Gore Vidal - classic or dud?

ha, just watched Bob Roberst a couple of weeks ago for the first time since it came out. held up much better than i expected. (i was expecting it to really suck so pretty much anything would have been a pleasant surprise)

I still would have loved to see Buckley knock his ass out.

Of course the man is "patrician". My god, he comes from old money (Virginian old money,if I recall correctly), received the most patrician education available in the USA, and has noblesse oblige tattooed on his heinie (I made that up). If Gore Vidal could be anyone (aside from Gore Vidal!), I believe he would be Henry Adams, the quintessence of American patricians.

None of this has anything to do with his merit as a writer. I'd put him under 'classic', in that he attempted with some success to write popular fiction that has substance to it. Nothing he wrote could be classified as part of the sanctified canon of literature, by the standards applied today, but - as his essays point out - those standards are painfully parochial and narrow.

I give him all due credit for writing his series of American historic novels (especially Burr and Lincoln). Also Julian ranks among the best of the historic fictional novels about the ancient world. His political and literary essays, for all his smugness, are generally spot on.

He never set out to be Walt Whitman, James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon. There's no reason to ask him to be. In his own way, he is very good.

I like the Kennedy gossip in Palimpsest but I would.

I just read the second memoir--pretty bad, but it was funny to follow his feud with the NY Times. He keeps repeating an odd complaint that after "The City & the Pillar" they didn't review his next seven books in the daily New York Times. He even takes to task a critic who disputes this claim. But he doesn't mention that those books were reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, which is where most of the book reviewing is done. That's hair-splitting at a Bill O'Reilly level.

I have no recollection of expressing a desire to punch Gore Vidal in the stomach, but considering that as a public figure, what Vidal he's been tirelessly offering these days are iterations on "well, of <i>course</i>" -- as if none of our country's crimes could possibly surprise him much and how <i>boring</i> of you to feel otherwise, a rhetorical strategy whose main function isn't to make sense out of the events of the day but establish Vidal's superiority over them, a feeble ambition if ever there was -- it doesn't mean I didn't say it. (Oh half-assed ILx search function, you fail me, you always fail me.)

OK, I now have a dim memory of expressing the above riff on Vidal and his relationship to "well, of course" before, possibly (probably) on ILx, so that ups the chances of me actually saying something along the lines of "boy, it'd sure be fun to give YE OLDE DOODE a short sharp shock in the abdomen and watch him cringe in pain."

Actually, you DID say so a couple of years ago.

honestly i have never really got why i should particularly care about Gore Vidal. i mean, i think i may have read a few of his books back when i was a teenager and just read whatever i found lying around, but i never sensed that he was any more worthwhile than James Michener, Sidney Sheldon, Steven King, or John Grisham, for that matter.

Um, any one of his sentences soars in ways Michener, Sheldon, and King's don't. Finding his novels in the remaindered section in the company of Michener's is no reflection on their quality.

which is to say, there's plenty to dislike in the man (and the writer), but stylistically he's unimpeachable.

I agree the second memoir was disappointing but enjoyable just in terms of sheer bitichiness and gossip. OTOH Palimpset is his masterpiece, balancing the s.b. and g. w/the literary goods, really one of the most psychologically acute autobiographies I've read almost on a par with Nabokov's Speak Memory? no that's over-the-top but it is good. I find his historical ficiton tough sledding, finished Lincoln but got bored senseless by Burr. But I'm more interested in the past now than when I read those books, still doubt I'll ever re-read.

probably deserves classic status for his 60s TV appearances alone.

the queer VS the crypto-nazi

I also feel a combo of boredom and pity at anyone who could be surprised by Gangster America's crimes, so Vidal is ace with me.

(fite: Mike D's feelings of superiority over Vidal vs Vidal's over Yankee dumbasses)

Burr was good.

I was surprised to learn that my gay lefty lit-major friend hates him.

sure he's not a Clintonite?

I'm surprised Mark preferred Lincoln to Burr, which is LOL-funny for most of the way.

I didn't say I didn't say the gut-punch statement, it's just I don't remember it (which is unusual for me, I typically have a good recollection of every last inane thing I've written on ILx), and I can't find it, either. I probably did say it but when I first read J.D.'s post I was all, uh, oh great, another person on ILx mixing up the Michaels.

My feelings of superiority over Vidal vs Vidal's over Yanqui dumasses vs Morbs showin' off his misplaced intellectual vanity and mastery of received leftisms the way a Bonobo ape displays its ass: well, the first two categories have never been especially laffsome, so...

If you think "I don't like Vidal" is equivalent in all cases to "I feel superior to Vidal" then you mightaswell cut to the chase and just say "U R JUST JELOUS." We're on the internet so it's *totally* appropriate. Go on, you've only got a whole thread, say something outrageous.

Superiority? I mean, I'll never be stylist Vidal is, that's pretty much a given. URGH I hate my writing ICK PTUI: absurd analogies, winky-winky references, a lazy reliance on the demotic, much too much in the way of adverbs, little words that drop out because I can't be bothered to edit, *Week-end*-like pile-ups of clauses committed in the name of "poetic" hyperbolia, this very sentence being excellent/awful example. And don't waste your energy contradicting me, I won't hear of it, compliments make me want to tear the flesh off my bones.

Boy, it's a good thing that '90s email flirtation we had never turned into a date.

(I am not an intellectual, so can't be vain about it, but I do have the bill of lading for all my received leftisms.)

IIRC, it wasn't e-mail, it was decidedly one-sided phone conversations that I kind found vaguely frightening.

(See? Look at that! ADVERBS, the bane of the English language.)

I'm pretty sure we never talked on the phone. I saw the emails last year, though.

So this wasn't the bizarre love quadrangle like I've been telling everyone for years?

(Bizarre love quandrangle NOT being the same thing as a foursome, let's just get that straight.)

I think you have mistaken me for someone else? (I kinda fancy getting a fictional reputation, tho.)

I can only remember attempting non-face-to-face gayish conviviality with one guy in the WFMU universe. Man, this heart medicine really does annihilate memories, I oughta up the dosage.

A Gore Vidal thread seems such an apropriate place for hot ILX0r gossip.

The new nü-ILX gay thread!

There is no gossip! (but I think M.D. may deserve combat pay for having dated an insane ex-friend of mine)

This is fantastic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/7414438.stm

"Tome" is pretty good

seriously, everyone watch that vid.

"I've got to warn you about something; I am very popular"

cheeky bump

michael daddino otm up there. thing is, he's till very entertaining.

And his novels are hella underrated.

i don't think i have ever heard a line reading better than vidal's response when asked about bill buckley in that video:

'oh no, i was just joshing bill...he's a wonderful american!'

this is the opening of a vidal documentary i hadn't seen before. his hilariously dead-on FDR impression, about halfway through, almost made me fall off my chair:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJMoZTN0n1I

from the new republic archives: andrew delbanco explains why 'lincoln' is different, and better, than vidal's other historical novels:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114964/andrew-delbanco-gore-vidals-empire

The others are fun but only Burr is at its level.

Doug Ireland reviews a new book on Veedle's erotic life... quite a list of conquests (Charles Laughton AND Brad Davis).

http://gaycitynews.com/love-sex-gore-vidal-dared-speak/

But Vidal undoubtedly bedded Woodward’s husband, Paul Newman, when they and Vidal shared a Hollywood house together.

As film director and Vanity Fair writer Matt Tyrnauer, one of Vidal’s closest friends, put it, “Howard’s death ended the main chapter of Gore’s existence pretty much. Gore was in perpetual mourning after Howard died.” His drinking, he said, “became epic. He drank after he finished work…he didn’t stop until he collapsed… and grieved very openly. He talked about how sweet Howard was, how much he missed him. He wore a ring of Howard’s. He talked about how wonderful and talented he was. He’d listen to recordings of him singing on CD, which he’d listen to again and again.”

I must say, my admiration's wilted a bit.

grief isn't very pretty

the inheritance thing seems like the more unforgivable blot imho

I wish he was as cold as he pretended – we need more people that cold.

But Teeman shows how Vidal mythologized this relationship, in which the sex amounted to little more than the Princeton rub.

THERE'S a bit of slang I didn't know.

"The Yale hoist"

"The Harvard grunt"

The watusie

The twist.

The Difficult Brown

the Cornell cornhole

The Dartmouth dunk

The RISD ruffle

The tootsie roll

the Penn pump

it doesn't surprise me much that vidal privately was something other than the roman consul/mr spock image he affected in public. his mental decline towards the end was visible even in interviews and tbh i'm not sure it's something anyone outside his family needed to know about.

remember Hitch's column?

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/hitchens-201002

haha, i remember that! it's largely and sadly otm, though vidal would have been entitled to write a response hatchet job, since hitch's decline was even uglier than vidal's dabbling in pearl harbor/911 truthism. vidal's polanski remark was undeniably appalling but hitch said comparably awful things on a regular basis at the height of his deranged neocon phase -- calling the dixie chicks "fat fucking slags," some pretty awful stuff about cindy sheehan.

:( at Vidal slagging off Idries Shah, altho I suppose I shouldn't be surprised

Bitchiness was an essential part of his public style. When he directed it properly, he made it a virtue, but he wasn't always wise in his use of it.

also, FRED ASTAIRE???? ewwwww

Yeah that I was wondering about.

Flying Down to Eeeeyeeeew

on the new documentary

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/22/how_one_sexy_gay_novel_derailed_gore_vidals_literary_career/

The new doc, available on demand, is a hagiography. Any hour spent watching YouTube clips is more entertaining.

yeah i'm certainly not gonna spend $13 to see it

https://twitter.com/JamesWolcott/status/558683822729232386

is he dead yet

lol @ "America's most controversial writer"

Alfred: he lives in the very cigarette ash you ignore.

michael mewshaw abt him on charlie rose --

i remember he was very kind to guests that we had invited to meet him at our house for dinner and he talked to these ppl uh most patiently put up with all their questions about lincoln and they were a business couple and then when we sat down to dinner he said id like to ask you a question now, and they perked up and said yes gore, "What do women think about anal intercourse?"

:D

I always want to know!

Not long ago Alice Longworth managed to startle even me by announcing, at a dinner party: "Daisy Harriman told me that every time she was alone with Senator Gore he would pounce on her. I could never understand why he liked her. After all, he was blind. But then Daisy always smelled nice."

Netflix to shoot this in Gore's villa! What would he say about Spacey?

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/kevin-spacey-to-play-gore-vidal-in-netflix-original-biopic-exclusive-1202502213/

how is it that spacey is still in the closet

I should've been cast. I've been honing my Vee-dal for months.

If Spacey goes Method in the villa, what will the budget be for teenage boy 'day labor'?

ughhh why does it have to be Spacey :(

No matter how hard Kevin Spacey (or the script) tries, I don't think he (or it) could ever faithfully capture Gore's caustic personality or the degree of contempt in which he held 'the opposition'.

Spacey is about 58, I wonder what ages he'll be playing GV? He was 43 at the big TV tiff with Buckley.

Obv the Young Vidal years would require someone handsomer.

If Spacey goes Method in the villa, what will the budget be for teenage boy 'day labor'?

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, July 21, 2017

The film is in the can, and Netflix will not release it. Gore wins!

Obv the Young Vidal years would require someone handsomer.

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius),

uh wrong. Young Vee-dal was gorgeous.

i know! i meant handsomer than K.S.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=QwflYHGtZuk