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Julian by Gore Vidal
- GenresHistorical Fiction
Paperback
About the author
Gore Vidal
416 books1,925 followersWorks of American writer Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, noted for his cynical humor and his numerous accounts of society in decline, include the play
The Best Man
(1960) and the novel
Myra Breckinridge
(1968) .
People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.
They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde
Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).
Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).
Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.
Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.
Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.
People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.
They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.
At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde
Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).
Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).
Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.
Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.
Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 16, 2026
Beautiful book about the last officially pagan Emperor of the Roman Empire, Julian. It is quite a read in such a time as the present. Like our era, his is fraught with seemingly menacing changes that could potentially drown the world he thought he knew.
In Julian's shoes, we see a preoccupation with saving the world. Luckily, he had the levers of imperial power, military and governmental, to do this. Even then, he came up short. But did so in a graceful way, while searching for the light, in metaphorical and literal (he was a devotee of Helios) terms.
Through the correspondence of two notable contemporaries of Julian, Libanius and Priscus, Gore Vidal artfully recreates the 4th-century Roman world. It is so immersive that by the end of the book, one finds oneself with the same broken or elevated expectations of the characters (depending on which factions got your sympathy). It is one thing to be transported to Gilded Age America or Renaissance Europe, but going as far as late antiquity and truly reliving its drama on the pages of a book, without any authorial artifices being laid bare, is a special ride.
In this book, the memory of a single man is used to convey the feeling of an entire age. And in doing so, it renders the political and military struggles of that time as nothing more than another chapter in the flow of human history, which is itself a function of ambition. Not some pre-ordained timeline. The end is rather heartbreaking. Julian falls in battle, and all his efforts are reversed.
However, the kind words of St John Chrysostom to his erstwhile teacher, Libanius, and the words of the latter about '...hope for a new sun and another day, born of time's mystery and man's love of light' feels almost prophetic, given the secular reality of our present and the morphing of Christian norms over the millennia.
In Julian's shoes, we see a preoccupation with saving the world. Luckily, he had the levers of imperial power, military and governmental, to do this. Even then, he came up short. But did so in a graceful way, while searching for the light, in metaphorical and literal (he was a devotee of Helios) terms.
Through the correspondence of two notable contemporaries of Julian, Libanius and Priscus, Gore Vidal artfully recreates the 4th-century Roman world. It is so immersive that by the end of the book, one finds oneself with the same broken or elevated expectations of the characters (depending on which factions got your sympathy). It is one thing to be transported to Gilded Age America or Renaissance Europe, but going as far as late antiquity and truly reliving its drama on the pages of a book, without any authorial artifices being laid bare, is a special ride.
In this book, the memory of a single man is used to convey the feeling of an entire age. And in doing so, it renders the political and military struggles of that time as nothing more than another chapter in the flow of human history, which is itself a function of ambition. Not some pre-ordained timeline. The end is rather heartbreaking. Julian falls in battle, and all his efforts are reversed.
However, the kind words of St John Chrysostom to his erstwhile teacher, Libanius, and the words of the latter about '...hope for a new sun and another day, born of time's mystery and man's love of light' feels almost prophetic, given the secular reality of our present and the morphing of Christian norms over the millennia.
August 25, 2026
The second time I’ve started this book, on the first occasion I didn’t finish it for some reason. There’s much to love about - the personal and academic bickering between Labanius and Priscus is delightful; the portrayal of the Christians as intolerant sectarians is totally believable but ultimately the superstition of the ‘pagans’ is hardly a winning formula. We side with Julian as the underdog but our support wanes as his delusions of grandeur waxes.
May 31, 2026
A bright star falling
August 31, 2026
So good it's like being there.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews