing the popular vote.

Vidal presents the basic formula that war begets large sums of money changing hands, which in turn incites greed, hence corruption. In the New York City of the post civil war era, a stratification of the classes has begun. The men with the officer titles (Commodore, Colonel, Major, General) divide the spoils of wars, hoarding fortunes, while the common grunts are beggars on the streets, doomed to petty theft for survival.

In Washington DC, Vidal paints a picture of America where democracy has not been a success. The presidential election of 1876 puts America at the verge of another civil war. States are sending conflicting poll returns to the Congress and the Electoral College. Votes are for sale. The Republican Party and troops under the republican President U.S. Grant have openly been trying to reverse the popular vote won by Democrat Tilden. Tilden, portrayed by Vidal as honest with the ill-conceived notion of winning an election by scholarly arbitration and argument of political ideals, is given the dilemma. He ran for president on the platform of reform, but to win the election, he must outspend the incumbent Republican Party.

Vidal's strength is his immense vivid characterizations and poignant observations. Only with fictional characters can he provide a first hand perspective of so many historical events and persons. Although the setting of the book is 1876, and the main narrator is Charles Schuyler, Vidal is clearly providing his critique of modern America. Vidal is obviously opinionated and is not writing as an objective historian. The federal government is portrayed the most corrupt in the western world while the press is preoccupied with idiotic irrelevancies such as the wardrobes of the aristocratic rich. Vidal is at his best when describing the ceremonies of court and the accouchements of power battles. Whether writing about roman emperors or centennial presidents, his views of the current social and political milieu are clearly reflected.

1876 (by Gore Vidal)
Gore Vidal, as he does throughout the American Empire series, makes history come alive in a way that no pure history text could.His insights on peoples' motives and character truly are breathtaking and his fictional works, such as 1876, have the quality of a suspense novel despite the fact that the reader already knows ultimately how historical events will unfold.Vidal brings back the narrator of "Burr," Charles Schlemmerhorn Schuyler, now in his 60s, in ill health and attempting to restore the family fortune for the sake of his daughter after having lost it in the panic of 1873.Having been gone from America for 40 years, he looks at the America of 1876 as a sort of European Rip Van Winkle, comparing the America of 1876 to the one he knew in the 1830s. It is Vidal's ability to illuminate the details of history through the interaction between historical and non-historical characters and the degree of exquisite detail that his narrative provides that makes him almost unique among writers of this genre.Through his examination of the U.S. in its centennial year, Vidal gives us insight into our prior history as well as our post-centennial history, as one is able to trace the veins of Jeffersonianism and Hamiltonianism as they course through American and world history.Those who appreciate the work of Vidal in this genre may also be interested in the novels of Herman Wouk (Winds of War, War & Rememberance) and of Ralph Peters, a/k/a Owen Parry (the Able Jones detective series set in the American Civil War).Vidal's books take you into the embrace of history and its quasi-fictional backstory in a manner that makes 1876 impossible to put down and that makes you feel a tinge of regret when the book ends, because you wish that it could have gone on forever. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Powerful story with an unexpected ending
The story has some very powerful moments, but the best above all is the surprising ending and the fact that the main character's love from his youth is turned in such a big hope for him that we can't help feeling pity for him. Very recommendable for those into unusual love stories. An interesting portrait of the early Hollywood society as well. ... Read more

Book Description
Gore Vidal, one of the master stylists of American literature and one of the most acute observers of American life and history, turns his immense literary and historiographic talent to a portrait of the formidable trio of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.In Fathers of the Republic, Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and others. We come to know these men, through Vidal's splendid and percipient prose, in ways we have not up to now-their opinions of each other, their worries about money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live.More than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (38)

One man's view on the Founding Fathers.
This is the first book I have read by Gore Vidal.This is probably not his best work, but you can see his political leaning in his writing. In his view, our present system is a tyranny, especially with the 2000 election in mind.In this book, he takes a negative view of our Founding Fathers.Perhaps other authors have made these men mythical, but Vidal returns them to the human species.They were men who made mistakes.None of them were perfect.However, I think Vidal is overly negative in his viewpoint of these men.They founded a new nation with great principles.

The author jumps around quite a bit in this history.He also has some new history with the revelation of Hamilton as a British spy.I think the author came to that out of his own conclusions.This was a uneven read, and some of the language was difficult to understand.Maybe someday I will appreciate his writings if I adapt his poltical philosophy.

History At Its Purest
Arch-iconoclast Gore Vidal, who made his name as a novelist, tackles non-fiction here, and does a fine job of it. This short and straight-to-the-point book hits US history head-on, and peels back the dust and whitewash to show America's authentic "greatest generation" (those who fought the Revolution and then created the nation in the 1780's) as it surely was. Walking a fine line between respectful praise and candid revelation, Vidal introduces Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and others as no history professor probably ever has. This book is not a slam biography of anyone, nor is it one of those tedious lambasting of our national institutions that too often masquerade as "warts and all" history. No, Vidal shines here in this story of the events behind the time-worn legends in early US history.

I personally found much to like in this book and discovered a last gem hidden in its closing pages, as Vidal describes a moment of relaxed conversation with his friend and distant relation by marriage, President John F. Kennedy. On that day shortly before the President's brutal murder, Kennedy turned to Vidal and asked how it was thatso many great men all lived at once in the generation that formed our nation. Vidal's one-word answer was unique and while as he freely confesses, not comprehensive, it was good, and it's left me pondering it on more than one occasion since I read it. I won't say here what that answer was, but you'll find it in the last chapter of Inventing A Nation.

And it's worth seeking out.

Vidal's Founding Fathers
"How do you explain how a sort of backwoods country [Virginia] like this, with only 3 million people, could have produced the 3 great geniuses of the 18th century - Franklin, Jefferson, and Hamilton?" - this was the question John Kennedy asked Gore Vidal forty years before Vidal wrote "Inventing a Nation."Vidal says "this volume is hardly my definitive answer" to "dear Jack."Vidal produces this sentimental provocation at the end of his "Inventing a Nation" rather than the beginning.
Vidal "should" have given this anecdote in an introduction to his book if "should" means we want Vidal to approach the Founding Era as traditional historians do.In fact, Richard Eder is right in his New York Times book review (11/27/03) when he writes, "As history, 'Inventing a Nation' is likely to annoy the historian; it is not a novel, and the polemics come as half-choked asides, almost as if Mr. Vidal had been trying to hold back on them. Frequently, fortunately, he fails. He rambles with one founder, then with another, and then it's back to the first."
I might add that (except ending reflections on Kennedy) Vidal has no thesis to work.He attempts no argument that overarches his narrative.A good contrast with Vidal's open-endedness is Gordon Wood's Pulitzer Prize winner "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," where Wood carefully marshals evidence towards a grand historical interpretation.
Vidal not only offers no argument, he offers no real narrative, and he offers no citations to his quotations and sources.
What is Vidal doing? The LA Times book review said he is writing as "Pure Vidal." That is, he is an essayist and he is using the Vidal-approach to addressing the Founding Era.
I will go one step further in my argument, and I will end my review with my thesis like Vidal does his. First, it is right to say that this is "Pure Vidal" because there is much historical knowledge and contemporary interconnectedness in this book. Take for example these witty, controversial, colorful, and contemporary reflections:

Vidal can turn-a-phrase: "...Captain Shays, having sold Lafayette's sword to feed his family, took up the terrible swift sword of revolution" (6).

"The Electoral College, however, remains to this day solidly in place to ensure that majoritarian governance can never interfere with those rights of property that the founders believed not only inalienable but possibly divine" (67).

After Adams genuflects to his Senate a bit too much for Vidal's taste, the latter bites back saying: "The American megalomaniacal style of self-praise was now in place" (69).

"...neither empathy nor compassion is an American trait. Witness, the centuries of black slavery taken for granted by much of the country" (77).

Vidal comes ever so close to comparing traitors, double-agents, and spies with LOBBYISTS!These latter men, "profit from unpatriotic activities undertaken for domestic and foreign masters" (95).

How intriguing is this contrast: Jefferson as a "child of the Enlightenment," and Adams as "of Manichean disposition" (102-03). But, this is almost the exact opposite claim made by Joseph Ellis in his Pulitzer Prize winning Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.Ellis writes that Jefferson is more likely the Manichean, "Jefferson's mind consistently saw the world in terms of clashing dichotomies" (231). If I had to pick a side, Vidal of Ellis, concerning the Founding Fathers, I'd side with Ellis.

Vidal's comments on the presidential electoral proceedings of 2000 build slowly into an attack after a discussion of the history of democracy (134-137). This provocation is worth reading.

Vidal attacks the beginnings of corporate-America by noting Marshall's "most ingenious chimera" (Dartmouth College v. Woodward) (184-85).

Instead of the title "Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson" Vidal could have used "....: Washington, Jefferson, and Marshall."His point is made clear in light of Vidal's own admittance, "Jefferson versus Marshall was to be the great drama that, to this day, divides us" (180).I must however remember that for Vidal this is "my hardly definitive answer."

Vidal quotes John Kennedy as saying that he is "struck" by the fact that so many people he meets are "second-rate" compared to what "you read in those debates over the Constitution...nothing like that now" (188). But Vidal's book skips the Founding period and goes straight to the Founders working within their own system, and these politics are just as messy, duplicitous, and mischievous as our contemporary world.I think Vidal is trying to refine the American perspective on a distinction between the Paine's "Common Sense," Madison's notes on the debate on the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers - sell of the Constitution, with the almost disturbing way our Founders managed the Nation after it was set up.Notice Vidal's almost innocuous statement, "Inevitably, in those affairs where human vanity is most on view and at most taut, there is comedy" (134).Vidal sees those vanities surface as most taut after the almost philosophical debate of First Principles (e.g. the Constitution).Vidal is saying we all have in common our human feature of vanity and this becomes enacted once we come back down to earth and struggle with real politick.
But not everything the Founders did after the Founding was comical and common politics.One of the last remarks Vidal makes about the Founders that distinguishes them from us: "Time, they had more of it...They read. Wrote letters. Apparently, thought, something no longer done - in public life" (187).Vidal is a prolific writer.He may want us to remember him as continuing in the Founder's spirit.

He's Probably Right, But Man is He Arrogant About It
Listen, I like Gore Vidal's work, I do.And he is probably right about a lot of things (though I seriously doubt his frequent inuendo that Hamilton might have been Washington's illegitimate son.) However, I cant help feeling like his attitude came through so much that it was distracting me from what he was saying.I listened to this book, unabridged, on audio book. Perhaps it was that Gore was reading it himself, and I got a real sense of how he "felt" about things rather than the history he was trying to convey?I don't know.But to Vidal, everyone was and is of sinister or selfish intent...except his friends, the Kennedy's (and Ben Franklin.)That's just the feeling I got.

The audio book is worth the price of admission if for no other reason than to hear Vidals recount of a conversation with JFK at the end of the recording.Seriously, that part I'll give five stars.

the passionate iconoclast

More like 4.5 stars.

Gore Vidal has had a long and distinguished career as an erudite iconoclast, and this short book represents one of the more recent contributions in his incredibly productive and prolific literary life._Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson_ appeared two years after 9/11, in the same year that the United States invaded Iraq.Vidal's meditation on the origins of the nation, and how early political controversies impacted the practical applications of constitutional provisions and ideals, is clearly influenced by the political context in which he wrote this book.George W. Bush's relentless expansion of executive powers -- and the other two branches' (and the American people's) acquiescence to that development -- are never far from Vidal's mind and pen.

Vidal demonstrates how political considerations from the beginning affected how the nation's Founding Fathers viewed the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.Men like Washington and Hamilton viewed the new nation as validating the Constitution's emphasis on a strong, central government, the better to protect property rights and stimulate commerce.Throw in a strong military (for the time) when needed to squash unruly, riotous debtors on the frontier, ala Shays Rebellion and Whiskey Rebellion.Meantime, Madison and - especially - Jefferson could never reconcile their strongly stated beliefs in human equality and individual freedoms with minor inconsistencies like, oh, slavery.The one Founding Father who comes off relatively unscathed is the one who dies relatively early in the time-frame:Franklin.He warned that the Constitution, and the ideas behind the Declaration, would only be as effective as the political intelligence and moral discipline of the people who enjoyed their capacious dispensations.Only they, Franklin (and Vidal) argue, could keep alive a properly democratic public ethos.

None of this is necessarily original, but Vidal contributes his wonderful style, his deep learning, and his passion for political justice to this work.He remains one of the best practitioners of political and cultural commentary in our country.Vidal never reconciles his implied beliefs in political democracy with his deep skepticism toward cultural egalatarianism -- in matters of culture he is an unreconstructed and profound snob -- but this comes out as only a minor irritant given the greater overall strengths of this work.

Vidal makes clear that even though the Founding Fathers occassionally played fast and loose with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution and the Declaration, they still displayed, by and large, an overall excellence of thought and intellgence.Not so today's leaders.They are reinventing a nation that Vidal abjures and, he argues, the Founding Fathers would too (except maybe Hamilton) were they alive today.

Thank you, Gore Vidal, for a thoughtful and passionate exegesis on where we stand today, and how far we've traveled (downhill, steeply) since the Founding Fathers invented an American republic in the late 1700s. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Veteran biographer Fred Kaplan, praised for his evocative portraits of 19th-century masters like Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle, turns with aplomb to a contemporary writer in this lengthy yet cogent work. Indeed, the multifaceted Gore Vidal, born in 1925 but positively Victorian in the breadth of his interests and achievements, is fortunate to have a biographer as wide-ranging as Kaplan. He traces the familial roots of Vidal's lifelong political engagement (his maternal grandfather was a U.S. senator) and lucidly assesses his nonfiction as well as his bestselling novels such as Washington, D.C. and Burr, reminding readers that Vidal has for decades been an astute, sardonic observer of the American scene. Vidal's personal relations are depicted frankly but briskly, as befits a staunch defender of homosexual rights who is open about his own orientation but refuses to be pigeonholed as a gay writer. The famous feuds with William Buckley, Norman Mailer, and Truman Capote get enjoyably full treatment, properly situated in the context of larger issues. If the inner workings of Vidal's psyche remain ultimately elusive despite Kaplan's access as authorized biographer to thousands of unpublished letters, that too seems right for someone of whom a friend once remarked, "I've always thought that Gore is a man without an unconscious." --Wendy Smith Book Description
Novelist, cultural critic, essayist, historian, comic satirist, image maker, provocateur, actor, homosexual, bisexual...controversial, brilliant, confrontational, unflinching, cynical, idealistic...finding words to describe Gore Vidal is never difficult. And yet, an accurate picture of this multifaceted chameleon has eluded us until now. Here, at last, is a vastly entertaining biography of an American icon.

From his Washington childhood, a world of high political and social connections and domestic turmoil, to his Exeter education and U.S. Army experiences; from his Hollywood and television career to his literary life as a novelist, playwright, and essayist; from his friendships and feuds with Tennessee Williams, Anaïs Nin, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and William Buckley to his exploration of homosexuality and celebration of bisexuality; from his cool satirical analyses of "the rich, the famous and the powerful" to his projection of himself onto the national stage of television talk shows and political ambition, Gore Vidal has been both participant in and spectator at the centers of American power. No other twentieth-century figure has moved so easily and confidently, and had such a profound effect, in the disparate worlds of literature, drama, film, politics, historical debate, and the culture wars.

Fred Kaplan enjoyed complete access to Vidal's papers, letters, and private photographs, as well as television and newsreel footage, but was guaranteed a free hand by Vidal to write as he saw fit. The result is a lively, witty, and textured life of a literary colossus. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Buried under too much admiration and useless information
Like an adoring adolescent fan who's been given too much access to (certain aspects of) his idol, Kaplan doesn't seem to know what to do with that other than look star-struck. Kaplan gushing biography buries Gore Vidal under too much admiration and too many useless (and occasionally, repetitive) facts. We learn little or nothing of Vidal as a person or as a writer. Kaplan writes well so even if bored and ultimately without a better understanding of the author in any meaningful way I was able to finish reading the 800 page book.

This is not an authorized biography!
I have heard Vidal speaking about this book, and it is not authorized- the author refused to show it to him before publication, and he considered trying to block its publication.Since it came out, he has refused to read it, but has made numerous comments about the author's shoddy research, citing several examples of inaccuracies.The author also continually lied to the press about Vidal, saying that Vidal had asked him to write this biography, which he did not do, etc.

Juicy, yet slow, which is what i want and don't want
Sure, i might like the book cause GV and I share the same personality.

Putting that aside, i'm only on page 369....and I plan to continue to the last 799th page.It is salacious.Very detailed.I love the quick drop-ins of names I felt were more MASS-FAMOUS than GV.Before reading this, I was totally ignorant of who GV was.I'd just see a quote, like, "When attending an orgy, make sure you're look good" by GV.And no one ever told me WHO HE WAS outside of just being an "author."

Expect cover-to-cover pages of incidents with fame for GV.I'm still reeling over the quick blip of the KEROUAC/GV "intense sex" scene.

good for all newbies of GV.And if you already knew OF him, this will give you DETAILS for you to incise and pick at mysterious contradictions.

Excessively Long
A book of near 900 pages, and especially a biography can be particularly daunting. Questions come to mind like: what happens if I die and never reach the end!

Kaplan has a great appreciation for Vidal, evidence from the quality of research in this book, and his editing of the best of vidal book.

However, the great flaw with the book, is that kaplan at times is to close to his subject. Its inter-subjectivity leaves the reading thinking at times - what would a critic say at this point. The analysis often lacks critical value.

Overall, a complete a thorough study.

Thorough if nothing else.
Kaplan is far to thorough in his autobiography of a man who isn't yet dead.The book goes on and on, and while factual, tries to be too clever, as if Kaplan were trying to imitate Vidal's wit in his own presentation of Vidal.This will probably only appeal to the most feverish followers of Vidal (like me).Everyone else would be better served by Vidal's semi-autobiographical novel, Palimpsest.Alternatively, wait until the poor guy passes when writers will get the chance to give Vidal the same treatment he gave Lincoln and Burr. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

WHERE IS THY STING?
This book was written in the early 1950's, and like any satire it takes its start-point from the world at its time of writing. Great satire, I am coming increasingly to realise, does not fade with the memory of its immediate context because it depicts things that are deep and nasty and recurrent. The tripartite first chapter of Vidal's Messiah sets his real tone with a solemnity that can be mentioned in the same breath as the greatest of all recitatives with which Handel launched a masterpiece by the same name. Read it, if I may suggest, slowly, and take in carefully what it is saying, and after you have finished the book read that first chapter again. Its tone is entirely different from the rest of the book, or at least there are only a few momentary suggestions of that tone later. However the tone is one thing, the manner in which the basic message is suitably presented. The message itself is the thing; and the message is what we, humanity, are doing when we indulge ourselves in `faith'.

If ever a book was a parable for our times in 2008, this book is that. Egotist though he was, I can't imagine that Vidal would have expected to get just this close to what has happened. He was there in the post-war world, the true New American Half-Century itself, the era of the Cold War, before any such expression as New American was thought of, envisaging a world predicted in The Goncourt Journals of 1861 `when all modern nations will adore a sort of American god'. With the end of the cold war it has suddenly stopped looking like this. The sort of American god who invented the cold war and the catechism of questions about who were the goodies and who the baddies, who were trying to Take Over the World and who were correspondingly Defending Freedom, was J Foster Dulles. Relieved of the burden of answering the questions correctly, the rest of the world has gone its own way as it had always wished to do. The One Remaining Superpower is finding itself isolated through assuming without first asking that it will be followed in foreign policy, and economically stretched in consequence. At the same time an unregarded religion that never went through a Reformation has emerged from the shadows in a threatening and unexpected form, part protest against colonialist misprision, but startlingly in this day and age asserting, in some quarters at least, a mission of its own to bring death or conformity of belief to the whole world.

Vidal does not just ask how humanity gets itself into positions like this, he boldly answers the question in his first chapter, and in my opinion he speaks true. Faith fills a vacuum. It outsources our thinking. It speaks to what Housman called `the habit of treading in ruts and trooping in companies that men share with sheep'. What seems to me to have happened, now in 2008, is a neat and astonishingly precise inversion of what Vidal foresaw. V envisaged a secular faith overturning centuries of Christianity: in the event secularism has been caught off-guard by mediaeval certainty, scripture and mantras, while trying to beat back a degenerate Christian version of much the same that persists in its own back yard like bindweed.

The much-despised Oxford linguistic philosophers really have the key to the matter. What is the relationship of faith or belief to `truth'? None, or only accidental. However, capture the vocabulary and you are in the driving seat. Mr K Rove was not the first (by a long way) to know that. Give the scattered sheep something to rally round and, in the right circumstances, they will rally round it. Add an evaluative dimension, a suggestion of right v wrong, then some ad-hoc spicing of treason to the allegations, then an additional appeal to arms for self-defence, and you have a formula for unending wars over nothing whatsoever. The great standard to capture is `Truth', which is a hymn to be sung and only fortuitously connected with anything that might, by rational criteria, be evaluated as `true'. Capture that and your enemies are the votaries of falsehood and lies, so they had better mind out, and thus do we have much of human history.

At the story-level, the focus of the new faith is reminiscent of Waugh's Mr Joyboy, an assistant mortician with the initials J C. The contemplation of cadavera had instilled in him an outreaching sense that the cadavera have it right and that life is a bit of a burden. From this point his teachings advance to near-total domination of the USA, and by the end we don't know how the battle between the death-dedicated USA and the then-presumably-life-centred ROW has it worked out. The book is really a joy to read if you get a few of the references and have some background in Catholicism. The history of the Church and its attitude to `truth', the magnificent architecture painting and music - try rejecting that if you come from where I come from and react to music the way I do - intellectually, it's all bolony. In the 50's `Messiah' was apparently attacked for `blasphemy', that being a kind of lingo that some talked in those pre-elightened times. Whatever (if anything) `blasphemy' means this use of it is not my own idea of offence to the Deity. My idea of staying hopefully on the right side of any putative Creator of an animal race politely described as `intelligent' is not to pretend to speak in His name. Attempts to enrol Him to various American causes I shall avoid for fear of thunderbolts that such insolence is inviting.

Compulsory reading on pain of loss of intellectual status.

Murr on
It is perhaps in this novel more than any of his others that Vidal's voice aligns itself most closely to his protagonist's. Certainly there are the usual Vidalian flashes of mordant wit and the occasional outrage. One of the characters responds thus to the increased number of suicides globally as the new religion takes hold: "There are too many people as it is, and most of them aren't worth the room they take up."

[...].

Who is YOUR messiah?
This book is utterly brilliant. I picked this book up at a book store in Paris and read the entire thing in one sitting (standing, walking... etc.). Basically, I couldn't put it down. It gives the reader a detailed account of a new religion being created and converting the world by storm.

The interesting part is how realistic it all seems, and the ties to the way Christianity crushed its opponents and absorbed many of their holidays and even some of their traditions in order to make itself stronger.

This book will leave you wanting more and truly questioning religion. It addresses things we don't often think about. And shows a messiah with speech writers, much like a politician. John Cave (initials J.C.) is a modern-day you-know-who that preaches a doctrine of death that people are only too eager to swallow.

I don't want to say more and give anything away, but if you're at all interested in what I've said so far, check this book out!

Funny & Scary Future Religious Cult On the Rise!
Written in 1955 as a reminiscence of an original leader of the Cavean"Relgion" writes his memoirs in a future 50 years away (i.e. 2005), this scary and bizarre allegory on the beginnings of religions is vintage Vidal in all his devious, unflappable glory.A totally vacuous and creepy "founder" looks good on TV, and enlists a group to peddle his wares, and within a few years, thanks to some good marketing, financing, and TV coverage, becomes a new world wide religion, with the main theme of accepting death as glorious, and perhaps even better than life. There are parallels with many major religions, and some new ones, mainly scientology. Now in 2005, belief in the supernatural seems here to stay, and maybe even stronger than in 1955. So once again, the incomparable Mr. Vidal hits another bulls-eye:strange, realistic, funny, ironic, and horrible.

Astonishing prescience, if slightly unintentional
Vidal captured the glittering horror that was 1950's American gray-flannel culture perfectly with this semi-satire.When he made his title character a Messiah of death, he was imagining the most far-out, repulsive thing he could think of to pin on Madison Avenue and the TV advertising industry.

Little did he know Jack Kevorkian (who once tried to option the screen rights to "Messiah") and worse lay ahead...


... Read more

Amazon.com
From a delightfully caustic 1965 review of Henry Miller's Sexus ("Arcane words are put to use, often accurately") to a brief response to the homophobic torture and murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998, Sexually Speaking brings together some of Gore Vidal's best essays on sex and sexuality. Although some of the essays are explicitly political, such as the 1979 Playboy article "Sex Is Politics," many seem to be included simply because they mention the sex lives of people Vidal has known. (One doesn't really need an excuse to republish his delicious reminiscences of Eleanor Roosevelt, Christopher Isherwood, or Tennessee Williams; the Roosevelt piece in particular feels somewhat wedged into the present volume.)

There are also three interviews: two from the mid-'70s, although written for semi-underground gay magazines, touch upon a variety of political and literary issues; a 1992 conversation finds Larry Kramer practically badgering Vidal to admit that he's a homosexual. As he has throughout his career, Vidal refuses to be categorized on the basis of sexual acts: "I've never applied [these labels] to myself nor have I applied them to anybody else, even when they have invited me to." Sexually Speaking is as entertaining as it is provocative, an interesting supplement to the more comprehensive The Essential Gore Vidal. --Ron Hogan Book Description
Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking presents the author's often provocative and always engaging thoughts on sexuality. Here, fourteen essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot-button topics such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay bashing and the U.S. Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac. “Vidal's erudition, candor, and exceptional sense of humor shine.” — San Francisco Chronicle ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Gotta Balance these Stars.....NOTHING deserves 5 ...-kisses
Great for people who haven't read the essays before.Vidal rules the psycho-sociological TAKE on historical relevance in today's "situations".....or "acts," if you prefer.He knows where to provide the JUICE in each issue and has a backlog of great lit & history that helps swirl the goodies with great authority.Who knows what he's up to.ARe the days of cruisin for boys over, or does he resort to the South American tradition of "little boys'" parties.I seriously doubt it, but it would be funny.The book CRADLE OF EROTICA by Kinsey & Masters (Kinsey's ghost name is Allan Edwardes) is a great side book to have along the ride.Unfortunately he "peppers"(a word he humiliates in the essays) the good stuff with opinions on population control.Hell, the supply of young nubile boys enjoyed by the literary elite would certainly go down if his ideas were to be applied!!!

Anyways, Vidal could write more of this good stuff, but his grumblin' needs to get the TRUTH out prevents it.That's fine, but that just requires his reading public to savor every word, if ya ask a true fan.

Funny and thoughtful
Gore Vidal is one of my favourite USA writers, because we share some ideas, which is logical and it explains why he lives in Europe, USA is very rightish this years...But it is a country where critics to the system could be thought and published (think of Chomsky, for instance), and that's good, although I'm not sure if Gore Vidal has got many readers in his own country. Anyway, he talks about sexuallity in USA, specially homosexuality, with a high sense of humour -very entertaining, indeed. And listen, the idea that there're not "gays" and "straights" is not his, you can also read it in Marvin Harris books: our Western society is the only one that qualifies somebody because of his/her sexual tendencies.

Another AK Best Seller
14 essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot button issues such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay-bashing in the US Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac.

Bisexuality, Global Overpopulation, Childless by Choice...
... Environmental Consciousness, Political Awareness and generally not succumbing to the mindless morass of pedestrian thought and values -- which are neither thought-through nor truly valuable.Gore Vidal's compiled essays on sexuality -- both in terms of the act as well as gender and sexual orientation -- is an invaluable comfort to anyone whose rejection of "The American Dream" has been met with resistance and criticism.

Read Vidal, and then remember that being who you are is more important than succumbing to who other people try to convince you to be.

one of the greatest
This is one of the most insightful books I have ever read. Once I got started reading I couldn't stop. Gore Vidal has proven himself to be one of the greatest essayist/satirist in the business, if not of all time. The way he writes and the subjects he writes about all prove to be relevant today. My favoite articles were the Larry Kramer interview and the Sex is Politics. These show Vidal at his smartest and funniest. This is a must read for any Gore Vidal fan or just about anyone interested in reading at all. ... Read more

Book Description
Who is Kalki, and why is he planning to destroy the world -- and everything in it? And if Kalki is a mystical legend, then why does his ultimate world include only a select few chosen to breed a new human race? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Great, but he's written better...
This book kept me interested and offers another great depiction of a Messianic figure taking the world by storm. It's a bit less realistic than Messiah, and I would recommend reading Messiah over Kalki. But if you've already read Messiah and want more, check this one out.

The story, overall, moves pretty fast and keeps you guessing. Down to the last page you won't know what's going to happen next.

Master of understatement, Vidal's novel is deeply disturbing
I cannot tell you what is deeply disturbing about this novel in regards to the actual plot without giving much of it away--which would be a crime and a half for a novel of this punch.Suffice it to say that despite the fact that Vidal puts enough aspects of 70s culture into it to make it fresh and new for when it was written, it carries even more power--and becomes even more disturbing--when read in our new millenium; almost as much as it would have had I read it in 1999.

There is a woman named Teddy Ottinger: feminist, an aviatrix extraordinaire, divorced mother of two; longing to step into the shoes of her immortal hero Amelia Earhart, even at the expense of the emotional lives of her children, for whom she has little true maternal feelings and little more than a contempt for her ex-husband that had to have been there latently when she married him.Cold, but searching for love and warmth in the arms of both lesbian women and men--and something of meaning in her life via French philosophy--she is summoned to the world of Kalki, the tenth avatar of the god Vishnu, harbringer of the end of the world.But he may also be someone else; a someone else that could make this entire fantasy world she is seemingly caught up in a dangerous lie.Or, he could simply be Kalki, and the world must prepare for the End...

Vidal channels Mark Twain in our century like he always does and creates a novel of social criticism with a style and expertise of which few in history have ever equalled.But with this novel he weaves essential Hinduism and the CIA into it in a way that makes one question not just American society, but reality itself.In two hundred plus pages Vidal will have you sitting on the edge of the bed at two o'clock in the morning with this novel, not being able to put it down, yet being afraid to read the final chapters.

And make no mistake, the final chapters will blow your mind.

I highly recommend this one.

Another Bull's Eye for the AMAZING Gore Vidal!
It would be tough to find a writer with such a huge range as the great Gore Vidal in this or any other time! KALKI is surely one his "breezy", less difficult reads, but it scores on every play! The story of a deranged ex-Vietnam vet who metamorphsizes into a huge Hindu cult leader takes direct aim at the super- commercial media society, cults and apocalyptic religions in general, government agencies, ultra feminism, and about any other hyped up cant of the 1970's , or 2000's. It's ultimate message is horrific, especially relevent today. All written in the amusing, satiric, deadpan style of the incredible Mr. Vidal..In short, a bizarre, all too possible, fable for all of us, for all time.

That '70s Book
KALKI is very much a product of its time.And, as that time was the late '70s, one can see that the book is obsessed with many of the same things that other products of that era were fascinated by.The main protagonist is a female, she's an avowed feminist, she's overtly bisexual, she's an airplane test pilot, she constantly thinks about Amelia Earhart, and her autobiography was a rejection of motherly values, ghost-written by a man selected by her publishing company.

The rest of the story is similarly '70s in flavor.An Eastern/Hindu religious sect is claiming that their god Kalki has been reincarnated in the form of an ex-army soldier from the American Midwest.Their scripture claims that when Kalki returns to ride the white horse, the world will end soon afterwards; only the chosen few will survive.Naturally, since this is the '70s, everyone on the planet becomes obsessed with the Kalki story.The newsmagazine show, "60 Minutes" produces an unusually long segment investigating the Kalki phenomenon.Even Walter Cronkite gets into the act, making an amused comment on the impending end of the world.

In between the references to Watergate and the mentions of Ronald Reagan, there's a very effective religious satire going on here.Gore Vidal paints his satirical strokes a little broad at times, but when he focuses, the story soars.Fun is poked at, not only the religious cults that were springing up at the time, but many aspects of pop culture.Some of the jokes still apply today, of course.In fact, were this book to be written now, many of the shots at television news coverage wouldn't need to be changed at all.

Although the book seems most concerned with its satire, it also works extremely well as straight adventure/thriller.A genuinely enjoyable story, I simply could not figure out what direction it was going to go in next.The gothic tone of the ending slips in nicely after the whimsy of the beginning and middle.Vidal manages to get the balance of comedy and drama just right.Some moments are laugh out loud funny, while a page later one will be faced with sudden and utter horror.

Heavy Handed Plot
The plot overwhelmed this story, turning some fine characters into unbelievable stick people, reducing them to comic book figures.One gets involved with the bisexual narrator, Teddy, only to see the rug pulled from beneath her as she is surreptitiously pulled into a conspiracy to destroy mankind (including her two young kids!).Give me a break.It doesn't rescue the story to call it a satire-satire of what? Doomsday prophets?I enjoyed the zany cast with their double personalities until they were forced to cope with the dystopian horror ending. I don't think anyone could remain sympathetic or interested in such a cast of characters. Yes, the Kelly/Kalki character took mental illness to new heights in believing himself to be a trinity of Hindu gods, creators, preservers and destroyers but all he really did was immolate himself to Vidal's rather ridiculous plot.Is Gore asking us here-look ma, no hands-see what a ludicrous story I can tell? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Very Creative!
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting when I picked this one up, but I generally enjoy fictional accounts of Christ's life.There wasn't much on the actual life of Jesus, but more of the ministry following his death.The narrator, Timothy, focuses mainly on the life of St. Paul aka Sol aka The Saint.So, Saint fudges a few facts, embellishes his relationship with Christ, has a taste for young men, is in conflict with Jesus' brother James, and annoys the hell out of St. Peter.It is a satirical look at the early church and St. Paul's ministry (he captivates converts by juggling and tap dancing).But add into the mix some time-traveling NBC executives and a hacker erasing Christianity, and you have one Sci-Fi Gospel.It became a bit confusing at times trying to keep people in their proper time contexts, and