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Myra Breckinridge/Myron
Myra's personality is altered by her sex change operation and Myron is transported back through time to the year 1948
417 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
11 people are currently reading
918 people want to read
About the author
Gore Vidal
417 books1,880 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 102 reviews
September 14, 2025
Gore Vidal’s satirical novel, “Myra Breckenridge” was, at one point, shocking. That it is no longer shocking---and, in fact, so ridiculously un-shocking as to be a soap opera cliche---is a testament to how much society’s views have changed on the book’s primary subject matter.
Ostensibly, the book is about a lot of things. Vidal was a humorous and caustic social critic who, like some of his more relevant contemporaries (Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth), explored the inanity of the times (primarily the ‘60s and early-‘70s) through a surrealist lens. “Myra Breckenridge” lambastes Hollywood, the Republican Party, and feminism, but the primary focus of his ire is on society’s gender roles and sexuality in general.
“Myra” was written in 1968, during a time of great social change. It was, in fact, the start of what has been called the Sexual Revolution. Taboos were being destroyed. What was once considered “perverse” or “sexual deviance”, and once found only in the underground, was getting mainstream attention. The general public was becoming more aware, if not more accepting, of issues that no one ever spoke about in good company.
Vidal, a bisexual who was not afraid to admit to his bisexuality during a time in which such things were, in some states, actually considered crimes, paved the way for more openly-gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered writers and artists with his depiction of a man named Myron Breckenridge who undergoes a sex change operation to become Myra Breckenridge, a beautiful but conniving seductress bent on destroying social mores and traditional gender roles.
The plot “twist” happens late in the book, and, when the book was originally published, I’m sure that it was shocking to conservative readers. It is, however, not much of a plot twist anymore, considering how well-known the book is in contemporary American literature. Yet even to those readers not familiar with the book, reading it for the first time, the twist should not be much of a surprise or a shock. Indeed, the twist has ironically been usurped and re-used countless times in movies and TV shows---especially soap operas---as to have become laughable.
Still, “Myra Breckenridge” has the distinction of being the first to use it, which makes it a significant---if somewhat dubious---achievement.
By today’s standards, the book is almost silly. Vidal’s characters are more blatant stereotypes and cardboard cut-outs used as targets than actual two-dimensional people. There is also a disturbing cruelty within the book, culminating in a violent rape scene that almost seems to be played for laughs. Perhaps it is because it is a rape of a big, brawny he-man by a diminutive transsexual: an image that may have been considered so ridiculous as to be unbelievable by ‘60s audiences. There is, however, nothing ever funny about rape.
Up until that scene, the book was a humorous---and harmless---satire. The scene, unfortunately, taints the remainder of the book.
It is Vidal’s lesser-known but, in my opinion, much more entertaining 1974 sequel, “Myron” that Vidal’s strengths as a witty social critic shine.
In “Myron”, Myra no longer exists. She has been eliminated via rigorous psychotherapeutic sessions and numerous surgeries. (Gone are her now-famous breasts, and doctors have “recreated” Myron’s well-endowed penis using fatty tissue from his thigh.) He is living happily in a modest upper-middle-class suburban home with his beautiful wife, Mary Ann. While he is unable to have children, of course, it is a small price to pay for finally getting rid of that evil alter-ego.
One night, while watching a Late Show presentation of a classic 1948 (fictional) film called “Siren of Babylon” starring Maria Montez, Myron is inexplicably “pushed” into the TV and enters the set of the film.
Stuck in 1948 Hollywood and unable to get back to his home in 1972, Myron must make the best of his situation. Unfortunately, Myra has returned, popping up at the most inopportune times.
“Myron” is a surrealist time travel “Jeckyll and Hyde” fantasy story that pokes gleeful fun at Nixonian era politics (Watergate has just broke, and Myron, an ardent Nixon supporter, knows that Nixon had absolutely nothing to do with it), American consumerism, and the cult of celebrityhood.
Myra has a plan to change history by infiltrating the film “Siren of Babylon” to subtly make changes that would alter viewers perspectives and usher in an era of complete sexual freedom by the 1960s. Myron, of course, catches on to the plan and must do everything in his power to stop her and her polymorphous perversity.
I liked “Myron” much better than “Myra Breckenridge” if only because it was a shorter, tighter novel and Vidal had learned to loosen the reins of his social outrage slightly in the six years between the novels.
It says a lot that both novels seem relatively quaint and almost infantile by today’s standards, especially given the subject matter. We, as a society, have come a long way in terms of our awareness and acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism.*
Clearly, Myra’s plan succeeded...
*9/14/2025 addendum: Excluding, of course, anyone affiliated with FOX News or the trump administration...
Ostensibly, the book is about a lot of things. Vidal was a humorous and caustic social critic who, like some of his more relevant contemporaries (Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth), explored the inanity of the times (primarily the ‘60s and early-‘70s) through a surrealist lens. “Myra Breckenridge” lambastes Hollywood, the Republican Party, and feminism, but the primary focus of his ire is on society’s gender roles and sexuality in general.
“Myra” was written in 1968, during a time of great social change. It was, in fact, the start of what has been called the Sexual Revolution. Taboos were being destroyed. What was once considered “perverse” or “sexual deviance”, and once found only in the underground, was getting mainstream attention. The general public was becoming more aware, if not more accepting, of issues that no one ever spoke about in good company.
Vidal, a bisexual who was not afraid to admit to his bisexuality during a time in which such things were, in some states, actually considered crimes, paved the way for more openly-gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered writers and artists with his depiction of a man named Myron Breckenridge who undergoes a sex change operation to become Myra Breckenridge, a beautiful but conniving seductress bent on destroying social mores and traditional gender roles.
The plot “twist” happens late in the book, and, when the book was originally published, I’m sure that it was shocking to conservative readers. It is, however, not much of a plot twist anymore, considering how well-known the book is in contemporary American literature. Yet even to those readers not familiar with the book, reading it for the first time, the twist should not be much of a surprise or a shock. Indeed, the twist has ironically been usurped and re-used countless times in movies and TV shows---especially soap operas---as to have become laughable.
Still, “Myra Breckenridge” has the distinction of being the first to use it, which makes it a significant---if somewhat dubious---achievement.
By today’s standards, the book is almost silly. Vidal’s characters are more blatant stereotypes and cardboard cut-outs used as targets than actual two-dimensional people. There is also a disturbing cruelty within the book, culminating in a violent rape scene that almost seems to be played for laughs. Perhaps it is because it is a rape of a big, brawny he-man by a diminutive transsexual: an image that may have been considered so ridiculous as to be unbelievable by ‘60s audiences. There is, however, nothing ever funny about rape.
Up until that scene, the book was a humorous---and harmless---satire. The scene, unfortunately, taints the remainder of the book.
It is Vidal’s lesser-known but, in my opinion, much more entertaining 1974 sequel, “Myron” that Vidal’s strengths as a witty social critic shine.
In “Myron”, Myra no longer exists. She has been eliminated via rigorous psychotherapeutic sessions and numerous surgeries. (Gone are her now-famous breasts, and doctors have “recreated” Myron’s well-endowed penis using fatty tissue from his thigh.) He is living happily in a modest upper-middle-class suburban home with his beautiful wife, Mary Ann. While he is unable to have children, of course, it is a small price to pay for finally getting rid of that evil alter-ego.
One night, while watching a Late Show presentation of a classic 1948 (fictional) film called “Siren of Babylon” starring Maria Montez, Myron is inexplicably “pushed” into the TV and enters the set of the film.
Stuck in 1948 Hollywood and unable to get back to his home in 1972, Myron must make the best of his situation. Unfortunately, Myra has returned, popping up at the most inopportune times.
“Myron” is a surrealist time travel “Jeckyll and Hyde” fantasy story that pokes gleeful fun at Nixonian era politics (Watergate has just broke, and Myron, an ardent Nixon supporter, knows that Nixon had absolutely nothing to do with it), American consumerism, and the cult of celebrityhood.
Myra has a plan to change history by infiltrating the film “Siren of Babylon” to subtly make changes that would alter viewers perspectives and usher in an era of complete sexual freedom by the 1960s. Myron, of course, catches on to the plan and must do everything in his power to stop her and her polymorphous perversity.
I liked “Myron” much better than “Myra Breckenridge” if only because it was a shorter, tighter novel and Vidal had learned to loosen the reins of his social outrage slightly in the six years between the novels.
It says a lot that both novels seem relatively quaint and almost infantile by today’s standards, especially given the subject matter. We, as a society, have come a long way in terms of our awareness and acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism.*
Clearly, Myra’s plan succeeded...
*9/14/2025 addendum: Excluding, of course, anyone affiliated with FOX News or the trump administration...
March 20, 2012
Myra Breckinridge (1968) is a scabrous genderbender satire about an untouchable woman(?) out to claim her fortune from a sleazy Hollywood mogul. If you’re familiar with Gore Vidal’s haughtiness from one of his incalculable TV appearances it might take a moment to settle into this female(?) voice, but once the farcical frolics begin the novel is heap-good-fun. Among the more notorious scenes are Myra’s dildo rape of male chauvinist Rusty, and her failure to achieve Sapphic congress with the defiantly heterosexual Mary-Ann. Seen here in the appalling film version with the perfectly cast Raquel Welch. This book is notable also for Vidal’s use of nouveau roman S-o-C in the mogul’s narrative—his opinion on the French avant-garde was famously low, so what gives, Gore? Five stars. Myron (1974) is the patchy, semi-sci-fi sequel where Myron (the male Myra) is sucked back onto the set of Siren of Babylon, a fictional 1948 movie where his alter-ego Myra wrestles for domination of his/her body, like Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill but with castration instead of murder. Not for the squeamish this one. And largely incoherent, so not for anyone at all, really. Three stars.
March 17, 2009
I have no idea how this would read to somebody not familiar with classic Hollywood cinema (for as it is cheekily reiterated on several occasions: "in the decade between 1935 and 1945, no irrelevant film was made in the United States", emphasis NOT mine), if only because so much of the razor-sharp humor is wrapped up in knowing things like the ridiculous plot of The Seventh Veil or the absurdity of offhandedly proclaiming Since You Went Away a masterpiece or the humor in finding "the curve to the masculine buttocks" of Tim Holt's character in The Magnificent Ambersons as "entirely attractive," etc, etc, etc.
But judging from many of the comments here that's not essential to enjoying the bewildering, campy fun of Vidal's satire, which slyly skewers everything from SoCal culture to East Coast intellectualism to psychology to film to television to pop culture via the supremely self-confident, blithely insular observations of the self-created titular character. Unfortunately the narrative is such a delicately-balanced confection that it can't sustain itself, and after the truly surreal "conquest" of Rusty I found each chapter less interesting than the succeeding one (and I couldn't help but be severely let down by the story's conclusion), but I found myself tittering ridiculously so often in public that I had to finally make the decision to read the novel only in the privacy of my own home...
"Myra Breckinridge is a dish, and never forget it, you motherfuckers, as the children say nowadays."
But judging from many of the comments here that's not essential to enjoying the bewildering, campy fun of Vidal's satire, which slyly skewers everything from SoCal culture to East Coast intellectualism to psychology to film to television to pop culture via the supremely self-confident, blithely insular observations of the self-created titular character. Unfortunately the narrative is such a delicately-balanced confection that it can't sustain itself, and after the truly surreal "conquest" of Rusty I found each chapter less interesting than the succeeding one (and I couldn't help but be severely let down by the story's conclusion), but I found myself tittering ridiculously so often in public that I had to finally make the decision to read the novel only in the privacy of my own home...
"Myra Breckinridge is a dish, and never forget it, you motherfuckers, as the children say nowadays."
February 17, 2009
I will give you one star because your prose is so delightfully bitchy, Gore Vidal- especially the introduction, told from the point of view of "Gore Vidal"- but no more because this book is bad stupid. Like, okay, sure, dumb fluff, sixties queerness, obsessing about the movies of the forties because you're a silly two-dimensional cartoon, all that stuff is great. But, just as you get to write about trans women without doing any research (and therefore just make stuff up, like 'estrogen impedes healing' and 'estrogen kills beards'), I get to call you on it. AND the thing with the mind-blowing disclosure that the protagonist is trans? It was boring the first time (even though, okay, Myra Breckinridge might actually have been the first time). Also rape isn't funny.
You know what is funny though? I am three songs into it and the new trail of dead album is good. I had given up on those guys, written them off as bar-owning hipsters more interested in navel-gazing and hiring violinists than in actually making the awesome screamy rocknroll they used to when I used to love them, but this record (the century of self) is- not a return to form, exactly, but at least it is loud and there is yelling.
Well look: there is no goodreads for records, except, like, amazon, and fuck amazon.
You know what is funny though? I am three songs into it and the new trail of dead album is good. I had given up on those guys, written them off as bar-owning hipsters more interested in navel-gazing and hiring violinists than in actually making the awesome screamy rocknroll they used to when I used to love them, but this record (the century of self) is- not a return to form, exactly, but at least it is loud and there is yelling.
Well look: there is no goodreads for records, except, like, amazon, and fuck amazon.
April 5, 2014
Very daring in its day, this satire remains hilarious and thought provoking. Anais Nin, one of Vidal's lovers, was an inspiration for the grandiose voice of Myra while the perverse sophistication is the author's own. While these two books enabled many of us to cast aside our Sky God inhibitions the same prudes and hypocrites remain in charge. Well, they can't stop us being consensual adults in private or preventing the twenty year fetish club debauch I managed while, er, researching my own books. (Now deader than Cro-Magnon man.)
The maddest people I met, and briefly became, were those like Myron/Myra on the transgender spectrum (they'd probably want to dispute that term. And anything else you could think of.). S/he doesn't disappoint when it comes to howling at the moon although s/he's also wise and witty.
Good to see pretentious French film theory getting a well deserved ribbing but the major pleasure is Myra's acid putdowns and worldly wise sensuality, some of it hot enough for erotica. And to think the Al Grauniad's Mark Lawson considered Vidal not as great as mega bores Phillip Roth or Saul Bellow. Gore Vidal covered more ground in more genres than any of the Great American Novel droners. While also succeeding in the theatre, Hollywood, television and as a genuine pre-trash celebrity.
The maddest people I met, and briefly became, were those like Myron/Myra on the transgender spectrum (they'd probably want to dispute that term. And anything else you could think of.). S/he doesn't disappoint when it comes to howling at the moon although s/he's also wise and witty.
Good to see pretentious French film theory getting a well deserved ribbing but the major pleasure is Myra's acid putdowns and worldly wise sensuality, some of it hot enough for erotica. And to think the Al Grauniad's Mark Lawson considered Vidal not as great as mega bores Phillip Roth or Saul Bellow. Gore Vidal covered more ground in more genres than any of the Great American Novel droners. While also succeeding in the theatre, Hollywood, television and as a genuine pre-trash celebrity.
February 21, 2011
One of the most delicious, camp meditations on American pop culture ever committed to print. Gore Vidal has written a comedy of bad manners to rival Sheridan and WIlde.
Pointedly vulgar, deliriously savvy, this novel knows exactly what it wants to do from its first moments. The first-person narrator announces the death of mataphor early on and then relates the entire lurid saga sticking to those ideological guns. Hilarious and brilliant and exactly right for the character and the world depicted.
What's fascinating to me is that MYRON is actually the more "dazzling" of the two novels, and yet it is the earlier book that gets allt he attention. No matter...
It it rude? Yes. Is it cruel. You'd better believe it. Is it funny? You will blow soda out your nose if you aren't careful about sip-timing. Vidal's prose, chyaracetrs, and setting have the kind of lunatic precision of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and more than a little of its libertine excesses.
HIghly highly recommended to anyone with a sense of history and a sense of humor.
Pointedly vulgar, deliriously savvy, this novel knows exactly what it wants to do from its first moments. The first-person narrator announces the death of mataphor early on and then relates the entire lurid saga sticking to those ideological guns. Hilarious and brilliant and exactly right for the character and the world depicted.
What's fascinating to me is that MYRON is actually the more "dazzling" of the two novels, and yet it is the earlier book that gets allt he attention. No matter...
It it rude? Yes. Is it cruel. You'd better believe it. Is it funny? You will blow soda out your nose if you aren't careful about sip-timing. Vidal's prose, chyaracetrs, and setting have the kind of lunatic precision of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and more than a little of its libertine excesses.
HIghly highly recommended to anyone with a sense of history and a sense of humor.
September 25, 2008
Bah, humbug. Everybody loves this book, and all I see is an uptight Cape Cod queen getting jealous after reading "Naked Lunch" and thinking "I can write like that!" Well, you can't Miss Gore. I'll stick to watching Raquel Welch tramp around in her foxy flag outfit.
September 8, 2009
Myra Breckinridge is one Sick Twist. I found this book shocking...and I am not easily shocked. Myra is a trannie, a sadist, a revolutionary and completely nuts.
However, Vidal's 1968 title character cannot be classified with most of the one-dimensional psycho transgender characters so common in our cultural production (Dressed to Kill, Sleepaway Camp and Silence of the Lambs to name a few). Myra believes that all human relations are based on "the desire in each of us to exercise absolute power over others." Her quest is to become an "all powerful user of men." Though her methods are brutal, her fierceness is admirable and her biting social commentary is astounding.
Gore Vidal's writing is groundbreaking stuff. Beyond the explicit explorations of sex and power, he also slips in passages like the following:
"the good drive cars that fill the air with the foul odor of burning fossils, and so day by day our lungs fill up with the stuff of great ferns and dinosaurs who thus revenge themselves upon their successors, causing us to wither and die prematurely, as did they."
I recommend this book with the following warning
***SPOILER***
that it contains a long and detailed non-consensual sex scene
However, Vidal's 1968 title character cannot be classified with most of the one-dimensional psycho transgender characters so common in our cultural production (Dressed to Kill, Sleepaway Camp and Silence of the Lambs to name a few). Myra believes that all human relations are based on "the desire in each of us to exercise absolute power over others." Her quest is to become an "all powerful user of men." Though her methods are brutal, her fierceness is admirable and her biting social commentary is astounding.
Gore Vidal's writing is groundbreaking stuff. Beyond the explicit explorations of sex and power, he also slips in passages like the following:
"the good drive cars that fill the air with the foul odor of burning fossils, and so day by day our lungs fill up with the stuff of great ferns and dinosaurs who thus revenge themselves upon their successors, causing us to wither and die prematurely, as did they."
I recommend this book with the following warning
***SPOILER***
that it contains a long and detailed non-consensual sex scene
January 1, 2012
Two of the greatest satires ever written. Two of my favorite books of all time. I was reading a book by a current best-selling comedic author. I was in a state of un-grippedness. Read like a book being written in preparation for getting optioned as a movie (no style, which is very popular nowadays). I picked up Myra Breckenridge and read the first chapter (two pages long). I laughed out loud and was in awe. THIS IS WRITING.
Vidal is one of the greatest writers ever. One of my personal heroes.
Vidal is one of the greatest writers ever. One of my personal heroes.
October 4, 2019
It's a tribute to Vidal's creation that Myra Breckenridge still leaps off the page as an incandescent star even in these jaded and cynical times, when gender realignment, reassignment, and binary awareness are familiar concepts. With a reverence for Hollywood's Golden Age, Myra rides roughshod over Buck Loner and his Acting Academy. She is a bigger star than any of the students are ever likely to be (especially Rusty, poor chap), she - "at whose feet the proudest men have grovelled, wincing beneath the lash of her scorn, whimpering for a chance to hold in their arms her fragile, too lovely for this world, or at least their world, body. I am Woman." Camp-tastic stuff.
The sequel, Myron, follows a life or death struggle, between Myra and her alter-ego, being trapped in a nightmarish otherworld of the movie set of a 50s sword and sandal epic. Some interesting views on population control, but by this time Megalomaniac Myra is less appealing.
The sequel, Myron, follows a life or death struggle, between Myra and her alter-ego, being trapped in a nightmarish otherworld of the movie set of a 50s sword and sandal epic. Some interesting views on population control, but by this time Megalomaniac Myra is less appealing.
November 9, 2014
I remember hearing all of the uproar over this book when I was young but this was the first time that I had read it. Maybe I would have liked it better years ago but now I just don't see the appeal. I'd always heard that it was a sophisticated, witty novel. All I read was a story that was very antagonistic toward transgenders and (here comes a spoiler so if you don't want to know, please stop reading) I also can't get over the rape scene. I'm certainly no prude, but the fact that a teacher tortured and raped a student who trusted her just isn't my idea of good literature.
Sorry but I can't recommend this book.
Sorry but I can't recommend this book.
Want to read
September 30, 2015Not the second one, that one's not supposed to be any good. Just the first one.
April 3, 2022
I'm not even sure how to discuss Myra Breckenridge. Both the book and the character is so obviously meant to be shocking that it's difficult to tell what's meant to be offensive and what is just accidentally so.
If you don't know the twist of the story, I won't spoil it here, but one of the main faults of the novel is that Gore forgoes really delving into this truly entertaining and interesting character in lieu of lingering on shocking descriptions of sexual assault and out and out rape. But then, I guess you have to read it as what the book is meant to be. A missile aimed at the heart of conservative culture; at an America that in 1968 will shortly elect Richard Nixon. Not only is Gore trying to forcibly normalise bi and homosexuality, but he is at the same taking glee in the prejudices and fantasies of a presumably conservative reader. Myra Breckenridge is both a breath of fresh air and also every Helen Lovejoy's nightmare. It's what makes every scene with her so much fun. Aided by the witty and sharp writing, it makes the harder to read portions of the novel just about bearable. it's funny, actually, the bits that most troubled me weren't the orgies or the descriptions of anal sex, but the casual racism Myra also deploys.
The copy I had also came with Myron, which is a sequel to the book that was released in the early 70's (notably after Nixon's election), but it doesn't have the same magic as Myra. It suffers from a continuation of the problems in the first book. The character of Myra Breckenridge is so remarkably fully formed from the first page, but Gore never has anything for her to really do. She wants to make it in Hollywood, but the book is so timid about it, and she never gets further than the acting studio her husband Myron is tangentially related to. Even her forays into forcing the people around her into surgery feels prudish. Like even Gore didn't dare have her go through with that she so wants to do to someone else, the sub-plot stopping short of cutting off an actor's balls. It ends in what could be an interesting metaphor, but is hamstrung by the feeling that even the author wasn't really sure how to end the book.
If you don't know the twist of the story, I won't spoil it here, but one of the main faults of the novel is that Gore forgoes really delving into this truly entertaining and interesting character in lieu of lingering on shocking descriptions of sexual assault and out and out rape. But then, I guess you have to read it as what the book is meant to be. A missile aimed at the heart of conservative culture; at an America that in 1968 will shortly elect Richard Nixon. Not only is Gore trying to forcibly normalise bi and homosexuality, but he is at the same taking glee in the prejudices and fantasies of a presumably conservative reader. Myra Breckenridge is both a breath of fresh air and also every Helen Lovejoy's nightmare. It's what makes every scene with her so much fun. Aided by the witty and sharp writing, it makes the harder to read portions of the novel just about bearable. it's funny, actually, the bits that most troubled me weren't the orgies or the descriptions of anal sex, but the casual racism Myra also deploys.
The copy I had also came with Myron, which is a sequel to the book that was released in the early 70's (notably after Nixon's election), but it doesn't have the same magic as Myra. It suffers from a continuation of the problems in the first book. The character of Myra Breckenridge is so remarkably fully formed from the first page, but Gore never has anything for her to really do. She wants to make it in Hollywood, but the book is so timid about it, and she never gets further than the acting studio her husband Myron is tangentially related to. Even her forays into forcing the people around her into surgery feels prudish. Like even Gore didn't dare have her go through with that she so wants to do to someone else, the sub-plot stopping short of cutting off an actor's balls. It ends in what could be an interesting metaphor, but is hamstrung by the feeling that even the author wasn't really sure how to end the book.
April 18, 2020
One of the best things I've ever read! Absolutely riotous. Myron isn't quite as good as Myra Breckinridge, but read 'em both. Myron's fantastical elements makes it harder to plausibly believe, but after about 50-60 pages, you're into it. This book and its sequel are not to be missed. Trigger warning for some weird-ass sexual violence.
February 6, 2017
Today author Gore Vidal is mostly known for his Narratives of Empire series of seven novels on American history published between 1967 and 2000. These books (Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, Washington, D.C., and The Golden Age) tell the history of the American Empire through the lives of two fictional families and their interactions with real figures in American history. Few recall the critical uproar caused by his 1948 novel The City and the Pillar that dealt frankly with male homosexuality. And while many recall Myra Breckinridge, it is usually the 1970 film (often listed as one of the worst films ever made), not Vidal's 1968 best-selling novel, that people remember. The 1974 sequel Myron is largely forgotten.
Myra Breckinridge and its sequel Myron are two novels that were very much a product of their times, the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s. In his 1993 Introduction to this volume combining the two, Vidal quotes poet Thom Gunn as saying "These two books [are] the twentieth-century equivalents of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass." They form part of a series of completely fictional novels that Vidal calls his satirical inventions, that also include Messiah, Kalki, and Duluth. In the 2014 biographical documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia Vidal says of the novel: "When I start an entirely invented book like Myra, I seldom start with anything more than a sentence that has taken possession of me. In this case, 'I am Myra Breckenridge whom no man will ever possess.' Who was she? I could only find out if I kept on writing. It was not until I was half way through the story that I realized that she had been a male who changed his sex."
Told as a series of entries in a therapy journal kept by Myra for her analyst and doctor, the novel tells the story of her arriving in Hollywood to meet retired film star "Buck" Loner who now runs the Academy of Drama and Modeling on the fifty acres of land that once held his father's orange groves. Myra claims to be his nephew Myron's widow. She tells Buck that his sister, her mother-in-law Gertrude, always told her and Myron that her father's property was left jointly to her and Buck, and that she passed on the rights to her half to Myron and Myra. Myron was a film critic who studied the films of the 1930s and 40s. Myra tells Buck that Myron fell off the Staten Island Ferry and drowned. When Buck offers Myra a job teaching at the Academy as their lawyers work out the details of the inheritance, the plot is set for the novel.
I was surprised at how much of this novel is about film theory and criticism. Myra's stated goal in the novel is to finish writing Myron's book Parker Tyler and the Films of the Forties; or, the Transcendental Pantheon. I had to look up Parker Tyler who it turns out was a New York film critic who wrote on gay and underground films from the mid-40s to the mid-70s when he died. Throughout the book Myra exhibits an encyclopedic knowledge of the films of the first half of the 20th century. So while this book is one of the earliest novels about a transgender character, it is not really written to provide insight into the concerns and problems of a transgender person, which often disappoints its audience. Both these books are social satires on sexuality that explore Vidal's belief that people are basically bisexual and that gender roles and sexual orientation are social constructs established by societal norms.
If Myra Breckinridge is a satire on social norms with Myra as a modern Alice visiting a Hollywood wonderland, the second book Myron is a Through the Looking Glass time travel sci-fi satire where Myron, now happily married and living in the suburbs, falls through the screen of his television one night while watching the 1948 MGM movie Siren of Babylon starring Maria Montez. He lands on the set of the film in production just at the scene he was watching, and is trapped in the Hollywood past with a group of other viewers who seem to stumble through the screen each time the film is aired on TV. The actors on the set cannot see these visitors from the future, but once Myron leaves the set, the local people outside the studio and across the street at the neighborhood hotel can see the people they call out of towners who have taken up residence there. Here Myron starts to struggle with his alter personality Myra for control of their body with comic effect. The locals and the other out of towners are left wondering at this strange person with dual gendered personalities. While Myron seeks to get back to his wife and life in the suburbs, Myra wants to save MGM at this crucial point in their history and recreate a golden age of film. She also has a plan to save the world from overpopulation that is unique. I find the time travel paradoxes handled quite well by the author. The two books together like this in a single volume make for great reading. They have inspired me to take a look at other of Vidal's satirical invention novels.
Myra Breckinridge and its sequel Myron are two novels that were very much a product of their times, the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s. In his 1993 Introduction to this volume combining the two, Vidal quotes poet Thom Gunn as saying "These two books [are] the twentieth-century equivalents of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass." They form part of a series of completely fictional novels that Vidal calls his satirical inventions, that also include Messiah, Kalki, and Duluth. In the 2014 biographical documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia Vidal says of the novel: "When I start an entirely invented book like Myra, I seldom start with anything more than a sentence that has taken possession of me. In this case, 'I am Myra Breckenridge whom no man will ever possess.' Who was she? I could only find out if I kept on writing. It was not until I was half way through the story that I realized that she had been a male who changed his sex."
Told as a series of entries in a therapy journal kept by Myra for her analyst and doctor, the novel tells the story of her arriving in Hollywood to meet retired film star "Buck" Loner who now runs the Academy of Drama and Modeling on the fifty acres of land that once held his father's orange groves. Myra claims to be his nephew Myron's widow. She tells Buck that his sister, her mother-in-law Gertrude, always told her and Myron that her father's property was left jointly to her and Buck, and that she passed on the rights to her half to Myron and Myra. Myron was a film critic who studied the films of the 1930s and 40s. Myra tells Buck that Myron fell off the Staten Island Ferry and drowned. When Buck offers Myra a job teaching at the Academy as their lawyers work out the details of the inheritance, the plot is set for the novel.
I was surprised at how much of this novel is about film theory and criticism. Myra's stated goal in the novel is to finish writing Myron's book Parker Tyler and the Films of the Forties; or, the Transcendental Pantheon. I had to look up Parker Tyler who it turns out was a New York film critic who wrote on gay and underground films from the mid-40s to the mid-70s when he died. Throughout the book Myra exhibits an encyclopedic knowledge of the films of the first half of the 20th century. So while this book is one of the earliest novels about a transgender character, it is not really written to provide insight into the concerns and problems of a transgender person, which often disappoints its audience. Both these books are social satires on sexuality that explore Vidal's belief that people are basically bisexual and that gender roles and sexual orientation are social constructs established by societal norms.
If Myra Breckinridge is a satire on social norms with Myra as a modern Alice visiting a Hollywood wonderland, the second book Myron is a Through the Looking Glass time travel sci-fi satire where Myron, now happily married and living in the suburbs, falls through the screen of his television one night while watching the 1948 MGM movie Siren of Babylon starring Maria Montez. He lands on the set of the film in production just at the scene he was watching, and is trapped in the Hollywood past with a group of other viewers who seem to stumble through the screen each time the film is aired on TV. The actors on the set cannot see these visitors from the future, but once Myron leaves the set, the local people outside the studio and across the street at the neighborhood hotel can see the people they call out of towners who have taken up residence there. Here Myron starts to struggle with his alter personality Myra for control of their body with comic effect. The locals and the other out of towners are left wondering at this strange person with dual gendered personalities. While Myron seeks to get back to his wife and life in the suburbs, Myra wants to save MGM at this crucial point in their history and recreate a golden age of film. She also has a plan to save the world from overpopulation that is unique. I find the time travel paradoxes handled quite well by the author. The two books together like this in a single volume make for great reading. They have inspired me to take a look at other of Vidal's satirical invention novels.
October 2, 2007
Another old blog...
I recently finished reading Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge and the sequel, Myron. I don't really know what more to say about this book other than it was about a freakin' SCHIZOPHRENIC TRANSEXUAL! It was pretty funny, in it's own way, but is also kind of intimidating in it's discussions of sexual power over others, and the things some (psychotic) people will do to attain that power. Myra Breckenridge was written entirely from the perspective of post-sex-change Myra (formerly Myron), who is posing as Myron's widow and teaches Posture and Empathy classes at an acting school in Hollywood. The sequel, Myron, is written after the sex change has been reversed, and Myron is the dominant personality...but not for long! The story gets incredibly insane, with the characters being sucked into the set of Siren of Babylon through the TV, suddenly going back in time from 1973 to 1948, Myra's favorite year for film. During the entire book, Myron and Myra struggle for control of their body, with ridiculous hijinks and strange happenings...not to mention dirty molestations of young "studs" and shocking sexual appetites.
For being a random pick off the shelf, this book was truly entertaining. Also, as I was mentioning the book to other people, many of them had heard of it. I hadn't heard of it, unfortunately, so I didn't get to sound smart and knowing about how well-known the book is....but that's ok. Now I know. It is well-known because it was so controversial at the time it was published (1969) and, for that matter, probably still is.
However, although it was funny and strangely intriguing, I also found it depressing at points. I suppose the hopeless romantic in me found it depressing to think of all sexual acts as vehicles for power and possession.... Also, the extreme amount of detail and planning that went into Myra's "destruction" of a young man by violating him when he was most vulnerable, was rather sickening. She was cold and power-hungry, and on a psychotic mission to revolutionize the patriarchal power of men, and at the same time, reduce world population and become a hero. The whole thing, although sick, is really hilarious in it's very preposterousness. You just can't believe that any person, even a schizophrenic transsexual, would think that she/he alone could overthrow patriarchy and stop people from making babies.
I recently finished reading Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge and the sequel, Myron. I don't really know what more to say about this book other than it was about a freakin' SCHIZOPHRENIC TRANSEXUAL! It was pretty funny, in it's own way, but is also kind of intimidating in it's discussions of sexual power over others, and the things some (psychotic) people will do to attain that power. Myra Breckenridge was written entirely from the perspective of post-sex-change Myra (formerly Myron), who is posing as Myron's widow and teaches Posture and Empathy classes at an acting school in Hollywood. The sequel, Myron, is written after the sex change has been reversed, and Myron is the dominant personality...but not for long! The story gets incredibly insane, with the characters being sucked into the set of Siren of Babylon through the TV, suddenly going back in time from 1973 to 1948, Myra's favorite year for film. During the entire book, Myron and Myra struggle for control of their body, with ridiculous hijinks and strange happenings...not to mention dirty molestations of young "studs" and shocking sexual appetites.
For being a random pick off the shelf, this book was truly entertaining. Also, as I was mentioning the book to other people, many of them had heard of it. I hadn't heard of it, unfortunately, so I didn't get to sound smart and knowing about how well-known the book is....but that's ok. Now I know. It is well-known because it was so controversial at the time it was published (1969) and, for that matter, probably still is.
However, although it was funny and strangely intriguing, I also found it depressing at points. I suppose the hopeless romantic in me found it depressing to think of all sexual acts as vehicles for power and possession.... Also, the extreme amount of detail and planning that went into Myra's "destruction" of a young man by violating him when he was most vulnerable, was rather sickening. She was cold and power-hungry, and on a psychotic mission to revolutionize the patriarchal power of men, and at the same time, reduce world population and become a hero. The whole thing, although sick, is really hilarious in it's very preposterousness. You just can't believe that any person, even a schizophrenic transsexual, would think that she/he alone could overthrow patriarchy and stop people from making babies.
July 23, 2017
Like Heinlein laying off "Stranger in a Strange Land" until the big cultural wheel turned into the 60s. Free love meant that everybody was running beyond any capacity to shock sexually; tearing down the last great wall of conservatism in a taggle of arms, legs and other dangly body parts. How did we get so staid again? Oh yeah, a killer sex plague! Handily, a moral weapon to aim at homosexuals in particular. Saved!
A graphic novel. Sadly, the big reveal of the story was known to me... somehow; but the real power in any story in any media is whether it can survive its mysteries and surprises being stripped from it. It adds some appreciation of Vidal's navigation of the physical aspects of this construction. Whilst he waits for the cultural revolution to pitch his work into; he then attempts to define it using the imagery of the previous generation. I checked Vidal wasn't making up film titles from the 30s and 40s. Myra venerates the era; declares young adults of the tv times to be virtually brain dead and America lost; with commercials the only source of real creativity; and Brando the last real man and punished accordingly in all his films, beaten up for his virility. So a film buffs delight and a pleasure for an American novel to worship at the altar of its own unique cultural invention.
This book has a fizzling half life before it becomes leaden and it chases that dawn and just manages to cross the line. It is energetic and lewd and it knocks you sidewise into another sexual paradigm; from where all the conceits and comfortable consolations about male /female concepts and ideas about relationships look tame, dull and ridiculously chaining. It, borrowed from another American invention, manages to be science fiction in its lateralness.
A graphic novel. Sadly, the big reveal of the story was known to me... somehow; but the real power in any story in any media is whether it can survive its mysteries and surprises being stripped from it. It adds some appreciation of Vidal's navigation of the physical aspects of this construction. Whilst he waits for the cultural revolution to pitch his work into; he then attempts to define it using the imagery of the previous generation. I checked Vidal wasn't making up film titles from the 30s and 40s. Myra venerates the era; declares young adults of the tv times to be virtually brain dead and America lost; with commercials the only source of real creativity; and Brando the last real man and punished accordingly in all his films, beaten up for his virility. So a film buffs delight and a pleasure for an American novel to worship at the altar of its own unique cultural invention.
This book has a fizzling half life before it becomes leaden and it chases that dawn and just manages to cross the line. It is energetic and lewd and it knocks you sidewise into another sexual paradigm; from where all the conceits and comfortable consolations about male /female concepts and ideas about relationships look tame, dull and ridiculously chaining. It, borrowed from another American invention, manages to be science fiction in its lateralness.
September 14, 2016
Fifty years after its original publication, Gore Vidal's comic masterpiece MYRA BRECKINRIDGE still feels fresher than a summer's eve. While an obsessive knowledge of 1940's American cinema certainly enhances the delirious pleasure of experiencing MYRA, its razor-sharp satire of show biz, "aberrant" "lifestyle" "choices", gender politics and pansexual panic seems absolutely contemporary, and is more relevant and necessary than ever. Like CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. it's timeless, relentless and laugh-out-loud hilarious. And much, much filthier, with a notorious explicit centerpiece (not to be spoiled here) that left this ninth-grader with the same two uncontrollable physical reactions every time I re-read that chapter, one of which was giggling. MYRON, the equally delectable sequel, is insanely underrated and features a time-travel premise crafted with such wicked, intriguing brilliance I've always wondered if it influenced Bob Zemeckis' BACK TO THE FUTURE, which, luckily for its family-film classic-status, featured none of MYRON's perverse sexual overtones. It's still quite outrageous, even for 1974, by which time grade-schoolers were discussing deep-throating and masturbation via crucifix on the playground, and with a dash of covert precision, could discreetly flip through the entire new issue of PLAYGIRL at the magazine rack in the front of the drugstore while their mother was in the back filling their ear-ache medication Rx. So I've heard...
March 1, 2017
Laugh-out-loud funny. Shocking, vulgar, bawdy. Initially found it intriguing because no, had never read anything like this before. Found Gore Vidal to be clever and initially it held my interest -- picked the book up simply because I wanted to see what Vidal was all about as a esteemed writer of our time. While initially I felt that this was a 4-star work, I definitely dinged it for "the scene" toward the end with Rusty and Myra. Since I don't want a spoiler here, not going to elaborate.....but if you have read this, you definitely know what "the scene" is. It was traumatic and after that point, the humor was lost on me. Front end of the book felt light and fun: "When we arrived at the house, the door was opened by Clem, who wore nothing but glasses and a large door key on a chain about his neck. He is extremely hairy, which I don't like, and though he did not have an erection and so could not be fairly judged, his prick is small and rather dimal-looking as if too many people had chewed on it..." Back end, however, just felt kind of perverted and heavy and dark (I don't think I am particularly prudish, either, but perhaps so and I am showing my stripes -- I have not read Jerzy Kosinski in many years, but loved his work...isn't he weird too? He never made me feel crappy...). Anyway, in the end I kind of checked out -- was disengaged, skimming, waiting for it to end. So, now I have read a Gore Vidal book. Check.
December 27, 2008
This is my 3rd time reading Myra and my 2nd time reading Myron, and they are as brilliant as i remember. Though I didn't laugh quite as hard this time, simply because jokes aren't as funny the 3rd time you hear them, I still would put Myra Breckinridge up there with A Confederacy of Dunces as one of the funniest books ever written. Myra is two of the most fiercely unique characters ever created, and Vidal's take on gender, sexuality, & morality is genius. Wish I could have read this when it was 1st published back in 1968 to get the full impact, as I'm sure the shock value has been quite diluted over the past 4 decades. I wouldn't exactly call it tame by today's standards, as there are still plenty of people who would find it perverted and disgusting. I think that most novels (or films, etc) that have this much initial shock value really don't have much substance once the shock wears off, but that is not the case here. Myron is excellent too, though I'm always skeptical of sequels. But Myron is as inventive, adventurous, and hilarious as Myra. I do note, however, that my gay friends appreciate Myra more than my straight friends do. Highly recommended.
December 25, 2013
Myra Breckinridge states at the beginning of her book that her mission is to ‘re-create the sexes’ for the good of the human race and her campy, movie obsessed voice dominates this frothy novel by Gore Vidal. The plot involves her attempt to acquire her dead husband’s share of an inheritance of land in Westwood from his uncle, a former actor called Buck Loner who now runs an Academy for aspiring actors on the property. He takes her on as a teacher of Posture and Empathy at the Academy while his lawyers try to prove she was never married to his nephew. She goes about abusing and seducing her students in humorous fashion, tossing off witty comments about hippies and the counterculture, Los Angeles, the rise of the Television Commercial and likening it all to American films of the decade from 1935 to 1945 when “the entire range of human (which is to say, American) legend was put on film”. While she may not succeed in her overarching quest to better humanity, she does create a vivid eccentric who comes alive off the page, a hyper observant, damaged, funny, open-minded prophet who brings forth a new vision of sex freed from the human form.
March 1, 2019
This is the first Gore Vidal novel I have read and I’m certainly not disappointed. I have always seen the human species as the agents of the apocalypse and my only criticism of that species is that it is so slow in completing its work. In this literary masterpiece and very clever anti-human satire I seem to have found an unsentimental and eloquent voice that’s in agreement. Myra’s observations on nuclear devastation, environmental destruction and the end of the human race challenge the very pessimism that the late sixties/early seventies spawned by actually seeing these events as both ‘inevitable and desirable’; and by presenting the paradox that the only way to save it is not to have children yourself. This novel is very ‘walk on the wild side’ and comes from that miniscule period in human history when a few brave souls used drugs, sexuality and deviance in an attempt to take its species away from its role as the destroyers of their own planet. Luckily their sacrifice was in vain, and we utopians can look to the future with optimism that, once again, all will be dust …
July 17, 2008
Being two separate books, this requires two reviews.
Myra Breckenridge is the predecessor to transgressive literature. One can see how much Palahniuk pulled from Vidal's delivery of the twist when he wrote Fight Club. Vidal succeeds with his tremendous feat of combining obscene ideas with satirical and critical opinions of materialist America and its conservative agendas.
Myron is a less funny, a less extreme, a less innovative, a less interesting version of Myra. Throwing the couple into 1940s Hollywood is a rather ridiculous plot and the massive amounts of references aren't at all transcendent of time. The references date the book and I doubt many in the 70s who read the book knew them all. The books satire is recycled from its antecedent and doesn't do anything the original didn't.
Myra Breckenridge is the predecessor to transgressive literature. One can see how much Palahniuk pulled from Vidal's delivery of the twist when he wrote Fight Club. Vidal succeeds with his tremendous feat of combining obscene ideas with satirical and critical opinions of materialist America and its conservative agendas.
Myron is a less funny, a less extreme, a less innovative, a less interesting version of Myra. Throwing the couple into 1940s Hollywood is a rather ridiculous plot and the massive amounts of references aren't at all transcendent of time. The references date the book and I doubt many in the 70s who read the book knew them all. The books satire is recycled from its antecedent and doesn't do anything the original didn't.
April 22, 2014
I genuinely still don't know what to make of these two novels, which I read back to back over Easter. They were recommended by a work colleague with a taste for the outrageous, so maybe I should not have been surprised, but for a novel which is clearly so literary to be so bizarre and out there was a new one on me! The language and attitudes are rather outdated (the novels were written in 1968 and 1974 respectively and it shows)but the satire on American life and attitudes remains pretty sharp.
However, the most striking things about both novels are the way Vidal unflinchingly revels in the sexual deviancy of Myra/Myron and the equally outrageous and unlikely plot twists.
Certainly a great read if you want 'something different', but not for anyone who takes their literature too seriously or is easily shocked!
However, the most striking things about both novels are the way Vidal unflinchingly revels in the sexual deviancy of Myra/Myron and the equally outrageous and unlikely plot twists.
Certainly a great read if you want 'something different', but not for anyone who takes their literature too seriously or is easily shocked!
Read
January 25, 2012Looking at the world through the eyes of a 1950s starlet who thinks she is the sexiest woman alive was fun. Gore Vidal created a cartoon-like character, Myra, who has modeled herself after numerous Hollywood stars and has delusions of her own grandeur. The book was entertaining, gender-bending, and it seems fairly shocking and subversive for its time of publishing in 1968. Although, now its rape scene and transgender character come off as strange and unrealistic rather than subversive. I am still perplexed about the theme or message of the story but I did embrace the fantasy of seeing the world through Myra's eyes.
January 1, 2015
This is a strange, dark, gruesomely amusing and darkly cutting pair of novels. The edition I have has both novels in it. In the first, Myron is Myra - megalomaniacal, narcissistic, single minded and powerful. There is one particular scene in the novel which is both pivotal and shocking and is what caused the book to be banned in Australia at least. The second novel, Myron, is even stranger. Myron finds himself trapped inside the TV during a filming of a B-rate Hollywood move in 1948. But chapter by chapter, Myra breaks through, determined to change the course of the movie and the course of the world. These books aren't for the faint hearted, but were brilliantly written.
May 3, 2008
"Or as Diotima said to Hyperion, in Hölderlin's novel, 'It was no man that you wanted, believe me; you wanted a world.' I too want a world and mean to have it."
"Is it possible to describe anything accurately? That is the problem set us by the French New Novelists. The answer is, like so many answers to important questions, neither yes nor no. The treachery of words is notorious."
"It is impossible to sort out all one's feelings at any given moment on any given subject, and so perhaps it is wise never to take on any subject other than one's own protean but still manageable self."
"Is it possible to describe anything accurately? That is the problem set us by the French New Novelists. The answer is, like so many answers to important questions, neither yes nor no. The treachery of words is notorious."
"It is impossible to sort out all one's feelings at any given moment on any given subject, and so perhaps it is wise never to take on any subject other than one's own protean but still manageable self."
December 27, 2015
I have managed to own and lose so many copies of this book. And yet I keep prowling used bookstores to re-buy and re-read it because I absolutely adore it. Myra Breckinridge is definitely the strongest of the two novels, although Myron is delightful as well. I honestly can't get enough of Myra's "voice". It also occurred to me, after recently re-reading Invisible Monsters that Chuck Palahniuk very likely got some inspiration from Myra when creating Brandy Alexander. I think this book is effing fantastic and everyone should read it at least once.
March 7, 2020
Ok. This one is tough because I DID appreciate the writing and some of the more intellectual theories running through both books. On a side note, I ended up googling a ton of the actors and actresses mentioned and got a bit of an education in Forties cinema.
BUT, I was so disturbed by the rape scenes that I can't say I really enjoyed the books as much as I might have wanted to. I'm not trying to be moralistic here - it just personally was not my cup of tea.
Interested to read some of GV's other books since this was my first one.
BUT, I was so disturbed by the rape scenes that I can't say I really enjoyed the books as much as I might have wanted to. I'm not trying to be moralistic here - it just personally was not my cup of tea.
Interested to read some of GV's other books since this was my first one.
July 9, 2019
Still funny, even though some of the targets of satire are dated, like TV and Nixon. Both of the stories are probably best read together since Myron is the continuation of Myra Breckinridge. The sex and sadistic scenes are quite graphic. Loads of old movie references. Themes of women's and transexual's roles and power in society are salient. "Myron" is either science fiction or psychotic fantasy of the split personality of Myron/Myra. The movie "Myra Breckinridge" is terrible as Gore Vidal says in the introduction to the book.
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