Gore Vidal Books

Three books. Three murders. Three times to skewer the upper crust worlds of the arts, politics and high society. Vidal's talent is everywhere in evidence. Each volume abounds with wit and sophistication. The mysteries are densely and cleverly plotted, full of murder, sex and malicious good humor.

Peter Cutler Sargeant is a New York City publicity man. An observer and exploiter of the rich and powerful. Sargeant, smarter than any cop, plays every angle to expose the pretentious and corrupt. Great, good fun, from a master storyteller, these three shouldn't be missed.

Gore Vidal takes you across more than a thousand years of Venetian history ___from its improbable origins as a safe haven from the marauding hordes of Attila the Hun (5th century AD), through a thousand years of the great Venetian Republic ("The Serene Republic"!)____down to its present day status as a tourist Mecca . Vidal garnishes his observations of the city and its people with characteristic irreverant humor.The pace of the book is pretty informal with short chapters devoted to the origins of Venice, its geography , the great mercantile Venetian empire which lasted over a millenium ,the flowering of arts : Veronese , Tintoretto, Giorgione , Vivaldi & Palladio were all at some point or another associated with the city . Also interspersed are some observations about Venice which most foreigners may not be familiar with e.g: "There is no sight more beautiful than Venice under a snowfall .Venice is like a once-great beauty who deserves to be seen by candlelight , and the soft light of winter works like a photographer's air-brush on the city's many cracks and wrinkles .Venice is particularly beautiful in a winter mist " etc.Also included is a chapter on the high and mighty who chose to spend some time in Venice : Henry James, Byron, Richard Wagner not to mention that Stravinsky is buried there .This is a good light read and Vidal is an entertaining guide along the way.

Gore Vidal is careful to call "Palimpsest" a "memoir", not an "autobiography". These are the first 39 years of his life as he remembers them -in more ways than one. His memories are not in chronological order, but start with his half-sister's wedding in 1957 and bounce around, through his childhood, youth, his family, politics, acquaintances, sex life, and writing career, sometimes doubling back on itself or jumping to the present in Ravello, Italy 1993-1994. "Palimpsest" is a perfect title, as it describes what memoirists do, consciously or unconsciously, literally and figuratively: They overwrite the past. Vidal alerts us to his palimpsests whenever he discards what he previously wrote.

Though the gist of Vidal's political progression leftward from reactionary youth to socialist to vehement anti-interventionist comes across, "Palimpsest" is not about politics. It's about people: the author and those who most shaped his experiences. Among them were: Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Anais Nin, Tennessee Williams, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, and Paul Bowles. The grandson of Senator T.P. Gore, Vidal moved in aristocratic, artistic, and political circles. He was well-connected, to say the least, and he offers interesting tidbits about the people he met and the conclusions he drew. He says next to nothing about his companion of 44 years, Howard Auster.

The "unfinished business" of a youthful love affair with a man who died at Iwo Jima and The Kennedys are overriding themes -though it is difficult to know if Vidal speaks so much of the Kennedys because they are the public's preoccupation or his own. The persistent memory of Jimmie is both surprising and moving, a reminder of how our youth, especially things left undone, haunts us. Some readers will be turned off either by Vidal's social mores or by his heretical politics. I would simply say about his lifestyle that he is not middle class. I don't always agree with his politics, but I have to give him credit for judging his friends even more harshly than his enemies. Gore Vidal is astute about people, if not politics, and he's a superb wordsmith. I thoroughly enjoyed "Palimpsest".

...have you ever had the experience of looking back at what you wrote and practically cringing at your own attempts to dissemble? This book reads that way. You feel held at arms length; the narrator is cool and distant, yet you feel so close to him it's almost uncomfortable.

There's an interesting tension between shielding your soul from people while at the same time longing for them to know every single thing about you -- what do you mean, your "fax machine has become a time machine." What are you talking about?? You don't need to make excuses to talk about your high school sweetheart; we were *hoping* you would.

Anyway, the events of this book were not very exciting to me, but Vidal's explanation of himself is really something. He does things most memoirists can't. It's very good.

The juicy bits are marvelous, like Tennesee Williams happily commenting on JFK's figure and Gore confronting Bobby K. The early years, in particular the stories about Gore's grandfather the blind senator, are deeply touching. But then this memoir flits from one big name to another, one celebrity to the next, without offering much understanding or coherence. It becomes repetitious. It does not measure up to Gore's essays, let alone his wonderful historical novels. But it's a good enough read if you're curious about the cast characters, including literary figures from the mid-20th century as well as various members of the Kennedy clan. There is even a bit about Hilary Clinton visiting Gore's house on a cliff in Italy--one of the duller sections of the book. If you're new to Gore, better go to Burr or Lincoln and then follow the series through 1876, Empire and Hollywood. Or start with Julian, a fictional take on the last great Roman pagan, and a unique reading experience.

Jackie Kennedy's step-brother shares the story of his extraordinary life, from his first love at age 18, through the age of 39.

Yes, he can be considered an acquired taste. Yes, people have been known to love to hate him. Nonetheless, I found this book to be the equivalent of leaning back against a mossy riverbank, slightly inebriated, the sun burning orange against your lids, your empty martini glass beside you, as you hazily feel a peculiar sense of well-being whilst half-heartedly listening to your friends' chatter from the garden chairs in the back of your estate on the Hudson. You know, your gloriously talented, monied, witty, tenderly human, deliciously flawed friends who are the shining lights of the arts, politics, and "society"(old use of the word). In short, the usual yummy, witty, and erudite set of characters and anecdotes comprising G.V.'s rich and eventful life. As an additional, totally unexpected surprise, he also gives us a beautiful and mockery-free account of his first love. May not be for the sensibility of everyone, but I gulped the book down like a caviar blini with sour cream at the old Russian Tearoom. Dear Gore, he is getting up there in years and I don't know how much longer we'll have him with us, enraging and delighting us lesser mortals, but I, for one, fully expect to dress in deep mourning when he finally chooses to move on.

I thought I loved history, but maybe because I didn't graduate from Harvard, I wasn't able to find any excitement in Vidal's history lesson. It felt more like a lecture than anything engaging. If only Dave Berry can collaborate with Vidal, then we may have something.

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.

Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams and Jefferson by Gore Vidal is the first Vidal book that I've read, and I found it extremely short and rather uneven. While Vidal provides some interesting facts (along with some unsubstantiated gossip), this is by no means the definitive history of the founding of our nation.

Vidal opens Inventing a Nation in 1786 when it is obvious that the Articles of Confederation are not working. The states are staggering under debt from the Revolution and there is no real cooperation between the states, or between the states and the federal government. The Constitutional Convention gave us our present Constitution, which proved much more workable than the Articles. Most of our founding fathers thought that the Constitution was flawed, but that it was the best they could do at the time. "As it proved, both Jefferson and Adams publicly endorsed the Constitution, each with fingers crossed; each confident that one day, more soon than late, there would be another convention and what proved faulty could be corrected."

Inventing a Nation includes lots of Washington, Adams and Jefferson along with Hamilton and Franklin as well. But in addition to fact, Vidal gives us lots of gossip, innuendo and unsubstantiated rumors. He calls Hamilton British Agent Number Seven, but he doesn't tell where he gets this little tidbit (there is no bibliography or footnotes). He describes the Continental Congress as being "eerily corrupt." He also mentions that Patrick "Henry reputedly had a problem with laudanum, the drug of the day." I would have liked to see the sources on some of these accusations and assumptions.

I head that Vidal is a good writer, but I wasn't all that impressed with Inventing a Nation. Fans have said that Lincoln and Burr: A Novel are much better. I guess I should go back and check out these classics.

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 that so 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.

"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.

Were I not aware that "the name is not the thing," I would think that the author of this silly, puerile book is the same Gore Vidal who penned brilliant novels like "Julian" or "Creation." This book is sometimes entertaining, so this Gore Vidal does have some potential. Maybe he could look up the *other* Gore Vidal and get some pointers.

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 who played what roll in the grand scheme of things. The end definitely has a twist, history is changed, humanity is saved, and Jesus isn't entirely who we think he is.

If you're expecting something more profound, I suggest you read Norman Mailer's "The Gospel According to the Son." If you want rolling-on-the-floor-clutching-your-stomach hilarity, pick up "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. However, Vidal delivers a very creative spin on the greatest story ever told... And what follows.

Largely pilloried by the mainstream critics, Live from Golgotha remains one of the finest pieces of satirical blasphemy to come along in the past two decades. A wickedly hilarious story of real imagination from an important, perceptive writer.

The book is first and foremost a lampoon of Christianity, more specifically, the early years of the church. St. Timothy is a first hand observer St. Paul's effort to expand the market for Christianity. Other Vidal books have documented his cynicism of Christianity and the religious right, but "Live from Golgotha" clearly sets out to satire Christianity from its source: St. Paul.

St. Timothy (blue-eyed, hyacinth curls, glutton for the older powerful ladies) is the main narrator for the story. St. Paul is the great fund raiser and dogma developer for the Christian church. While fighting off St. Paul's homosexual advances, St. Timothy experiences the charismatic St. Paul and his miraculous stage show from up close. The business interests from the future, namely NBC and its parent company General Electric, plan to utilize their time travel technology to allow them to transport a television crew back to the time of the Crucifixion at Golgotha. With the intent of sweeping the TV ratings, studio executives are transported to 96 AD in the form of holograms. St. Timothy is their main contact; the executives spare no expense to help St. Timothy prepare his Gospel. Apparently, a mysterious hacker has accessed history at its core and is erasing all other historical documentations of Jesus and his early church. So, St. Timothy must negotiate with self-serving holograms from the future. At times, he will have two holograms of the same person in his room, sent back from the future, but from ten years apart, so their holograms will be of varying quality.

Gore Vidal takes a cynical and heretical view of religion and emphasizes Christianity's objectives as self-promotion in pursuit of the all mighty dollar. St. Paul is a charismatic marketer who rolls into a town with his dog-and-pony show. Sometimes, he is taken in and provided large sums of money, other times; he is nearly stoned to death. Vidal makes references to Saint Paul's Holy Rolodex of names used for fundraising and of Jesus' attempt to lower the Prime Rate as the real reason for Jesus' ousting of the money-lenders from the temple.

With the aid of worldly knowledge he gains from a television that is transported back through time, St. Timothy transforms from an innocent apostle's assistant to an aggressive deal maker. If you can pardon the blasphemy, you will laugh and gain a new perspective of the early church. My favorite parts are the Yiddish speaking disciples, St. Timothy's gradual habituation towards "holograms" from the future, and Vidal's greatest invention; the juggling, soft-shoe dancing, seizure-prone St. Paul. Vidal seems to have an interesting response to the mantra "What would Jesus do?" According to Vidal, Jesus would erase all the material that refers to him that is today's lexicon of "Christianity."

It is printed on that kind of paper that has a shelf life of about 2 months before it turns yellow - nasty in all ways the type those porno books women pretend they don't read is printed on, but we'll get to that.
Second let us say that I am still very hopeful and will continue to read more of Mr. Vidal. This was my entry point into his work after reading what he had to say in the 'xxx' book.
I like his style and his point of view, taking in mind the suggestions that he's a pompous ass because if his upbringing. What I suggest is that it wouldn't surprise me if the stupidest person on earth came up with a great idea or had something interesting to say, but not surprisingly no one suspects this of the rich, and 'well bred' - which of course is well founded, but a shame nonetheless.
I ripped this book in half about 100 pages into it - which was fairly easy to do, due to the paper quality. Not because I hate Gore Vidal, but because it occurred to me after reading at least 30 religious satires in the past year; for someone who doesn't think the question of a god is important, I have read FAR too much on the subject!
Which led me to another question; who is the target audience of religious satires? The only people who would even understand all the scripture references would be a devout fan of the bible, and THEY generally don't have the capacity for laughter; at least not in this case. Or would it be the atheist who needs someone else to tell them why religion is silly? Or someone who is sick of religion altogether but for some reason wants to read just a few more books about it?
Slapping the clergy a few times in reference in literature is par for the course, and generally welcomed in my opinion. But for CHRISTSAKE!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What better book to get us ready for the onslaught of lies, distortions, and manufactured history, that is sure to flow as this year's presidential election draws near. In this brief introduction (thats why I only gave it 4 stars, it would have been better if it were a little more detailed) to America's number one sacred cow, the presidency, Gore Vidal ( A distant relative to Al Gore)gives us a much needed dose of reality, as unsavory as that may be. This book is based upon a British television documentary that Vidal created, which was sold to The History Channel. What happened next is a sad commentary on the American Media, and its willingness to censor dissenting views. Instaed of cancelling this documentary, they instead decided to have the "hosts" dispute practically every point in an obvious attempt to discredit it. Of course, the corporations that own the History channel, and have benefited most from the corruption that Vidal's book exposes are the real culprits in this case, exposing a problem that goes much deeper than just media bias. As Vidal says, this book is not only about the Presidency, it is about control; not only of what we as citizens are allowed to see and form our own opions of, but also what we can express. Presidents are not gods, even though they tend to act like they are. The important thing that this book tells us is that all people should be held accountible to the same laws, and this does not just start with Clinton. It has dated back to our earliest leaders, men who proudly owned slaves, declared unjust wars, supported terrorism, and ordered bombings of innocent civilians. We must see these men for who they are, not as the god-like figures on Mt. Rushmore, or the granite and marble of Washington, but as the criminals that many of them were.

The book/pamphlet is unusual. It is quick reading and very amusing and funny. It does not try to be completely historically detailed and is not written in the scholarly style but rather goes through the key American presidents in order and gives a brief description of their character, accomplishments, and the problems they faced/solved/created.

In my opinion, Gore Vidal can be considered an elite insider of the US system. He pretty much writes as one blatantly and I believe he is making a point: here is someone on the inside who knows many of the presidents, politicians, the rich, and the media editors and is presenting history through such a perspective and in such a mode. He is a traditional republican and conservative (in the original sense of these words, hence the lower case use): foreign adventures/interventions, domestic political repression, economic polarization, and increasing corporate control are things he speaks against vehemently. For these reasons, this is a very refreshing book to read.

In addition, the book raises and deals with important questions about the presidency as an institution: what are its limitations and powers? How did this historically lead to its use and abuse for particular ends by various characters? What types of people were the various presidents and how did they change this institution?

Finally, Gore Vidal sees the US in the process of a slow but steady downfall, particularly since the Cold War years (1950s): politically, culturally, and economically (since the 1980s). The costs of being imperial master, with attendant crushing stifling of dissent at home, the huge military spendings and deficits, and foreign interventions and the loss of foreign and US life in the process, etc. are reviewed quite negatively in this book. Whether you believe this or not is something else, and the facts he produces are suggestive only (but then again,
the book is quite short).

In short, I recommend the book. As long as read properly, it provides quite some insight into American history. If you're looking for detailed history, facts and figures, and precise arguments, go elsewhere. If you're looking for a quick overall and consistent viewpoint and history viewed in broad burshstrokes, this book really hits the spot.

This book is comprised of meaningless antecdotes and other useless information. I usually am incredibly impressed by Vidals wit and his ability to expose the "truth," but unfortunately, this time I was very disappointed.

Gore Vidal, a boy genius, once again proves himself to be not only a brilliant historian but also an exquisite story teller. Short and to the point, Vidal's AMERICAN PRESIDENCY, sums up the most sought after office in the land (to be head of the White House T.V. studio.) Sharply sardonic and completely unforgiving, Vidal shines in this easy to read/comprehend novel filling the pages with knowledge many refuse to believe. The work should be a must read for any sort of American history student.

I have been a fan of Gore Vidal's for a very long time, so very few of his views on American presidents listed in this book are really new. But it is interesting to see them collected in one single volume and without the subtlety of earlier writings. Thus Vidal says plainly that presidents are either military dictators (Lincoln and FDR) or servants of Big Business. Truman and Eisenhower never considered the Soviet Union any real threat but invented the Cold War to please the military-industrial complex - a game that JFK, a cynical in everything else, believed in and wanted to win, almost causing World War III. And the Clintons are, of course, naïve idealists who never had any idea of how the US works until they tried to defy Corporate America with their health care plan which would have brought happiness to all. And so on and so forth.

Of course one should not accept at face value the conventional version of any country's history - not only the United States'. Vidal's historical novels, especially "Burr", are excellent in pointing that out. But although "The American Presidency" is useful as a readable and entertaining summary of American history which does sometimes make you think, it is also extremely simplistic - almost a caricature of Vidal's early writings on that subject. It made me sad, in a way.

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

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 unofficial lobbyist-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.

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.

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 typically sarcastic, 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.

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.

Only Gore Vidal would conceive a plot about characters being like movie stars and appearing in films, TV shows and other novels when they are off duty in the novel you are reading.

The idea was great, but its execution was flippant and there is gratuituous everything. I stayed with it only to see how he would tie it all up. Had the book been longer, I wouldn't have finished it.

I'm still not sure that I get the significance of Duluth being 9 miles from the Mexican border with a view of Lake Erie, although I have some ideas.

Vidal is a great a writer. Even in this mish mash there are some great ideas and wonderful turns of phrase.

While the book is funny and drew my interest in what would happpen, it was ultimately sterile and uninvolving. Quite a disappointment from the author of two of my favorites, "Julian" and "Creation". I get that it is (among other things) a satire on the dry, lifeless, oh too clever world of Post-Modernism. This still does not redeem it from being dry, lifeless, or oh too clever. Granted it archly satirizes much of what is wrong in modern American life, but that only gets you so much credit.

Who else but Gore Vidal can write great historical novels, contemporary essays, and some of the most subversive and hilarious "Comic Novels" out there? He deserves the Nobel Prize, but is too good for it! Anyway, here is a very tall tale about some politicos, police officers, Aztec terrorists in the barricades, and some of the most hilarious comments on 20th century US pseudo-culture you'll ever read. Throw in some real sci-fi with some strange aliens stuck inside some swampland, with multiple US Presidents, and some truly bizarre imaginings, and you have a can't- miss oddball novel that could only be cooked up by a mind like that of the great Gore Vidal!

To judge by one of his responses to the Proust Questionnaire published in Vanity Fair, Vidal considers this peculiar little volume his chef-d'oeuvre. One can only assume this is another example of the well-documented phenomenon of a parent reserving his fiercest love for his sickliest child.

Although written in the nondemanding (for authors and readers alike) turn-the-squares'-cliches-against-them style of his celebrated poleminc-cum-sex-comedy "Myra Breckenridge", "Duluth" generally fails to sting or tittilate. Consider this representative (you'll have to take my word for it) sample of the book's approach, taken from its opening pages:

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"I believe, Edna, that a Negro is being lynched."

"You'll love Duluth. I can tell." Edna revs up her jalopy's motor. "We have excellent race relations here, as you can see. And numerous nouvelle cuisine restaurants."

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Oh, that vile bourgeois complacency! I can just picture Vidal's Washington-elite nostrils twitching with contempt as he composes at the writing desk in his palazzo in Ravello, Italy. Only one can't help but wonder: is it racism that excites his disgust or just the stench of the middle class?

There is a tremendous amount of violence in this book; the kind of subversively funny violence that makes it a bridge from the violence of Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 1940s to Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION and KILL BILL today. And that violence, profoundly enough, like its antecedents and descendents, is not in the plot; it's in the construction, deconstruction and delivery of each line in the novel as a whole. It is that kind of violence that is subversive enough in how it is delivered, in terms of context and irony, that makes this book so important, and, ulitmately, hilarious.

Only someone as well associated with the barbaric hypocrisy of the bourgeousie in American society like the Master Gore Vidal could write a book that reveals it to such maddening detail with such incredible humor. And yet, like an ADD child gone too long without his pills or a self-loathing genius comedian riffing while high on drugs, Vidal refuses to stop there. He begins to contemptuously deconstruct the very art form that is the novel to rip from it the very selfsame pretensions of artistic superiority inherent in it via its destruction--as it has existed for mainly the middle to upper middle classes in the first place. He makes his point that the novel is essentially dead, replaced with movies and the television hour drama as a vehicle for storytelling in the modern world; yet he does it while going off Hollywood television culture, in the context of his many stories. He even goes off on the very self-conscious postmodernistic style of novel writing after Pynchon, while staying true to the character and story development of about six or seven different absurd plots that form the bedrock of this sick but oh so American town named Duluth. Imagine a small, racist, politically corrupt town in the mid West with UFOs, Aztec terrorists who speak like Shakespearean heroes when their Spanish colloquialisms are translated, and people who, when they die, get reincarnated into characters on a television soap opera made about the town itself...and you have about HALF of what is going on in this incredibly silly and profoundly beautiful novel.

Gore Vidal is to Mark Twain what John Coltrane is to Charlie Parker. Read this novel, and see what I mean. Brilliant.

This book is a collection of eight essays. The first seven are each written on the subject of one of the "deadly" sins of sloth, anger, lust, gluttony, pride, avarice and envy. The eight is on despair. Each of the famous authors ruminates on the sin, looking at it from his or her unique perspective.

Overall I found the essays well written, and the book to be easy to read. This book makes for some lightweight reading, short and simple, but without much substance. Overall, I don't recommend it.

Eight essays on Sloth, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Avarice, Envy, and Despair (yes that's 8 sins). To be honest I bought it because of Pynchon, (whose essay -if you are even a slight fan- makes the buy worth it) but read on to the back cover. I quickly discovered that these authors compiled around the topic of sins is a great way to see inside these writers styles and appraoch to a similar idea. Some I'd read before, and others introduced themselves in this novel. All were unique and interesting in their own right, especially for someone -me- who isn't terribly interested in sins. Highly reccomended!