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Selected Essays
Gore Vidal--novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator & controversialist--is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality & provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay. This long-needed volume comprises some 24 of his forays into criticism, reviewing, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, &, occasionally, unfettered score settling. Among them are such classics as The Top Ten Best-Sellers, Dawn Powell: The American Writer; Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy, Pornography, & The Second American Revolution. Edited & introduced by Gore Vidal's literary executor, Jay Parini, it will stand as one of the most enjoyable & durable works from the hand & mind of this vastly accomplished & entertaining immortal of American literature.
460 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
66 people are currently reading
588 people want to read
About the author
Gore Vidal
416 books1,871 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 - 30 of 37 reviews
May 18, 2014
This irresistible sampler of Gore Vidal’s essays presents a lifetime spent thwarting the dunces of the world with his acid-tipped pen and monumental intelligence. This collection is of more delight to those interested in his literary leanings, as excepting an essay on Egyptian dictator Nasser, the first 338 pages concern literature and authors. His evisceration of the top ten bestseller list circa 1973 (Herman Wouk being the only name one might have heard of—and still apparently active aged 98) is a marvel, and unexpected and rational probings into the French New Novel with focus on Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet alongside the rise of the theorists provides both an accessible explanation of their modus operandi and a sensible explanation as to why Robbe-Grillet is basically unreadable (with which I happen to agree). Vidal also takes on the postmodernists, to whom he is generous if sceptical. His tolerance for Barth and Barthelme is poor—the former in particular is given a dismantling—while his appreciation for Gass and Pynchon appears to be sincere with two thumbs-up for Omensetter’s Luck. Engaging if less essential are his pieces on obscure writers William Dean Howells and Dawn Powell, and his review of the work of Calvino is fantastic despite ending in 1974. Also in this collection as his takes on Montaigne, John Updike, and clotted academic prose. The rest of this sampler contains famous essays on gay equality, pornography, and some of his finest political essays on the American constitution and its agents of corruption. No writer has exposed the capriciousness and deceptions at the heart of America as coolly and (rightly) cynically as Vidal. I want more. (Gore).
May 19, 2014
Most of the essays reprinted here are excellent. The best are "The Top Ten Best-Sellers According to the Sunday New York Times as of January 7, 1973," for the New York Review of Books,* "The Holy Family," about the Kennedys, written for Esquire in 1967, and "The Second American Revolution," again for the NYRB. I also enjoyed "Rabbit's Own Burrow," an evisceration of John Updike, although delightful essays eviscerating Updike's style tend to be like seeds scattered on barren soil for me, because I have such an antipathy for Updike's style that I've never been able to get past "The Centaur." At this point in my life I literally cannot imagine reading another Updike novel.
Another good one is his takedown of the terrible Midge Decter, "Pink Triangle and Yellow Star." Two of the essays, one about a trip to Egypt during the Nasser regime, another on pornography, set me a-slumber. The ones on 9/11 somehow feel too recent to be interesting. Something I've noticed about essay collections is that often a writer's earliest essays will seem fresh, while the later ones seem stale. Or maybe militarism is just an inherently stale topic.
No one could deliver an insult quite like Vidal. When he was writing the screenplay for Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat, she "used to send me helpful memos; and though she could not spell the simplest words or adhere to any agreed-upon grammar, her prose surged with vulgar invention and powerful feeling of the sort that cannot be faked."
Vidal is occasionally wrong. "[Patrick] Buchanan is a classic Archie Bunker type," he writes. Not exactly. Buchanan may seethe "with irrational prejudices and resentments," but he's also a well-read and intelligent person who usually knows more than the co-panelists of whatever political talk show he appears on. If you listen to Buchanan long enough, he may surprise you with nuggets of rationality and insight.
Sometimes he is weirdly wrong: "The fact that some monotheists can behave charitably means, often, that their [racial] prejudice is at so deep a level that they are not aware it is there at all." Why would a monotheist be naturally racist? Because the Bible teaches that "as descendants of Ham...blacks are forever accursed." Vidal is making the fundamental and surprisingly common mistaken assumption that just because something is in the Bible, everyone who "believes" in the Bible accepts everything in the Bible as true. This is hardly possible, given that the Bible is full of contradictions. Everyone who "believes" in the Bible picks and chooses what their Bible-beliefs are. Another mistaken assumption is that if someone is a monotheist and a racist, the racism derives from the book. Surely Vidal doesn't believe that every "Redneck divine," as he calls them, could tell you who Ham is.
* From #10 on the bestseller list, Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes: "The Holy Spirit came upon her, invaded her body, and her bowels stirred and her loins melted." "The Inn? You'll be lucky to find a corner for the ass at the inn."
October 30, 2024
Say what you will about the WASPs, America's former pseudo-aristocracy, at least interesting figures occasionally emerged from their slime. There's no way Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg will spawn someone as brave and cutting as Gore Vidal.
August 21, 2020
I read an essay or two each day to start my day. Gore Vidal's wit and utter disdain is a pure delight to read. His essay on "Top Ten Bestsellers" cracked me up in how swiftly he demolishes popular fiction. His admiration of Montaigne was touching. His essay on the Kennedys was brutal. He is no fan of Teddy Roosevelt. The second half of the collection's essays are about his "reading the world," and I was continually struck by what a prescient/careful reader of history he is... he understands American society uncomfortably well. Certainly some of his opinions haven't aged well, but I doubt he would care. Reading them made me envious of his wit and resentful that we couldn't experience his observations of this particular chapter of American madness.
February 28, 2008
Deliciously bitchy and wonderfully eclectic. Vidal's prose crackles and spits in all directions, from French Postmodernism to Bush's police state, but it is always both entertaining and incisive, and never less than a delight to read. Strongly recommended to all but right-wing nutters and Sky-god followers.
October 4, 2008
Back in June, when Gore Vidal was doing press for his latest book, “The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal,” the octogenarian public intellectual talked with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times Magazine. They discussed – or rather, Solomon attempted to discuss – a wide range of topics related to the author, including his relation to former Vice President Al Gore; the death of his old nemesis William F. Buckley; and Vidal’s assessment of the best novel he’s ever written (he’s authored 23).
Here are excerpts of this give and take, followed by the last line of the interview:
• How, exactly, is your cousin Al Gore related to you? They keep explaining it to me, and I keep forgetting.
• How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year? I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.
• What do you think is your own best novel? I don’t answer questions like that. Ever. And you ought not to ask them.
• Well, it was a great pleasure talking to you. I doubt that.
After reading this interview, I was haunted by two questions in particular, 1) How did Solomon refrain from reaming the man? and 2) Why haven’t I ever read anything by this witty, disrespectful curmudgeon?
Gore Vidal, 82, has been known to me as a public figure and talk-show regular for a long time, but “The Selected Essays” (Doubleday, $27.50) are my introduction to his written work.
After reading these 24 pieces, written over the last half century, I can safely say that Vidal is one of the funniest writers I’ve ever encountered. He might not be a prince in person, but he’s a pleasure in print.
In the essay “Some Memories of the Glorious Bird,” published in The New York Review of Books in 1976, he discusses the genesis of his friendship with playwright Tennessee Williams, whom he met in Rome after World War II. At the time the city was a hotbed of young artists and literary wannabes, including a man named Sir Harold Acton.
“By 1948, Acton had written supremely well about both the Bourbons of Naples and the later Medici of Florence; unfortunately, he was – is – prone to the writing of memoirs. And so, wanting no doubt to flesh out yet another chapter in the ongoing story of a long and marvelously uninteresting life, Acton came down to Rome to look at the new invaders. What he believed he saw and heard, he subsequently published in a little volume called More Memoirs of an Aesthete, a work to be cherished for its quite remarkable number of unaesthetic misprints and misspellings.”
. A caustic wit emerges in most of these essays, regardless of topic. Vidal’s an iconoclast, and two autobiographical details in particular – his family’s prominent political background; and his homosexuality – color his attitude and writings.
Vidal comes from a long line of West Point graduates. He was born at the U.S. Military Academy and later served in World War II. His grandfather was a United States senator, and his father served in FDR’s administration.
As Jay Parini, his literary executor, writes in the introduction to this collection, “When (Vidal) writes about the political life, he does so with the passion and knowledge of an insider.”
In “The Second American Revolution,” published in 1981 in The New York Review of Books, he examines the check-and-balance system put in place by the Founding Fathers. After criticizing the overreaching powers of the president and the Supreme Court – in particular, the exercise (and some say, abuse) of executive privilege and judicial review – he succinctly summarizes the machinations of the entire American political system.
“Today, despite close to two centuries of insurrection and foreign wars, of depressions and the usurpations by this or that branch of government of powers not accorded, there are still two political parties, each controlled by a faction of the regnant oligarchy. The fact that the country is so much larger than it was makes for an appearance of variety. But the substance of the two-party system or non-system is unchanged. Those with large amounts of property control the parties which control the state which takes through taxes the people’s money and gives a certain amount of it back in order to keep docile the populace while reserving a sizable part of tax revenue for the oligarchy’s use in the form of ‘purchases’ for the defense department, which is the unnumbered, as it were, bank account of the rulers.”
Vidal doesn’t suffer fools gladly, whether the subject is politics, novels, or (in the case of John Updike) both.
This collection includes a great deal of literary criticism, and addresses figures such as Montaigne and Edmund Wilson. Updike, in “Rabbit’s Own Burrow,” gets both barrels from Vidal, who eviscerates the author of the Rabbit Angstrom books as both spineless and (perhaps worse) tedious to read.
Updike, who supported the Vietnam War for many years, reflected on his past position in his 1989 memoir, “Self-Consciousness.” Vidal, addressing the memoir and Updike’s most recent novel, “In the Beauty of the Lilies,” wrote in The New York Review of Books in 1996, “At times, reading Updike’s political and cultural musings, one has the sense that there is no received opinion that our good rabbit does not hold with passion.”
As for his writing: “Updike never quite knows what to do with his lists of random objects or physical human characteristics. In this, he resembles a more gracious James Michener, whose huge books are simply compendia of thousands of little facts collected by researchers and deposited helter-skelter in his long ‘novels.’”
Lest you think that Vidal has nothing but venom to spew, here’s something sweet, care of the Deborah Solomon interview.
• Anyone in the 20th century you might have a kind word about? Yes, I liked Italo Calvino, and I thought he was the greatest writer of my time.
Cameron Martin is a columnist with CBS Sportsline and a book reviewer with Barnes & Noble Review. Email him at cdavidmartin@yahoo.com
Here are excerpts of this give and take, followed by the last line of the interview:
• How, exactly, is your cousin Al Gore related to you? They keep explaining it to me, and I keep forgetting.
• How did you feel when you heard that Buckley died this year? I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred.
• What do you think is your own best novel? I don’t answer questions like that. Ever. And you ought not to ask them.
• Well, it was a great pleasure talking to you. I doubt that.
After reading this interview, I was haunted by two questions in particular, 1) How did Solomon refrain from reaming the man? and 2) Why haven’t I ever read anything by this witty, disrespectful curmudgeon?
Gore Vidal, 82, has been known to me as a public figure and talk-show regular for a long time, but “The Selected Essays” (Doubleday, $27.50) are my introduction to his written work.
After reading these 24 pieces, written over the last half century, I can safely say that Vidal is one of the funniest writers I’ve ever encountered. He might not be a prince in person, but he’s a pleasure in print.
In the essay “Some Memories of the Glorious Bird,” published in The New York Review of Books in 1976, he discusses the genesis of his friendship with playwright Tennessee Williams, whom he met in Rome after World War II. At the time the city was a hotbed of young artists and literary wannabes, including a man named Sir Harold Acton.
“By 1948, Acton had written supremely well about both the Bourbons of Naples and the later Medici of Florence; unfortunately, he was – is – prone to the writing of memoirs. And so, wanting no doubt to flesh out yet another chapter in the ongoing story of a long and marvelously uninteresting life, Acton came down to Rome to look at the new invaders. What he believed he saw and heard, he subsequently published in a little volume called More Memoirs of an Aesthete, a work to be cherished for its quite remarkable number of unaesthetic misprints and misspellings.”
. A caustic wit emerges in most of these essays, regardless of topic. Vidal’s an iconoclast, and two autobiographical details in particular – his family’s prominent political background; and his homosexuality – color his attitude and writings.
Vidal comes from a long line of West Point graduates. He was born at the U.S. Military Academy and later served in World War II. His grandfather was a United States senator, and his father served in FDR’s administration.
As Jay Parini, his literary executor, writes in the introduction to this collection, “When (Vidal) writes about the political life, he does so with the passion and knowledge of an insider.”
In “The Second American Revolution,” published in 1981 in The New York Review of Books, he examines the check-and-balance system put in place by the Founding Fathers. After criticizing the overreaching powers of the president and the Supreme Court – in particular, the exercise (and some say, abuse) of executive privilege and judicial review – he succinctly summarizes the machinations of the entire American political system.
“Today, despite close to two centuries of insurrection and foreign wars, of depressions and the usurpations by this or that branch of government of powers not accorded, there are still two political parties, each controlled by a faction of the regnant oligarchy. The fact that the country is so much larger than it was makes for an appearance of variety. But the substance of the two-party system or non-system is unchanged. Those with large amounts of property control the parties which control the state which takes through taxes the people’s money and gives a certain amount of it back in order to keep docile the populace while reserving a sizable part of tax revenue for the oligarchy’s use in the form of ‘purchases’ for the defense department, which is the unnumbered, as it were, bank account of the rulers.”
Vidal doesn’t suffer fools gladly, whether the subject is politics, novels, or (in the case of John Updike) both.
This collection includes a great deal of literary criticism, and addresses figures such as Montaigne and Edmund Wilson. Updike, in “Rabbit’s Own Burrow,” gets both barrels from Vidal, who eviscerates the author of the Rabbit Angstrom books as both spineless and (perhaps worse) tedious to read.
Updike, who supported the Vietnam War for many years, reflected on his past position in his 1989 memoir, “Self-Consciousness.” Vidal, addressing the memoir and Updike’s most recent novel, “In the Beauty of the Lilies,” wrote in The New York Review of Books in 1996, “At times, reading Updike’s political and cultural musings, one has the sense that there is no received opinion that our good rabbit does not hold with passion.”
As for his writing: “Updike never quite knows what to do with his lists of random objects or physical human characteristics. In this, he resembles a more gracious James Michener, whose huge books are simply compendia of thousands of little facts collected by researchers and deposited helter-skelter in his long ‘novels.’”
Lest you think that Vidal has nothing but venom to spew, here’s something sweet, care of the Deborah Solomon interview.
• Anyone in the 20th century you might have a kind word about? Yes, I liked Italo Calvino, and I thought he was the greatest writer of my time.
Cameron Martin is a columnist with CBS Sportsline and a book reviewer with Barnes & Noble Review. Email him at cdavidmartin@yahoo.com
July 11, 2014
A well curated selection of essays, mostly on literature but also on politics, sex, porn, and the train wreck of American life. The editor has managed to cull through thousands of articles ("book chat" to Mr. Vidal) and present a selection that has arc and progress. Vidal makes reference to previous work, and if you read this book in order then you will have read the previous work mentioned. A nice feat.
The reader gets insight into the effect of the "man of letters" celebrity that made Gore Vidal into a self-styled shadow president by the end of his life. Having expected to overshadow his grandfather the Senator in politics, Gore Vidal goes from able commentator on the state of things in Egypt in the 1960s, for example, to castigating desert prophet of Imperial doom in the dark years of Dubya Bush.
The essays are a delight, especially for the literary-minded reader. Gore Vidal surveys the state of fiction in the US, the intentions and directions of the New (French) Novel, the stars of Postmodernism like Gass and Pynchon, and the destructive influence of academia. He also writes profiles of writers known to him (Tennessee Williams and Dawn Powell) and a few unknown to him like Italo Calvino whom he only seemed to meet by way of his novels. Odd for such a socialite who resided in Italy.
The essay is said to be Gore Vidal ideal medium. I haven't read any of his novels so I cannot say with any conviction if this assessment is true. I can, however, affirm that the instances selected for this novel are worthy examples of what the medium can do. Gore Vidal informs while he entertains with his elevated perspective. The structures are loose enough to accommodate bits of biography and also rigorous research. One is struck by the quality of insight that nonetheless betrays nothing of its subjectivity in the hocus-pocus of rhetoric. Wit occurs without being the occasion of its occurrence, which I call elegance.
This one comes highly recommended.
The reader gets insight into the effect of the "man of letters" celebrity that made Gore Vidal into a self-styled shadow president by the end of his life. Having expected to overshadow his grandfather the Senator in politics, Gore Vidal goes from able commentator on the state of things in Egypt in the 1960s, for example, to castigating desert prophet of Imperial doom in the dark years of Dubya Bush.
The essays are a delight, especially for the literary-minded reader. Gore Vidal surveys the state of fiction in the US, the intentions and directions of the New (French) Novel, the stars of Postmodernism like Gass and Pynchon, and the destructive influence of academia. He also writes profiles of writers known to him (Tennessee Williams and Dawn Powell) and a few unknown to him like Italo Calvino whom he only seemed to meet by way of his novels. Odd for such a socialite who resided in Italy.
The essay is said to be Gore Vidal ideal medium. I haven't read any of his novels so I cannot say with any conviction if this assessment is true. I can, however, affirm that the instances selected for this novel are worthy examples of what the medium can do. Gore Vidal informs while he entertains with his elevated perspective. The structures are loose enough to accommodate bits of biography and also rigorous research. One is struck by the quality of insight that nonetheless betrays nothing of its subjectivity in the hocus-pocus of rhetoric. Wit occurs without being the occasion of its occurrence, which I call elegance.
This one comes highly recommended.
November 29, 2020
Tells you everything you need to know about the American Letters and the lack thereof and how he hates American imperialism.
July 26, 2011
Vidal, you magnificent bastard!
These essays date from 1953 to 2004 and are neatly divided into Vidal’s “Reading the Writers” and “Reading the World” with significant overlap and time but skewed towards his more current obsession with the fate of the Republic. The solid unrelenting prose is here in abundance and his idiosyncratic opinions will surprise no one familiar with Vidal’s work.
The conclusions of “The Hacks of Academe” are commonplace now and shared across the political spectrum but this is essay is pure Vidal. “William Dean Howells” is a neat biography of the once famous author and offers a close reading of his life and work that runs counter to earlier opinions such as that of H. L. Mencken. ”Dawn Powell” is a labor of love for a then forgotten 20th century comic genius whose work was out of print at the time (1987) of this essay but now (according to Google) available in some form. “Rabbit’s Own Burrow” is a classic Vidal hatchet job: this time the victim is John Updike. Disregarding the accuracy of Vidal’s observations, can this really be rooted in Updike’s support of our Vietnam misadventure and comments on the opposition including Vidal?
The “World” portion is replete with Vidalian bogeymen – the Kennedys, “men of property”, the National Security State, and whoever stands in the way of his personal pleasures. I place Vidal as a left libertarian and, as with others of the left, he comes unhinged at the thought of someone making money from a capitalist activity. But he can score points and his arguments often ring true with those of any libertarian leaning.
“Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy” delivers yet another blow to the legacy of diminutive mommas’ boys.
Vidal is a great simplifier but a magnificent read.
These essays date from 1953 to 2004 and are neatly divided into Vidal’s “Reading the Writers” and “Reading the World” with significant overlap and time but skewed towards his more current obsession with the fate of the Republic. The solid unrelenting prose is here in abundance and his idiosyncratic opinions will surprise no one familiar with Vidal’s work.
The conclusions of “The Hacks of Academe” are commonplace now and shared across the political spectrum but this is essay is pure Vidal. “William Dean Howells” is a neat biography of the once famous author and offers a close reading of his life and work that runs counter to earlier opinions such as that of H. L. Mencken. ”Dawn Powell” is a labor of love for a then forgotten 20th century comic genius whose work was out of print at the time (1987) of this essay but now (according to Google) available in some form. “Rabbit’s Own Burrow” is a classic Vidal hatchet job: this time the victim is John Updike. Disregarding the accuracy of Vidal’s observations, can this really be rooted in Updike’s support of our Vietnam misadventure and comments on the opposition including Vidal?
The “World” portion is replete with Vidalian bogeymen – the Kennedys, “men of property”, the National Security State, and whoever stands in the way of his personal pleasures. I place Vidal as a left libertarian and, as with others of the left, he comes unhinged at the thought of someone making money from a capitalist activity. But he can score points and his arguments often ring true with those of any libertarian leaning.
“Theodore Roosevelt: An American Sissy” delivers yet another blow to the legacy of diminutive mommas’ boys.
Vidal is a great simplifier but a magnificent read.
December 29, 2011
I attempted to read every essay in this book. I only managed to finish a couple of them. A lot of them were published in the New York Review of Books in the '60s and '70s. And all of their preoccupations with 'The New Novel' and all of that stuff, have, in the judgement of history, turned out to be fads. So quite dated in the literary criticism essays.
Sadly the world has also moved on, so his essays on The Vietnam War, prejudice against gays, JFK and J Edgar Hoover, again, whilst interesting in their historicity, were also dated.
In terms of style, Gore Vidal has these long sentences with two or three different witty points in each. So I found I had to concentrate hard and read slowly, which was a bit llike hard work.
My recommendation is: Don't buy it unless you want to reminisce about what was going on in the English department during the '70s.
Sadly the world has also moved on, so his essays on The Vietnam War, prejudice against gays, JFK and J Edgar Hoover, again, whilst interesting in their historicity, were also dated.
In terms of style, Gore Vidal has these long sentences with two or three different witty points in each. So I found I had to concentrate hard and read slowly, which was a bit llike hard work.
My recommendation is: Don't buy it unless you want to reminisce about what was going on in the English department during the '70s.
July 11, 2012
A good portion of these essays have not aged well, but the latest ones still cut. Sometimes you need a reminder of things we take for granted, like the incredible number of wars and semi-wars our nation has been involved in since the end of WWII.
June 20, 2018
A little too obscruantist/literati obsessed for me, although his takedown of the Kennedy dynasty was one of the best I've read. Once of those essays that puts into precise words what you've been only thinking about in the vaguest of terms on the edges of your consciousness.
June 13, 2017
Grouped into about 2/3 literary essays and 1/3 political essays, this book attempts to survey Vidal's writing from 1952 to 2004. I was shocked by just how much fun he was as a writer, like his piece covering the top 10 bestsellers of that time, close-reading each and having fun at the various recurring tropes. In other essays he's a fabulous gossip, telling stories about the literary scene in NYC, Italy, and elsewhere.
Vidal never pulls his punches in essays, whether it's cracking wise about a book he's reviewing, or making grand prognostications about the political future of the United States. This habit makes his writing always a delight to read, but works against him when it comes to posterity on the political stuff. (Notably, claiming in 1972 that the Vietnam War had inured us against getting into any more of those types of conflicts. Oops.)
But that isn't quite a fair way to judge someone writing as a public intellectual for over 50 years; there are bound to be some misses, especially when he's staking out interesting ground criticizing the retrograde moralizing around sexual preference, or the calcification of the US into a National Security State. Many of the same concerns he had then would probably be echoed today, though certainly in different shibboleths. At least in these selected essays, there aren't any super-cringy moments where the writing shows its age, outside of the types of prediction misfires mentioned above.
Anyways, I enjoyed this quite a bit, enough to plan on tackling his unabridged United States collection that includes ALL his essays from 1952 to 1992. It's a bit less portable than this one but should still be a lot of fun.
Vidal never pulls his punches in essays, whether it's cracking wise about a book he's reviewing, or making grand prognostications about the political future of the United States. This habit makes his writing always a delight to read, but works against him when it comes to posterity on the political stuff. (Notably, claiming in 1972 that the Vietnam War had inured us against getting into any more of those types of conflicts. Oops.)
But that isn't quite a fair way to judge someone writing as a public intellectual for over 50 years; there are bound to be some misses, especially when he's staking out interesting ground criticizing the retrograde moralizing around sexual preference, or the calcification of the US into a National Security State. Many of the same concerns he had then would probably be echoed today, though certainly in different shibboleths. At least in these selected essays, there aren't any super-cringy moments where the writing shows its age, outside of the types of prediction misfires mentioned above.
Anyways, I enjoyed this quite a bit, enough to plan on tackling his unabridged United States collection that includes ALL his essays from 1952 to 1992. It's a bit less portable than this one but should still be a lot of fun.
January 29, 2021
'The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal' is a collection of Vidal's most timely and important essays all compiled into one book. From Theories of the New Novel in 1967 to State of the Union in 2004, Vidal speaks about a wide variety of things with a big passion for them.
One thing I found interesting about this collection is the way that Vidal's editor Jay Parini breaks the essays up. The book is split into two sections; Reading the Writers, and Reading the World. This break definitely makes it easier to comprehend Vidal's thoughts, and opinions about any array of topics.
A big strongpoint for this book is the way that Vidal looks at an idea, rationalizes, and then demonstrates his opinion on the topic. "like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books... perhaps in silence or with new words." or "By preferring perversely to write books that reflected not the movies we had seen but life itself... we are in all, kind of dumb." on the contrary I found some of the passages kind of hard to get through because I had never read or seen some of the things Vidal has talked about.
overall I would recommend this collection to anyone who had enjoyed Vidal's past works, or to anyone who has wanted to learn more about authors, and an interesting point of view on the world.
One thing I found interesting about this collection is the way that Vidal's editor Jay Parini breaks the essays up. The book is split into two sections; Reading the Writers, and Reading the World. This break definitely makes it easier to comprehend Vidal's thoughts, and opinions about any array of topics.
A big strongpoint for this book is the way that Vidal looks at an idea, rationalizes, and then demonstrates his opinion on the topic. "like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books... perhaps in silence or with new words." or "By preferring perversely to write books that reflected not the movies we had seen but life itself... we are in all, kind of dumb." on the contrary I found some of the passages kind of hard to get through because I had never read or seen some of the things Vidal has talked about.
overall I would recommend this collection to anyone who had enjoyed Vidal's past works, or to anyone who has wanted to learn more about authors, and an interesting point of view on the world.
August 7, 2020
Immensely intelligent, witty, confident and unflinching. Gore Vidal's political essays are a live feed of the simultaneously expanding and deteriorating American Empire. His sometimes hilarious, and often inspiring, literary essays range from Tarzan of the Apes to Montaigne: Essays.
Calvino's first sentence is rather better than God's "in beginning was the word." God (as told to Saint John) has always had a penchant for cloudy abstractions of the sort favored by American novelists, heavyweight division--unlike Calvino, who simply tells us what's what: "When we came to settle here we did not know about the ants." No nonsense about "here" or "we." Here is a place infested with ants and we are the nuclear family: father, mother, child. No names.
Calvino's first sentence is rather better than God's "in beginning was the word." God (as told to Saint John) has always had a penchant for cloudy abstractions of the sort favored by American novelists, heavyweight division--unlike Calvino, who simply tells us what's what: "When we came to settle here we did not know about the ants." No nonsense about "here" or "we." Here is a place infested with ants and we are the nuclear family: father, mother, child. No names.
July 29, 2019
The great man tears to pieces his detractors and well anyone he thinks a fool. So many pearls of wisdom in this collection of essays. They provide history and insight to a political world that is still relevant to today.
Some of my favourite essays where on the state of USA politics, literature and the places he has been. The funniest chapter was on Tennessee Williams. I don’t know why he can’t stand Tennessee Williams but he sure does undercut him when reviewing his memoir.
Some of my favourite essays where on the state of USA politics, literature and the places he has been. The funniest chapter was on Tennessee Williams. I don’t know why he can’t stand Tennessee Williams but he sure does undercut him when reviewing his memoir.
January 18, 2020
Very underwhelming. I guess he is considered quite a rhetorical fellow which is fine but it really seemed lacking on substance on almost every essay. Rhetorical people usually don't mind lacking substance because they think of themselves as very interesting... but in this case it also causes boredom, I didn't like any of the essays.
March 18, 2018
Ruthless, deft, and damning, Vidal is the elegant man at the party who wraps his arm around you, clinks your glasses together conspiratorially, and leads you down his charming rabbit hole of literary and political gossip.
April 26, 2021
I was not familiar with many of the authors and novels Vidal critiqued in this book so cannot say whether or not his assessments were accurate. However, I found him to be overly critical of the majority he addressed--comments were mostly negative--so I did not find the essays to be of much value.
August 12, 2022
And no holds barred Take on the religious and military exploit of the US. Bleak, and Dark humorous it tells a story that is hard to argue against. Amazing how far we’ve come in 20 years since it was written much much closer to his vision.
January 3, 2023
Such a pleasure! Great writing, astonishing wit, very funny.
December 27, 2023
Great writer, kindred spirit.
June 25, 2025
A levelheaded literary critic, passing historian, and nauseatingly self-assured political pundit.
September 3, 2012
Gore Vidal's essays, that range from 1953-2004 are still sharp and timely. His insights on politics were acute and on target and still applicable today.
Selected Quote from the book:
" A peculiarity of American sexual mores is that men who like to think of themselves as exclusively and triumphantly heterosexual are convinced that the most masculine of all activities is not tending to the sexual needs of women but watching other men play games."
"...according to a W.H.O. report, the American male is the world's fattest and softest; this might explain why he also likes guns - you can always get your revolver up."
"But essentially the two wings of the property party are more alike than not." (referring to Republicans and Democrats)
Discussing National Security Act
"The cynicism of this coup d'etat was breathtaking. Officially we were doing nothing but trying to preserve freedom for ourselves and our allies from a ruthless enemy that was everywhere, monolithic, and all-powerful. Actually the real enemy were those National Security Statesmen who had so dexterously hijacked the country, establishing military conscription in peacetime, overthrowing governments that did not please them, and finally keeping all but the very rich docile and jittery by imposing income taxes as high as 90%. That is quite an achievement in a country at peace."
Selected Quote from the book:
" A peculiarity of American sexual mores is that men who like to think of themselves as exclusively and triumphantly heterosexual are convinced that the most masculine of all activities is not tending to the sexual needs of women but watching other men play games."
"...according to a W.H.O. report, the American male is the world's fattest and softest; this might explain why he also likes guns - you can always get your revolver up."
"But essentially the two wings of the property party are more alike than not." (referring to Republicans and Democrats)
Discussing National Security Act
"The cynicism of this coup d'etat was breathtaking. Officially we were doing nothing but trying to preserve freedom for ourselves and our allies from a ruthless enemy that was everywhere, monolithic, and all-powerful. Actually the real enemy were those National Security Statesmen who had so dexterously hijacked the country, establishing military conscription in peacetime, overthrowing governments that did not please them, and finally keeping all but the very rich docile and jittery by imposing income taxes as high as 90%. That is quite an achievement in a country at peace."
April 30, 2012
This is a "best of" collection of Vidal's essays selected by his executor. They are divided into literary and political sections, and range from 1953 to 2004. Lacking a bookshelf for essays of such variety I place this under biography as much of the delight of reading Vidal is his insertion of personal experiences into his essays. A man with "connections", he has many stories to tell.
On the whole I preferred the literary section of this collection. Vidal is such an excellent writer that one can read his estimations of even entirely unknown (such as Dawn Powell--until I read his review) authors with profit. For me, the political stuff was familiar, but those who do not read The Nation or similar magazines regularly may find them revelatory.
On the whole I preferred the literary section of this collection. Vidal is such an excellent writer that one can read his estimations of even entirely unknown (such as Dawn Powell--until I read his review) authors with profit. For me, the political stuff was familiar, but those who do not read The Nation or similar magazines regularly may find them revelatory.
February 8, 2017
Not enough Gore! I wish I'd skipped this one and gotten both 'United States: Essays 1952-1992' and 'The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000'.
May 22, 2013
Very good. Vidal is at his best in this genre. Unfortunately, some of them got old, especially the ones focused at american literature. Despite the great stories about "the glorious bird" which are really lovely, sometimes we see an overeavulation of writters that were swallowed by the sands of time. On the flip side, when he writes about politics he is unbeatable. Insider, witty and very actual, we can see the political machinery working and not very differently as we have today: new characters, the same plot.
Read
July 30, 2013'That grandfather, the blind Sen. Thomas P. Gore (D-Okla.), was a first-rate populist foe of war and FDR. He was a peace Democrat, which is why no one has ever heard of him. Vidal’s education owed more to home than academy, as he read aloud to the senator, from whom he inherited an isolationist opposition to foreign wars, a populist suspicion of concentrated capital, a freethinker’s hatred of cant, and a patriot’s detestation of empire.'
Read the full review, "The Last Republican," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
Read the full review, "The Last Republican," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
October 17, 2023
Content: interesting, provocative, nonconformist.
Writing style: patchy. He's not as elegant or stylish a writer as he thinks he is by a long way, and some of his sentences are positively unkempt.
But in the end, even though he comes across as pretty conceited, seeing himself as a very fine fellow, way above the benighted herd whose idiocies he wearily explains to us - despite that, the facts and opinions he presents are indeed well worth your time. He refuses to put himself in a right/left box, which is always a good starting point.
Writing style: patchy. He's not as elegant or stylish a writer as he thinks he is by a long way, and some of his sentences are positively unkempt.
But in the end, even though he comes across as pretty conceited, seeing himself as a very fine fellow, way above the benighted herd whose idiocies he wearily explains to us - despite that, the facts and opinions he presents are indeed well worth your time. He refuses to put himself in a right/left box, which is always a good starting point.
July 20, 2008
I'm not gonna read the whole book cover to cover (and I've previously read most of the later contents anywho). Anywho, I've just been dipping in at random, finding an essay to read now and again. I greatly admire Vidal's skill as an essayist and as a person of integrity. Everything I've read by him has been lucid and amusing, no matter how serious or convoluted the subject. His analysis of an early-1970s best-seller list is essential reading!
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