VERY FEW people are qualified to comment on every aspect
of our daily lives, from politics to infotainment, and back it up with education,
earthiness, prescience, sarcasm, and wit. Gore Vidal is one of those rare
entities. A rare American. Of course, he lives in Italy with his longtime
companion, so he's more than just rare.
Gore Vidal's writing career has spanned more than half
a century whose influence is wide yet unknown, a man who has entered a national
consciousness without most Americans really knowing it. Did you know that
he's the one responsible for the homosexual undertones between Ben Hur and
Massala? Well it's true, no matter what Charlton Heston says.
Gore Vidal's writing has run the gamut from straightforward,
to sensational, to historical, to experimental, and back again. The three
books I discuss here represent this range and cycle.
The City and the Pillar, 1948.
Opening with a quote concerning the fate of Lot's wife
from the Book of Genesis,The Pillar and the City (1948) is
a semi-autobiographical novel in which Jim Willard plainly and honestly
discusses his love for classmate Bob Ford. They have sex but it is pretty
clear that one is gay and the other is not. World War II separates the classmates
and most of the book follows the ten years in which Jim roams the world
on ships, is kept by a movie star in Hollywood, lives in New York, has anonymous
sexual encounters, observes the nascent urban gay "scene," and
always wonders what if...? It takes ten years to him to realize and fulfill
that moment of "What if...?"
There is such a vividness in this novel, well, I literally
sat down as soon as I could to finish it, since I had been reading it avidly
to and from work. I sat on a Third Avenue bench until I was done. It is
amazing to think how young Vidal was when he outlines a common gay phenomenon:
the dream of love with a soul mate, with that universal hitch of incompatible
sexualities. Along with other social pressures, this is one that is often
overlooked; expecting the impossible union with the mainstream that will
endow respect and completion. Some might find this "obsessive";
others will understand the ties that bond people to dreams that hobble them.
Note: The edition I read contained
only the novel, and is impossibly cheap at just $4.95.
Myra Breckinridge, 1968.
Myra Breckinridge (1968)
appears twenty years later and is a trip into the fantastic, whirlwind rapture
known as Myra Breckinridge, the New Woman, "whom no man shall possess."
Myra is the self-proclaimed Goddess, bigger than life, or at least as big
as the giant figures adorning Hollywood's restaurants' parking lot entrances.
Myra also has some other, more mundane, concerns. Like
taking over an acting academy and taking a very close, personal interest
in the young, rough Rusty, and manipulating his love interest, fellow student
Mary Ann.
Myra makes it clear that she is writing in her diary and
that the "novel is dead." Interspersed are transcriptions of tape
recordings by the head of the academy, Buck Loner.
Vidal's wit is about as sharp as it can be, as Myra steers
the people around her and makes comments on life today while dropping allusions
to ancient myths. In Myra Breckinridge, Vidal captures the essence of American
epistemology, presciently noticing that the "dictator" that will
take us over will not be a dictator at all, but a smiling cowboy we ourselves
would elect (how did he predict Ronald Reagan, President, twelve years ahead
of the election?).
Lots of clues are given throughout, but Myra is more (or
less) than she appears to be, and reading this work is enjoyable to its
last moments and "shocking" ending.
P.S.: This was followed up by Myron five
years later. In 1987 both novels were published together in a unified paperback
format by Vintage. Italo Calvino declared Myron the hypernovel
or the novel elevated to the square or cube. I just found it difficult to
follow and never quite got through it.
Palimpsest, 1994.
Almost forty years after his first novel, Williwaw,
was published, Gore Vidal chronicles the first 39 years of his life in Palimpsest,
a Memoir. It is fortuitous that I read Palimpsest
just after having read The City and the Pillar. Reading both
makes understanding them both books so much more, well, understood.
Gore Vidal is to quiet American royalty what
the Kennedy family is to scandal-ridden royalty; plus, he's related to them,
sort of. Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis and he shared a mutual stepfather in
Hughdie Auchincloss, and he was a frequent visitor to "Camelot,"
until he ran afoul of Robert Kennedy.
The grandson of a blind US Senator, Gore Vidal was born
into letters, reading all manner of works and memos to his blind ancestor.
In his first 39 years, Vidal has rubbed elbows with just about everyone:
John F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, George Santayana, Tennessee Williams,
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, E. M. Forster, Anais Nin, Alfred C. Kinsey,
George Ballanchine. Just about everyone appears in this memoir. I am almost
surprised I'm not in it.
Two major themes dominate this memoir: old age and age-old
wishes. While the book covers his first 39 years, he refers to current events
(deaths of Richard Nixon and stepsister Jackie) and feeling old. He also
discusses his teenage love of classmate Jimmie Trimble, with whom he made
love and whom World War II claimed. The City and the Pillar is dedicated
"For the memory of J.T." and Palimpsest explains who this is.
Jimmie is cast in an idealized "fulfilling half" of old, as Jim
does of Bob in the 1948 novel. But Jimmie is killed and Gore Vidal, in real
life, drifted through a sea of anonymous encounters, eventually settling
into what he calls a lifelong but "sexless union" with Howard
Auster .
Gore Vidal does not proclaim he is a gay man, a queer,
a homosexual. He merely declares he is Gore Vidal. While this might seem
like denial to some, reading these pages you can see that someone like Gore
Vidal is bigger than life, too smart to be pidgeon-holed into a category.
Knowing oneself helps defy categoritzation. But he is not so high and mighty,
so well-traveled, that he is not just like everyone else. It is very reassuring,
for example, that Gore Vidal and I share the same (literal) dream of frustration--discovering
other rooms in your house that you did not know were there. [I live in a
studio, he has a seaside Italian palazzo, but we're having the same "discovered
hidden rooms dream. Go figure.]
Gore Vidal is also wickedly funny. As he tells us about
his grandparents (whom he adored), his father, his mother (whom he hated),
his travels, his writing, his writing behind the scenes, and running for
office in Upstate New York, his asides and slams are hilarious. [For example,
commenting on his 1960 campaign slogan "You'll get more with Gore:
"No one could figure out what there would be "more" of, but
since after a dozen years in Congress the incumbent representative was unknown
to his constituents, more of anything would have been an improvement.]
Another running theme: his hatred of Truman Copote. In
his final parting shot concerning Copote: "I mistook him for an ottoman
and nearly sat on him." Of course, Copote is one of many to receive
a withering remark. Distant cousin President Jimmy Carter is referred to
a fifth cousin twice removed: "Once removed by his election to the
presidency and permanently removed by his defeat." At the time of the
failed rescue of the hostages Teheran, he wrote to the President and told
him to resign; had he known then they were related, he would have told him
to resign "for the family honor."
Eeeee-youch!
Palimpsest is one of
the best books I have read in a long time. Never mind that is is funny;
the breadth of knowledge and insight he displays is breathtaking. Burr,
Lincoln, Empire, Hollywood, and
many of his other works systematically cover American history; Palimpsest
features a photo of Gore Vidal on reflective paper--hold it up and you can
find yourself as well. That it is tinged with the sadness of "what
if" and told at the in the latter half of of one's life brings Gore
Vidal to every American. Gore Vidal answers the question "What if Lot's
wife turned to salt but still lived to a ripe old age." It's our tragedy
that our greatest mind lives in Ravello, Italy. That should be cause for
national concern.
Opening with a quote concerning the fate of Lot's wife
from the Book of Genesis,The Pillar and the City (1948) is
a semi-autobiographical novel in which Jim Willard plainly and honestly
discusses his love for classmate Bob Ford. They have sex but it is pretty
clear that one is gay and the other is not. World War II separates the classmates
and most of the book follows the ten years in which Jim roams the world
on ships, is kept by a movie star in Hollywood, lives in New York, has anonymous
sexual encounters, observes the nascent urban gay "scene," and
always wonders what if...? It takes ten years to him to realize and fulfill
that moment of "What if...?"
Gore Vidal is to quiet American royalty what
the Kennedy family is to scandal-ridden royalty; plus, he's related to them,
sort of. Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis and he shared a mutual stepfather in
Hughdie Auchincloss, and he was a frequent visitor to "Camelot,"
until he ran afoul of Robert Kennedy.
Gore Vidal is also wickedly funny. As he tells us about
his grandparents (whom he adored), his father, his mother (whom he hated),
his travels, his writing, his writing behind the scenes, and running for
office in Upstate New York, his asides and slams are hilarious. [For example,
commenting on his 1960 campaign slogan "You'll get more with Gore:
"No one could figure out what there would be "more" of, but
since after a dozen years in Congress the incumbent representative was unknown
to his constituents, more of anything would have been an improvement.]