Gore blimey..., 27 Jun 2008
As a late discoverer of Gore Vidal I am amazed at his literary dexterity. Such an erudite observer of America, the world, himself, and all of life. The essential ironic American. A rewarding read. Now to read more Gore...

A pleasant surprise, 03 Aug 2007
Vidal has managed to present this volume of his memoirs with a winning mix of the self-effacing and the candid whilst at the same time even managing to render his trademark immodesty in an endearing way. The outcome for the reader is not dissimilar to that experienced when allowing an elderly relative to muse on times past, an effect accentuated by Vidal's tendency to move disjointedly between the most unlikely topics brazenly ignoring any supposed need for structure or continuity.

Where he succeeds is in bringing his life to life with a splash of colour and some memorable anecdotes, and the result is an extremely likeable anthology.

Vale for Vidal, 09 Jan 2007
If ever your life feels a little thin or uneventful, blame Gore Vidal. He's had enough event and diversion in his time for five or six of us, and he keeps making us feel even worse by not only telling us about them in superbly written memoirs, but looking out of the cover at us all handsome and assured, both in youth and old age.

First there was Palimpsest (1995), dealing with his early life, which Martin Amis called "a tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book." Now Vidal gives us Point to Point Navigation, subtitled A Memoir 1964 - 2006.

And it is full of everything we have come to expect. Strange stories of all the great and good of the American twentieth century, from the very very famous to the known-in-certain-circles. Vidal's life has been not just more eventful than most, but lived at a more rarefied level; he was brought up among the renowned and the ruling classes, and so the line for him between the personal and the political has always been a thin one.

Quote:
"During the next quarter century I re-dreamed the Republic's history, which I have always regarded as a family affair. But what was I to do with characters that were - are - not only famous but even preposterous? When my mother was asked why, after three famous marriages, she did not try for a fourth, she observed, "My first husband had three balls. My second, two. My third, one. Even I know enough not to press my luck.""

There, he is talking - initially - about his series of novels, Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood and The Golden Age, 'factional' accounts of the USA, which he refers to collectively as 'Narratives of Empire' but which his publishers keep insisting on branding as 'Narratives of a Golden Age.' Throughout Point to Point Navigation, Vidal is at pains to mention his fictional output at every opportunity, making a vain (in both senses) attempt to mark his patch in literary history as a novelist, rather than wit, essayist and polymath. But he can hardly be dissatisfied by how he is already remembered.

And there is a good reason for his interest in remembrance, and how he will be viewed in retrospect. Vidal is now 81 years old, and the spectre of death shadows most of the book. There will not, we suspect, be a third volume. He is writing in "the awful year 2005," after his first full year spent without his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster, and making the move for health reasons back to LA and away from his beloved La Rondinaia, the extraordinary home on the cliffs of Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy, where he and Auster had lived since 1963.

The memoir is less structured than Palimpsest, taking almost a diaristic form as he reflects both on the things that happen to him during 2005, the events in the world, and the people he knew whose deaths invoke a flurry of anecdotes. If the book had been more orderly, there is no doubt that Vidal would have left the strongest material to the end, instead of one-third in where it now appears. This is his report of the death of his partner Howard Auster in November 2003: the long struggle from illness to illness, the childlike reduction in his life, and most movingly, an extraordinary account of how Vidal looked into Auster's still-alert eyes after his heart stopped and held his gaze as he watched life ebb away from him. It is worth, as they say, the price of admission alone and if it doesn't move you to weeping then you should have your tear ducts checked by a qualified professional.

So strong is the feeling of mortality throughout the book (assisted by the black cover) that it almost feels like a posthumous publication. Vidal is still vital however, and the effortless quality of his prose reminds us that although he is "moving, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked exit," he is still fully with us.

And I do not want to suggest that the book is overwhelmingly gloomy or morbid. There is plenty of Vidal's wit in evidence, and his contempt for the current (and most past) American administration, and his country's cultural mores.

Quote:
"A current pejorative term is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meaning of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume."

Despite the occasional stretches where he mistakes his intimate knowledge of some lesser-known folk with our interest in them, the overall feeling of gratitude and what Martin Amis called "a transfusion from above" when reading Point to Point Navigation, means I can offer it only the highest praise. It is a perfect vale for Vidal.

Between Obituaries, 10 Dec 2006
"No other writer has peered so intently under the hood of American Society. None can match his uncanny gift for "telling us what we want to know' about public life, including politics, theatre and the movies. His new book is sad, spotty chronicle that would suggest Gore is stuck in a fog from a dwindling set of landmarks. Vidal's' imagination has always been able to get into the past" James
None of us know much about Vidal Gore, he likes it that way. His two memoirs have shed light on himself and the people he liked and loved. Gore's wit could cut someone, usually politicians, to the core with out them even realizing they had even a sliver. However, with his contemporaries, authors, he is even tempered and respectful. His stories about Tennessee Williams, whom he adored, but wrote about with sarcasm, are ones to savor. As are his stories about and with Johnny Carson. Carson and Gore liked each other and when Gore appeared on 'The Tonight' show, that was what television is all about. Marcus There are witty remembrances of Paul Bowles, Federico Fellini, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Onassis. Gore Vidal's father had a 'fling' with Amelia Earhart and hits inside is a story in itself. Of course, the fact that Gore Vidal had entrance to the Camelot known as the Kennedy Administration was his forte. He and the Kennedy's had spats but one of the final chapters in this memoir is about Kennedy and his death and has credence.

The most painful to read portion of this book is the time and death of Vidal's companion Howard Austen. Vidal gives s a vivid portrayal of his life just before his death and the final moments of Howard's life. These are poignant and give us insight into this great man.

We learn about Vidal Gore's entry into politics and why it did not work out. The writing of his forty-sox books, his philosophy of life and the writers he revered. Montaigne is the author he reveres and reads time and again about memory and the lapses of memory.

"Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters." Larry Mc Murtry.

This is a book to be revered if you are a Gore Vidal fan, as I am. I did not want it to end. Gore Vidal is now eighty-one and his memoirs may end but a trilogy would be most welcome. Highly Recommended. prisrob 12/09/06

Gore blimey..., 27 Jun 2008
As a late discoverer of Gore Vidal I am amazed at his literary dexterity. Such an erudite observer of America, the world, himself, and all of life. The essential ironic American. A rewarding read. Now to read more Gore...

A pleasant surprise, 03 Aug 2007
Vidal has managed to present this volume of his memoirs with a winning mix of the self-effacing and the candid whilst at the same time even managing to render his trademark immodesty in an endearing way. The outcome for the reader is not dissimilar to that experienced when allowing an elderly relative to muse on times past, an effect accentuated by Vidal's tendency to move disjointedly between the most unlikely topics brazenly ignoring any supposed need for structure or continuity.

Where he succeeds is in bringing his life to life with a splash of colour and some memorable anecdotes, and the result is an extremely likeable anthology.

Vale for Vidal, 09 Jan 2007
If ever your life feels a little thin or uneventful, blame Gore Vidal. He's had enough event and diversion in his time for five or six of us, and he keeps making us feel even worse by not only telling us about them in superbly written memoirs, but looking out of the cover at us all handsome and assured, both in youth and old age.

First there was Palimpsest (1995), dealing with his early life, which Martin Amis called "a tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book." Now Vidal gives us Point to Point Navigation, subtitled A Memoir 1964 - 2006.

And it is full of everything we have come to expect. Strange stories of all the great and good of the American twentieth century, from the very very famous to the known-in-certain-circles. Vidal's life has been not just more eventful than most, but lived at a more rarefied level; he was brought up among the renowned and the ruling classes, and so the line for him between the personal and the political has always been a thin one.

Quote:
"During the next quarter century I re-dreamed the Republic's history, which I have always regarded as a family affair. But what was I to do with characters that were - are - not only famous but even preposterous? When my mother was asked why, after three famous marriages, she did not try for a fourth, she observed, "My first husband had three balls. My second, two. My third, one. Even I know enough not to press my luck.""

There, he is talking - initially - about his series of novels, Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood and The Golden Age, 'factional' accounts of the USA, which he refers to collectively as 'Narratives of Empire' but which his publishers keep insisting on branding as 'Narratives of a Golden Age.' Throughout Point to Point Navigation, Vidal is at pains to mention his fictional output at every opportunity, making a vain (in both senses) attempt to mark his patch in literary history as a novelist, rather than wit, essayist and polymath. But he can hardly be dissatisfied by how he is already remembered.

And there is a good reason for his interest in remembrance, and how he will be viewed in retrospect. Vidal is now 81 years old, and the spectre of death shadows most of the book. There will not, we suspect, be a third volume. He is writing in "the awful year 2005," after his first full year spent without his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster, and making the move for health reasons back to LA and away from his beloved La Rondinaia, the extraordinary home on the cliffs of Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy, where he and Auster had lived since 1963.

The memoir is less structured than Palimpsest, taking almost a diaristic form as he reflects both on the things that happen to him during 2005, the events in the world, and the people he knew whose deaths invoke a flurry of anecdotes. If the book had been more orderly, there is no doubt that Vidal would have left the strongest material to the end, instead of one-third in where it now appears. This is his report of the death of his partner Howard Auster in November 2003: the long struggle from illness to illness, the childlike reduction in his life, and most movingly, an extraordinary account of how Vidal looked into Auster's still-alert eyes after his heart stopped and held his gaze as he watched life ebb away from him. It is worth, as they say, the price of admission alone and if it doesn't move you to weeping then you should have your tear ducts checked by a qualified professional.

So strong is the feeling of mortality throughout the book (assisted by the black cover) that it almost feels like a posthumous publication. Vidal is still vital however, and the effortless quality of his prose reminds us that although he is "moving, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked exit," he is still fully with us.

And I do not want to suggest that the book is overwhelmingly gloomy or morbid. There is plenty of Vidal's wit in evidence, and his contempt for the current (and most past) American administration, and his country's cultural mores.

Quote:
"A current pejorative term is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meaning of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume."

Despite the occasional stretches where he mistakes his intimate knowledge of some lesser-known folk with our interest in them, the overall feeling of gratitude and what Martin Amis called "a transfusion from above" when reading Point to Point Navigation, means I can offer it only the highest praise. It is a perfect vale for Vidal.

Between Obituaries, 10 Dec 2006
"No other writer has peered so intently under the hood of American Society. None can match his uncanny gift for "telling us what we want to know' about public life, including politics, theatre and the movies. His new book is sad, spotty chronicle that would suggest Gore is stuck in a fog from a dwindling set of landmarks. Vidal's' imagination has always been able to get into the past" James
None of us know much about Vidal Gore, he likes it that way. His two memoirs have shed light on himself and the people he liked and loved. Gore's wit could cut someone, usually politicians, to the core with out them even realizing they had even a sliver. However, with his contemporaries, authors, he is even tempered and respectful. His stories about Tennessee Williams, whom he adored, but wrote about with sarcasm, are ones to savor. As are his stories about and with Johnny Carson. Carson and Gore liked each other and when Gore appeared on 'The Tonight' show, that was what television is all about. Marcus There are witty remembrances of Paul Bowles, Federico Fellini, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Onassis. Gore Vidal's father had a 'fling' with Amelia Earhart and hits inside is a story in itself. Of course, the fact that Gore Vidal had entrance to the Camelot known as the Kennedy Administration was his forte. He and the Kennedy's had spats but one of the final chapters in this memoir is about Kennedy and his death and has credence.

The most painful to read portion of this book is the time and death of Vidal's companion Howard Austen. Vidal gives s a vivid portrayal of his life just before his death and the final moments of Howard's life. These are poignant and give us insight into this great man.

We learn about Vidal Gore's entry into politics and why it did not work out. The writing of his forty-sox books, his philosophy of life and the writers he revered. Montaigne is the author he reveres and reads time and again about memory and the lapses of memory.

"Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters." Larry Mc Murtry.

This is a book to be revered if you are a Gore Vidal fan, as I am. I did not want it to end. Gore Vidal is now eighty-one and his memoirs may end but a trilogy would be most welcome. Highly Recommended. prisrob 12/09/06


Gore the lot of them, Vidal, 24 Apr 2008
An old friend of mine every now and again would recommend Gore Vidal to me and tell me I would really appreciate Vidal's writing. I did heed him but I never found the time to actually pick up one of this great writer's books. A few months back I read a glowing review of this book in a British newspaper and thought, well now is the time to see what that old friend was on about. I have to say, after reading this book, I am really sorry that I didn't pay more attention to my friend's advice much earlier. I am now in the position of having set myself the arduous (but no doubt rewarding) task of having to read all of this author's entire writings. I am obsessed. He writes with such intelligence, wit, wisdom and overbearing authority that it is impossible not to love this man. Some of his subject matter (the modern French novel, to give but one example) will be obscure to your average anglophone Joe (me, for instance) but every essay in this collection manages to be both entertaining and rewarding. I have even found myself browsing in second hand bookshops for translations of Robbe-Grillet. I was (am) particularly enamoured of Vidal's slant on the rise and (hopeful) fall of the American Empire, but there is nothing in this collection of great essays that is either superfluous or dull. Buy it, rent it, steal - just read it and judge for yourself. As for that old friend, I owe him a well-deserved drink when I see him next.

Gore blimey..., 27 Jun 2008
As a late discoverer of Gore Vidal I am amazed at his literary dexterity. Such an erudite observer of America, the world, himself, and all of life. The essential ironic American. A rewarding read. Now to read more Gore...

A pleasant surprise, 03 Aug 2007
Vidal has managed to present this volume of his memoirs with a winning mix of the self-effacing and the candid whilst at the same time even managing to render his trademark immodesty in an endearing way. The outcome for the reader is not dissimilar to that experienced when allowing an elderly relative to muse on times past, an effect accentuated by Vidal's tendency to move disjointedly between the most unlikely topics brazenly ignoring any supposed need for structure or continuity.

Where he succeeds is in bringing his life to life with a splash of colour and some memorable anecdotes, and the result is an extremely likeable anthology.

Vale for Vidal, 09 Jan 2007
If ever your life feels a little thin or uneventful, blame Gore Vidal. He's had enough event and diversion in his time for five or six of us, and he keeps making us feel even worse by not only telling us about them in superbly written memoirs, but looking out of the cover at us all handsome and assured, both in youth and old age.

First there was Palimpsest (1995), dealing with his early life, which Martin Amis called "a tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book." Now Vidal gives us Point to Point Navigation, subtitled A Memoir 1964 - 2006.

And it is full of everything we have come to expect. Strange stories of all the great and good of the American twentieth century, from the very very famous to the known-in-certain-circles. Vidal's life has been not just more eventful than most, but lived at a more rarefied level; he was brought up among the renowned and the ruling classes, and so the line for him between the personal and the political has always been a thin one.

Quote:
"During the next quarter century I re-dreamed the Republic's history, which I have always regarded as a family affair. But what was I to do with characters that were - are - not only famous but even preposterous? When my mother was asked why, after three famous marriages, she did not try for a fourth, she observed, "My first husband had three balls. My second, two. My third, one. Even I know enough not to press my luck.""

There, he is talking - initially - about his series of novels, Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood and The Golden Age, 'factional' accounts of the USA, which he refers to collectively as 'Narratives of Empire' but which his publishers keep insisting on branding as 'Narratives of a Golden Age.' Throughout Point to Point Navigation, Vidal is at pains to mention his fictional output at every opportunity, making a vain (in both senses) attempt to mark his patch in literary history as a novelist, rather than wit, essayist and polymath. But he can hardly be dissatisfied by how he is already remembered.

And there is a good reason for his interest in remembrance, and how he will be viewed in retrospect. Vidal is now 81 years old, and the spectre of death shadows most of the book. There will not, we suspect, be a third volume. He is writing in "the awful year 2005," after his first full year spent without his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster, and making the move for health reasons back to LA and away from his beloved La Rondinaia, the extraordinary home on the cliffs of Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy, where he and Auster had lived since 1963.

The memoir is less structured than Palimpsest, taking almost a diaristic form as he reflects both on the things that happen to him during 2005, the events in the world, and the people he knew whose deaths invoke a flurry of anecdotes. If the book had been more orderly, there is no doubt that Vidal would have left the strongest material to the end, instead of one-third in where it now appears. This is his report of the death of his partner Howard Auster in November 2003: the long struggle from illness to illness, the childlike reduction in his life, and most movingly, an extraordinary account of how Vidal looked into Auster's still-alert eyes after his heart stopped and held his gaze as he watched life ebb away from him. It is worth, as they say, the price of admission alone and if it doesn't move you to weeping then you should have your tear ducts checked by a qualified professional.

So strong is the feeling of mortality throughout the book (assisted by the black cover) that it almost feels like a posthumous publication. Vidal is still vital however, and the effortless quality of his prose reminds us that although he is "moving, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked exit," he is still fully with us.

And I do not want to suggest that the book is overwhelmingly gloomy or morbid. There is plenty of Vidal's wit in evidence, and his contempt for the current (and most past) American administration, and his country's cultural mores.

Quote:
"A current pejorative term is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meaning of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume."

Despite the occasional stretches where he mistakes his intimate knowledge of some lesser-known folk with our interest in them, the overall feeling of gratitude and what Martin Amis called "a transfusion from above" when reading Point to Point Navigation, means I can offer it only the highest praise. It is a perfect vale for Vidal.

Between Obituaries, 10 Dec 2006
"No other writer has peered so intently under the hood of American Society. None can match his uncanny gift for "telling us what we want to know' about public life, including politics, theatre and the movies. His new book is sad, spotty chronicle that would suggest Gore is stuck in a fog from a dwindling set of landmarks. Vidal's' imagination has always been able to get into the past" James
None of us know much about Vidal Gore, he likes it that way. His two memoirs have shed light on himself and the people he liked and loved. Gore's wit could cut someone, usually politicians, to the core with out them even realizing they had even a sliver. However, with his contemporaries, authors, he is even tempered and respectful. His stories about Tennessee Williams, whom he adored, but wrote about with sarcasm, are ones to savor. As are his stories about and with Johnny Carson. Carson and Gore liked each other and when Gore appeared on 'The Tonight' show, that was what television is all about. Marcus There are witty remembrances of Paul Bowles, Federico Fellini, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Onassis. Gore Vidal's father had a 'fling' with Amelia Earhart and hits inside is a story in itself. Of course, the fact that Gore Vidal had entrance to the Camelot known as the Kennedy Administration was his forte. He and the Kennedy's had spats but one of the final chapters in this memoir is about Kennedy and his death and has credence.

The most painful to read portion of this book is the time and death of Vidal's companion Howard Austen. Vidal gives s a vivid portrayal of his life just before his death and the final moments of Howard's life. These are poignant and give us insight into this great man.

We learn about Vidal Gore's entry into politics and why it did not work out. The writing of his forty-sox books, his philosophy of life and the writers he revered. Montaigne is the author he reveres and reads time and again about memory and the lapses of memory.

"Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters." Larry Mc Murtry.

This is a book to be revered if you are a Gore Vidal fan, as I am. I did not want it to end. Gore Vidal is now eighty-one and his memoirs may end but a trilogy would be most welcome. Highly Recommended. prisrob 12/09/06


Gore the lot of them, Vidal, 24 Apr 2008
An old friend of mine every now and again would recommend Gore Vidal to me and tell me I would really appreciate Vidal's writing. I did heed him but I never found the time to actually pick up one of this great writer's books. A few months back I read a glowing review of this book in a British newspaper and thought, well now is the time to see what that old friend was on about. I have to say, after reading this book, I am really sorry that I didn't pay more attention to my friend's advice much earlier. I am now in the position of having set myself the arduous (but no doubt rewarding) task of having to read all of this author's entire writings. I am obsessed. He writes with such intelligence, wit, wisdom and overbearing authority that it is impossible not to love this man. Some of his subject matter (the modern French novel, to give but one example) will be obscure to your average anglophone Joe (me, for instance) but every essay in this collection manages to be both entertaining and rewarding. I have even found myself browsing in second hand bookshops for translations of Robbe-Grillet. I was (am) particularly enamoured of Vidal's slant on the rise and (hopeful) fall of the American Empire, but there is nothing in this collection of great essays that is either superfluous or dull. Buy it, rent it, steal - just read it and judge for yourself. As for that old friend, I owe him a well-deserved drink when I see him next.


Dull Dull Dull, 29 Jun 2008
I love good historical novels but for me at least this is not one of them. Vidal clearly has great knowledge and I suspect that the history content is accurate and complete. However, I look for entertainment in a novel and I found precious little in this one. Hard work and I could only take ten pages at a time whereas I usually swim through good novels easily. Discretion being the better part of valour I gave up halfway through. My rating is as high as three because I have read many of Vidal's other efforts and found them very rewarding. Perhaps it is just me on this one!

Heavy going...., 25 Jun 2008
I really struggled with this, taking three weeks (with a weeks break in-between) to read it which is shocking considering I normally read at least a book a week! I found the language stilted, the endless reams of philosophical prose an effort and the detailed descriptions of Roman warfare dull.

However. Let's get this into perspective. This is an extensively researched work of historical fiction and you're only really going to read it if you have an interest in the subject matter in the first place? In which case I think you'll find it fascinating and well written. I knew nothing about the Roman Empire other than the bits and pieces kids are fed at school, so I read the book partly to learn more about the subject and partly in pursuit of my quest to broaden my literary horizons. As for the historical accuracy of the book I couldn't comment and defer to my learned colleagues below!

My interest in the story increased in the last 100 pages, although who knows whether this was because the book was improving or whether I was excited as I could see the light and the end of the proverbial tunnel?

It's not all doom and gloom though. I liked the way the memoirs of Emperor Julian Augustus are broken up by letters between two old men who knew him, one of whom is compiling the memoirs for publication, and how this often gave a different perspective on the events of his life. These inserts are often humorous and help to lighten the book a little. Another thing I found fascinating, as a lover of the English language, was just how many words and phrases commonly used today originated from the ancient Greeks.

Julian was known as Julian the Apostate as he renounced his faith (Christianity) and reverted to Hellenism. It is interesting to read a record of that period when the Christian faith was in its infancy, reminding you that it is a man-made religion, adopting elements of other religions, created for political reasons. Julian was the last emperor to publicly worship the Pagan gods and originally stated that he would allow all religions to exist together. However, sadly he proves in the end to be just as blinkered, intolerant and supertitious of the Galileans as they are of others. It's also interesting to see the detrimental effect that power has on even the most gentle, intelligent and philosophical of men.

So how many stars do I award this? In terms of my enjoyment as a whole, it will have to be 2 stars, but if I'm playing devil's advocate then maybe it would creep up to a 3...partly for the elation I felt when I actually finished the thing!



Not for the feint-hearted., 10 Aug 2007
What would the be the prerequisites for a sympathetic novel about Julian the Apostate? A detailed knowledge of the late Roman Empire, a detailed knowledge of early Christianity and a certain antipathy towards that religion. Gore Vidal demonstrates a virtuosity in all three that makes for one of the best reads of the last fifty years. This is, quite simply, a tour-de-force that has few parallels in historical fiction. For those who don't share Vidal's suspicion of organised religion, especially Christians, this novel might prove an uncomfortable experience. For those who like their history warts and all, it is simply brilliant. One of the few works of fiction that takes a serious look at the origins of Christianity and gives a reasoned account of its development, it refuses to even pay lip-service to the unthinking acceptance of Christianity as a religion that sprang fully formed into the world. Nor does he shrink from comparing the morality of two very different religious systems and finding Christianity wanting. It almost makes you wish that Julian had obtained his goal and had, after all, reinstated the ancient philosophy that was tolerant of all beliefs and had little concept of evangilism or heretical thinking.

APOSTATE, 27 Feb 2005
The fourth century AD is a period I have never known much about. The first I ever heard about the emperor Julian the Apostate was actually the unflattering caricature by St Gregory Nazianzen, quoted here again in the novel. There is a plus-side and there is a minus-side to reading a historical novel from ignorance of the background, the plus-side being obviously that one is not distracted from appreciating it for what it is - creative writing. I feel sure the downside outweighs that, all the same. There is obviously considerable erudition behind this book, and if I ever improve my grasp of the background I would expect to find real historical insights, whatever the author may have adapted, removed or added. What is clear to me is that Vidal at least thinks as a genuine historian - his narrative is about the right things that should go into a historical analysis.

The novel is partly concerned with rehabilitating Julian, but it is about more than that, indeed about more than his life-story altogether. It is about early Christianity and the mind-sets that went with that. Julian was appalled by Christianity, and so, quite evidently, is Vidal. For him, early Christianity was a noxious perversion of human thought-processes. Christianity of this period tried to enforce beliefs, and would stop at nothing in the process. This should make us pause to ask - how can any belief be obligatory? Only our actions can be subject to our own will, let alone anyone else's, and holding a belief is not an action. There is a restricted sense in which it could be described as that, namely the sense in which 'holding' means 'propounding', as in a book or a lecture. In more normal usage to 'hold' a belief is just to 'have' a belief, and we either do or do not believe something - it's a state of affairs like having a headache, not a voluntary or enforceable act like holding a sword or holding a meeting. On top of that there is the question - what, if anything, did the doctrines the Christians were slaughtering one another over even mean? The doctrine of the Trinity was something to kill for, it seems. Even in my time the answer to rational questioning was that some 'truths' (in whatever sense) were above reason but revealed by God, but of course one had to take someone's word for that. It was all of a piece with mortification of the flesh and repression of natural instincts, as Vidal quietly implies - any faculties, brain or body, that the Creator may have given us, presumably to use, were not only suspect but evil and those who saw the matter otherwise would be dealt with, as Julian himself was finally dealt with at the age of 32.

The book ends with a fascinating question left suspended, as much good history does. Julian was killed in his early prime, through treachery by one of his own officers, at Ctesiphon on the Tigris, the scene of new unresolved issues even as I write. He had made a serious error in that battle, the first of his brilliant military career, but all was not lost by any means. If he had lived out a natural lifespan, or even postponed being murdered for some years, would he have stopped Christianity in its tracks throughout the Roman empire? Vidal does not go into the question of its origin in any depth, but what he highlights clearly is that it was unique among religions in being new. The associated myths and legends that in other faiths had grown up gradually from the dawn of time were being strenuously created for Christianity at top speed and even more strenuously enforced. Julian and his author saw it as still having only shallow roots, but it was an idea whose time had come, it commanded fierce loyalty as Julian's own beliefs did not, and the odds must have been against him.

Julian's reign is well documented, not least by himself, and the story rests on his own accounts supplemented by those of two familiars. The narrative is accomplished, the writing style elegant and often ironic and witty as one would expect. However the reasons that led Vidal to put nearly five years of his life into writing about Julian in particular go far beyond the availability of copious source-material. There is nothing mysterious about these reasons - the author makes them abundantly clear. The real mystery, as he leaves me in no doubt either, is how human beings in the mass manage to think the way they seem to.

Excellent, 15 Sep 2004
I was advised to read this novel in preparation for a course in later Roman history during my final year at university.

Don't let that put you off. along with the Claudius novels this must be one of the best pieces of historical fiction ever. A marvellous read, grounded in excellent research. Gore Vidal clearly did his homework before sitting down to write Julian as his novel provides an excellent introduction to the history of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

Gore blimey..., 27 Jun 2008
As a late discoverer of Gore Vidal I am amazed at his literary dexterity. Such an erudite observer of America, the world, himself, and all of life. The essential ironic American. A rewarding read. Now to read more Gore...

A pleasant surprise, 03 Aug 2007
Vidal has managed to present this volume of his memoirs with a winning mix of the self-effacing and the candid whilst at the same time even managing to render his trademark immodesty in an endearing way. The outcome for the reader is not dissimilar to that experienced when allowing an elderly relative to muse on times past, an effect accentuated by Vidal's tendency to move disjointedly between the most unlikely topics brazenly ignoring any supposed need for structure or continuity.

Where he succeeds is in bringing his life to life with a splash of colour and some memorable anecdotes, and the result is an extremely likeable anthology.

Vale for Vidal, 09 Jan 2007
If ever your life feels a little thin or uneventful, blame Gore Vidal. He's had enough event and diversion in his time for five or six of us, and he keeps making us feel even worse by not only telling us about them in superbly written memoirs, but looking out of the cover at us all handsome and assured, both in youth and old age.

First there was Palimpsest (1995), dealing with his early life, which Martin Amis called "a tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book." Now Vidal gives us Point to Point Navigation, subtitled A Memoir 1964 - 2006.

And it is full of everything we have come to expect. Strange stories of all the great and good of the American twentieth century, from the very very famous to the known-in-certain-circles. Vidal's life has been not just more eventful than most, but lived at a more rarefied level; he was brought up among the renowned and the ruling classes, and so the line for him between the personal and the political has always been a thin one.

Quote:
"During the next quarter century I re-dreamed the Republic's history, which I have always regarded as a family affair. But what was I to do with characters that were - are - not only famous but even preposterous? When my mother was asked why, after three famous marriages, she did not try for a fourth, she observed, "My first husband had three balls. My second, two. My third, one. Even I know enough not to press my luck.""

There, he is talking - initially - about his series of novels, Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood and The Golden Age, 'factional' accounts of the USA, which he refers to collectively as 'Narratives of Empire' but which his publishers keep insisting on branding as 'Narratives of a Golden Age.' Throughout Point to Point Navigation, Vidal is at pains to mention his fictional output at every opportunity, making a vain (in both senses) attempt to mark his patch in literary history as a novelist, rather than wit, essayist and polymath. But he can hardly be dissatisfied by how he is already remembered.

And there is a good reason for his interest in remembrance, and how he will be viewed in retrospect. Vidal is now 81 years old, and the spectre of death shadows most of the book. There will not, we suspect, be a third volume. He is writing in "the awful year 2005," after his first full year spent without his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster, and making the move for health reasons back to LA and away from his beloved La Rondinaia, the extraordinary home on the cliffs of Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy, where he and Auster had lived since 1963.

The memoir is less structured than Palimpsest, taking almost a diaristic form as he reflects both on the things that happen to him during 2005, the events in the world, and the people he knew whose deaths invoke a flurry of anecdotes. If the book had been more orderly, there is no doubt that Vidal would have left the strongest material to the end, instead of one-third in where it now appears. This is his report of the death of his partner Howard Auster in November 2003: the long struggle from illness to illness, the childlike reduction in his life, and most movingly, an extraordinary account of how Vidal looked into Auster's still-alert eyes after his heart stopped and held his gaze as he watched life ebb away from him. It is worth, as they say, the price of admission alone and if it doesn't move you to weeping then you should have your tear ducts checked by a qualified professional.

So strong is the feeling of mortality throughout the book (assisted by the black cover) that it almost feels like a posthumous publication. Vidal is still vital however, and the effortless quality of his prose reminds us that although he is "moving, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked exit," he is still fully with us.

And I do not want to suggest that the book is overwhelmingly gloomy or morbid. There is plenty of Vidal's wit in evidence, and his contempt for the current (and most past) American administration, and his country's cultural mores.

Quote:
"A current pejorative term is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meaning of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume."

Despite the occasional stretches where he mistakes his intimate knowledge of some lesser-known folk with our interest in them, the overall feeling of gratitude and what Martin Amis called "a transfusion from above" when reading Point to Point Navigation, means I can offer it only the highest praise. It is a perfect vale for Vidal.

Between Obituaries, 10 Dec 2006
"No other writer has peered so intently under the hood of American Society. None can match his uncanny gift for "telling us what we want to know' about public life, including politics, theatre and the movies. His new book is sad, spotty chronicle that would suggest Gore is stuck in a fog from a dwindling set of landmarks. Vidal's' imagination has always been able to get into the past" James
None of us know much about Vidal Gore, he likes it that way. His two memoirs have shed light on himself and the people he liked and loved. Gore's wit could cut someone, usually politicians, to the core with out them even realizing they had even a sliver. However, with his contemporaries, authors, he is even tempered and respectful. His stories about Tennessee Williams, whom he adored, but wrote about with sarcasm, are ones to savor. As are his stories about and with Johnny Carson. Carson and Gore liked each other and when Gore appeared on 'The Tonight' show, that was what television is all about. Marcus There are witty remembrances of Paul Bowles, Federico Fellini, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Onassis. Gore Vidal's father had a 'fling' with Amelia Earhart and hits inside is a story in itself. Of course, the fact that Gore Vidal had entrance to the Camelot known as the Kennedy Administration was his forte. He and the Kennedy's had spats but one of the final chapters in this memoir is about Kennedy and his death and has credence.

The most painful to read portion of this book is the time and death of Vidal's companion Howard Austen. Vidal gives s a vivid portrayal of his life just before his death and the final moments of Howard's life. These are poignant and give us insight into this great man.

We learn about Vidal Gore's entry into politics and why it did not work out. The writing of his forty-sox books, his philosophy of life and the writers he revered. Montaigne is the author he reveres and reads time and again about memory and the lapses of memory.

"Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters." Larry Mc Murtry.

This is a book to be revered if you are a Gore Vidal fan, as I am. I did not want it to end. Gore Vidal is now eighty-one and his memoirs may end but a trilogy would be most welcome. Highly Recommended. prisrob 12/09/06


Gore the lot of them, Vidal, 24 Apr 2008
An old friend of mine every now and again would recommend Gore Vidal to me and tell me I would really appreciate Vidal's writing. I did heed him but I never found the time to actually pick up one of this great writer's books. A few months back I read a glowing review of this book in a British newspaper and thought, well now is the time to see what that old friend was on about. I have to say, after reading this book, I am really sorry that I didn't pay more attention to my friend's advice much earlier. I am now in the position of having set myself the arduous (but no doubt rewarding) task of having to read all of this author's entire writings. I am obsessed. He writes with such intelligence, wit, wisdom and overbearing authority that it is impossible not to love this man. Some of his subject matter (the modern French novel, to give but one example) will be obscure to your average anglophone Joe (me, for instance) but every essay in this collection manages to be both entertaining and rewarding. I have even found myself browsing in second hand bookshops for translations of Robbe-Grillet. I was (am) particularly enamoured of Vidal's slant on the rise and (hopeful) fall of the American Empire, but there is nothing in this collection of great essays that is either superfluous or dull. Buy it, rent it, steal - just read it and judge for yourself. As for that old friend, I owe him a well-deserved drink when I see him next.


Dull Dull Dull, 29 Jun 2008
I love good historical novels but for me at least this is not one of them. Vidal clearly has great knowledge and I suspect that the history content is accurate and complete. However, I look for entertainment in a novel and I found precious little in this one. Hard work and I could only take ten pages at a time whereas I usually swim through good novels easily. Discretion being the better part of valour I gave up halfway through. My rating is as high as three because I have read many of Vidal's other efforts and found them very rewarding. Perhaps it is just me on this one!

Heavy going...., 25 Jun 2008
I really struggled with this, taking three weeks (with a weeks break in-between) to read it which is shocking considering I normally read at least a book a week! I found the language stilted, the endless reams of philosophical prose an effort and the detailed descriptions of Roman warfare dull.

However. Let's get this into perspective. This is an extensively researched work of historical fiction and you're only really going to read it if you have an interest in the subject matter in the first place? In which case I think you'll find it fascinating and well written. I knew nothing about the Roman Empire other than the bits and pieces kids are fed at school, so I read the book partly to learn more about the subject and partly in pursuit of my quest to broaden my literary horizons. As for the historical accuracy of the book I couldn't comment and defer to my learned colleagues below!

My interest in the story increased in the last 100 pages, although who knows whether this was because the book was improving or whether I was excited as I could see the light and the end of the proverbial tunnel?

It's not all doom and gloom though. I liked the way the memoirs of Emperor Julian Augustus are broken up by letters between two old men who knew him, one of whom is compiling the memoirs for publication, and how this often gave a different perspective on the events of his life. These inserts are often humorous and help to lighten the book a little. Another thing I found fascinating, as a lover of the English language, was just how many words and phrases commonly used today originated from the ancient Greeks.

Julian was known as Julian the Apostate as he renounced his faith (Christianity) and reverted to Hellenism. It is interesting to read a record of that period when the Christian faith was in its infancy, reminding you that it is a man-made religion, adopting elements of other religions, created for political reasons. Julian was the last emperor to publicly worship the Pagan gods and originally stated that he would allow all religions to exist together. However, sadly he proves in the end to be just as blinkered, intolerant and supertitious of the Galileans as they are of others. It's also interesting to see the detrimental effect that power has on even the most gentle, intelligent and philosophical of men.

So how many stars do I award this? In terms of my enjoyment as a whole, it will have to be 2 stars, but if I'm playing devil's advocate then maybe it would creep up to a 3...partly for the elation I felt when I actually finished the thing!



Not for the feint-hearted., 10 Aug 2007
What would the be the prerequisites for a sympathetic novel about Julian the Apostate? A detailed knowledge of the late Roman Empire, a detailed knowledge of early Christianity and a certain antipathy towards that religion. Gore Vidal demonstrates a virtuosity in all three that makes for one of the best reads of the last fifty years. This is, quite simply, a tour-de-force that has few parallels in historical fiction. For those who don't share Vidal's suspicion of organised religion, especially Christians, this novel might prove an uncomfortable experience. For those who like their history warts and all, it is simply brilliant. One of the few works of fiction that takes a serious look at the origins of Christianity and gives a reasoned account of its development, it refuses to even pay lip-service to the unthinking acceptance of Christianity as a religion that sprang fully formed into the world. Nor does he shrink from comparing the morality of two very different religious systems and finding Christianity wanting. It almost makes you wish that Julian had obtained his goal and had, after all, reinstated the ancient philosophy that was tolerant of all beliefs and had little concept of evangilism or heretical thinking.

APOSTATE, 27 Feb 2005
The fourth century AD is a period I have never known much about. The first I ever heard about the emperor Julian the Apostate was actually the unflattering caricature by St Gregory Nazianzen, quoted here again in the novel. There is a plus-side and there is a minus-side to reading a historical novel from ignorance of the background, the plus-side being obviously that one is not distracted from appreciating it for what it is - creative writing. I feel sure the downside outweighs that, all the same. There is obviously considerable erudition behind this book, and if I ever improve my grasp of the background I would expect to find real historical insights, whatever the author may have adapted, removed or added. What is clear to me is that Vidal at least thinks as a genuine historian - his narrative is about the right things that should go into a historical analysis.

The novel is partly concerned with rehabilitating Julian, but it is about more than that, indeed about more than his life-story altogether. It is about early Christianity and the mind-sets that went with that. Julian was appalled by Christianity, and so, quite evidently, is Vidal. For him, early Christianity was a noxious perversion of human thought-processes. Christianity of this period tried to enforce beliefs, and would stop at nothing in the process. This should make us pause to ask - how can any belief be obligatory? Only our actions can be subject to our own will, let alone anyone else's, and holding a belief is not an action. There is a restricted sense in which it could be described as that, namely the sense in which 'holding' means 'propounding', as in a book or a lecture. In more normal usage to 'hold' a belief is just to 'have' a belief, and we either do or do not believe something - it's a state of affairs like having a headache, not a voluntary or enforceable act like holding a sword or holding a meeting. On top of that there is the question - what, if anything, did the doctrines the Christians were slaughtering one another over even mean? The doctrine of the Trinity was something to kill for, it seems. Even in my time the answer to rational questioning was that some 'truths' (in whatever sense) were above reason but revealed by God, but of course one had to take someone's word for that. It was all of a piece with mortification of the flesh and repression of natural instincts, as Vidal quietly implies - any faculties, brain or body, that the Creator may have given us, presumably to use, were not only suspect but evil and those who saw the matter otherwise would be dealt with, as Julian himself was finally dealt with at the age of 32.

The book ends with a fascinating question left suspended, as much good history does. Julian was killed in his early prime, through treachery by one of his own officers, at Ctesiphon on the Tigris, the scene of new unresolved issues even as I write. He had made a serious error in that battle, the first of his brilliant military career, but all was not lost by any means. If he had lived out a natural lifespan, or even postponed being murdered for some years, would he have stopped Christianity in its tracks throughout the Roman empire? Vidal does not go into the question of its origin in any depth, but what he highlights clearly is that it was unique among religions in being new. The associated myths and legends that in other faiths had grown up gradually from the dawn of time were being strenuously created for Christianity at top speed and even more strenuously enforced. Julian and his author saw it as still having only shallow roots, but it was an idea whose time had come, it commanded fierce loyalty as Julian's own beliefs did not, and the odds must have been against him.

Julian's reign is well documented, not least by himself, and the story rests on his own accounts supplemented by those of two familiars. The narrative is accomplished, the writing style elegant and often ironic and witty as one would expect. However the reasons that led Vidal to put nearly five years of his life into writing about Julian in particular go far beyond the availability of copious source-material. There is nothing mysterious about these reasons - the author makes them abundantly clear. The real mystery, as he leaves me in no doubt either, is how human beings in the mass manage to think the way they seem to.

Excellent, 15 Sep 2004
I was advised to read this novel in preparation for a course in later Roman history during my final year at university.

Don't let that put you off. along with the Claudius novels this must be one of the best pieces of historical fiction ever. A marvellous read, grounded in excellent research. Gore Vidal clearly did his homework before sitting down to write Julian as his novel provides an excellent introduction to the history of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

Absorbing, rich and erudite, 18 Jul 2004
Creation takes the reader to a singular time in human history, when the Persian Empire of the Great Kings, the Indian kingdoms of the Ganges, Confucian China and Periclean Athens were simultaneously at their peak. Through the eyes of one man, a half-Persian, half-Greek, who travels for many years through these varied and brilliant empires, we experience worlds we have lost. He himself is the grandson of the Prophet Zoroastrus, and aide to the Great King Darius, and as Persia's roving ambassador, encounters legendary Greek figures, three generations of Persian kings, marries into the Indian royal house soon to conquer the Gangetic plains, meets the Buddha and encounters Confucius. This vast and ambitious work is simultaneously a fictional autobiography, an exploration of a sublime and fascinating era and its civilisations, and a story of one man's ceaseless inquiry into the nature of existence, truth and human origins. The title of the book is the focus of this ceaseless quest, and through this sweeping, exciting novel, the reader will find himself educated - without realising it - on the differing views of civilisations whose existence has ended, but whose ideas have lived on. Gore Vidal's painstaking research grants him absolute mastery over his subject matter, and his skill as a writer make this a splendid, majesterial and moving work of fact-fiction.

Absorbing, rich and erudite, 18 Jul 2004
Creation takes the reader to a singular time in human history, when the Persian Empire of the Great Kings, the Indian kingdoms of the Ganges, Confucian China and Periclean Athens were simultaneously at their peak. Through the eyes of one man, a half-Persian, half-Greek, who travels for many years through these varied and brilliant empires, we experience worlds we have lost. He himself is the grandson of the Prophet Zoroastrus, and aide to the Great King Darius, and as Persia's roving ambassador, encounters legendary Greek figures, three generations of Persian kings, marries into the Indian royal house soon to conquer the Gangetic plains, meets the Buddha and encounters Confucius. This vast and ambitious work is simultaneously a fictional autobiography, an exploration of a sublime and fascinating era and its civilisations, and a story of one man's ceaseless inquiry into the nature of existence, truth and human origins. The title of the book is the focus of this ceaseless quest, and through this sweeping, exciting novel, the reader will find himself educated - without realising it - on the differing views of civilisations whose existence has ended, but whose ideas have lived on. Gore Vidal's painstaking research grants him absolute mastery over his subject matter, and his skill as a writer make this a splendid, majesterial and moving work of fact-fiction.

Very very impressive, 04 Jul 2004
This is one of those books you will push your children to read

An extraordinary combination of erudition and creativity, 23 Oct 2001
Vidal demonstrates an uncanny ability to grasp the finer details of ancient cultures and bring them to life. I come to this conclusion because of my own familiarity with one of the philosophical sytems and cultures covered - and here he achieves an extraordinary versimilitude with regard to the day to day life of the teacher and his followers, and the political intrigues surrounding the ruling aristocracy. A wonderful book with a strong narrative thread and for much of the time with the authors tongue firmly in cheek.

An incredible trip to our cultural origins, 26 Apr 1999
This marvellous novel pick us to the beginnings of the Occidental Culture guided by Cyro Spitama, a supposed descendant of Zoroastro, the persian prophet. With him we visit the ancient Greece of the V century b.C. ( the Presocratic Greece), The magic India ( Budha, Janin) and the misterious China ( Lao tse, Confucius ). In his long life, Cyro will know all the inportant evens of this decisive century: the century in which the greatest empires were built.

Leonardo Benito de Valle y Bermejo

Gore blimey..., 27 Jun 2008
As a late discoverer of Gore Vidal I am amazed at his literary dexterity. Such an erudite observer of America, the world, himself, and all of life. The essential ironic American. A rewarding read. Now to read more Gore...

A pleasant surprise, 03 Aug 2007
Vidal has managed to present this volume of his memoirs with a winning mix of the self-effacing and the candid whilst at the same time even managing to render his trademark immodesty in an endearing way. The outcome for the reader is not dissimilar to that experienced when allowing an elderly relative to muse on times past, an effect accentuated by Vidal's tendency to move disjointedly between the most unlikely topics brazenly ignoring any supposed need for structure or continuity.

Where he succeeds is in bringing his life to life with a splash of colour and some memorable anecdotes, and the result is an extremely likeable anthology.

Vale for Vidal, 09 Jan 2007
If ever your life feels a little thin or uneventful, blame Gore Vidal. He's had enough event and diversion in his time for five or six of us, and he keeps making us feel even worse by not only telling us about them in superbly written memoirs, but looking out of the cover at us all handsome and assured, both in youth and old age.

First there was Palimpsest (1995), dealing with his early life, which Martin Amis called "a tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book." Now Vidal gives us Point to Point Navigation, subtitled A Memoir 1964 - 2006.

And it is full of everything we have come to expect. Strange stories of all the great and good of the American twentieth century, from the very very famous to the known-in-certain-circles. Vidal's life has been not just more eventful than most, but lived at a more rarefied level; he was brought up among the renowned and the ruling classes, and so the line for him between the personal and the political has always been a thin one.

Quote:
"During the next quarter century I re-dreamed the Republic's history, which I have always regarded as a family affair. But what was I to do with characters that were - are - not only famous but even preposterous? When my mother was asked why, after three famous marriages, she did not try for a fourth, she observed, "My first husband had three balls. My second, two. My third, one. Even I know enough not to press my luck.""

There, he is talking - initially - about his series of novels, Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood and The Golden Age, 'factional' accounts of the USA, which he refers to collectively as 'Narratives of Empire' but which his publishers keep insisting on branding as 'Narratives of a Golden Age.' Throughout Point to Point Navigation, Vidal is at pains to mention his fictional output at every opportunity, making a vain (in both senses) attempt to mark his patch in literary history as a novelist, rather than wit, essayist and polymath. But he can hardly be dissatisfied by how he is already remembered.

And there is a good reason for his interest in remembrance, and how he will be viewed in retrospect. Vidal is now 81 years old, and the spectre of death shadows most of the book. There will not, we suspect, be a third volume. He is writing in "the awful year 2005," after his first full year spent without his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster, and making the move for health reasons back to LA and away from his beloved La Rondinaia, the extraordinary home on the cliffs of Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy, where he and Auster had lived since 1963.

The memoir is less structured than Palimpsest, taking almost a diaristic form as he reflects both on the things that happen to him during 2005, the events in the world, and the people he knew whose deaths invoke a flurry of anecdotes. If the book had been more orderly, there is no doubt that Vidal would have left the strongest material to the end, instead of one-third in where it now appears. This is his report of the death of his partner Howard Auster in November 2003: the long struggle from illness to illness, the childlike reduction in his life, and most movingly, an extraordinary account of how Vidal looked into Auster's still-alert eyes after his heart stopped and held his gaze as he watched life ebb away from him. It is worth, as they say, the price of admission alone and if it doesn't move you to weeping then you should have your tear ducts checked by a qualified professional.

So strong is the feeling of mortality throughout the book (assisted by the black cover) that it almost feels like a posthumous publication. Vidal is still vital however, and the effortless quality of his prose reminds us that although he is "moving, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked exit," he is still fully with us.

And I do not want to suggest that the book is overwhelmingly gloomy or morbid. There is plenty of Vidal's wit in evidence, and his contempt for the current (and most past) American administration, and his country's cultural mores.

Quote:
"A current pejorative term is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meaning of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume."

Despite the occasional stretches where he mistakes his intimate knowledge of some lesser-known folk with our interest in them, the overall feeling of gratitude and what Martin Amis called "a transfusion from above" when reading Point to Point Navigation, means I can offer it only the highest praise. It is a perfect vale for Vidal.

Between Obituaries, 10 Dec 2006
"No other writer has peered so intently under the hood of American Society. None can match his uncanny gift for "telling us what we want to know' about public life, including politics, theatre and the movies. His new book is sad, spotty chronicle that would suggest Gore is stuck in a fog from a dwindling set of landmarks. Vidal's' imagination has always been able to get into the past" James
None of us know much about Vidal Gore, he likes it that way. His two memoirs have shed light on himself and the people he liked and loved. Gore's wit could cut someone, usually politicians, to the core with out them even realizing they had even a sliver. However, with his contemporaries, authors, he is even tempered and respectful. His stories about Tennessee Williams, whom he adored, but wrote about with sarcasm, are ones to savor. As are his stories about and with Johnny Carson. Carson and Gore liked each other and when Gore appeared on 'The Tonight' show, that was what television is all about. Marcus There are witty remembrances of Paul Bowles, Federico Fellini, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Onassis. Gore Vidal's father had a 'fling' with Amelia Earhart and hits inside is a story in itself. Of course, the fact that Gore Vidal had entrance to the Camelot known as the Kennedy Administration was his forte. He and the Kennedy's had spats but one of the final chapters in this memoir is about Kennedy and his death and has credence.

The most painful to read portion of this book is the time and death of Vidal's companion Howard Austen. Vidal gives s a vivid portrayal of his life just before his death and the final moments of Howard's life. These are poignant and give us insight into this great man.

We learn about Vidal Gore's entry into politics and why it did not work out. The writing of his forty-sox books, his philosophy of life and the writers he revered. Montaigne is the author he reveres and reads time and again about memory and the lapses of memory.

"Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters." Larry Mc Murtry.

This is a book to be revered if you are a Gore Vidal fan, as I am. I did not want it to end. Gore Vidal is now eighty-one and his memoirs may end but a trilogy would be most welcome. Highly Recommended. prisrob 12/09/06


Gore the lot of them, Vidal, 24 Apr 2008
An old friend of mine every now and again would recommend Gore Vidal to me and tell me I would really appreciate Vidal's writing. I did heed him but I never found the time to actually pick up one of this great writer's books. A few months back I read a glowing review of this book in a British newspaper and thought, well now is the time to see what that old friend was on about. I have to say, after reading this book, I am really sorry that I didn't pay more attention to my friend's advice much earlier. I am now in the position of having set myself the arduous (but no doubt rewarding) task of having to read all of this author's entire writings. I am obsessed. He writes with such intelligence, wit, wisdom and overbearing authority that it is impossible not to love this man. Some of his subject matter (the modern French novel, to give but one example) will be obscure to your average anglophone Joe (me, for instance) but every essay in this collection manages to be both entertaining and rewarding. I have even found myself browsing in second hand bookshops for translations of Robbe-Grillet. I was (am) particularly enamoured of Vidal's slant on the rise and (hopeful) fall of the American Empire, but there is nothing in this collection of great essays that is either superfluous or dull. Buy it, rent it, steal - just read it and judge for yourself. As for that old friend, I owe him a well-deserved drink when I see him next.


Dull Dull Dull, 29 Jun 2008
I love good historical novels but for me at least this is not one of them. Vidal clearly has great knowledge and I suspect that the history content is accurate and complete. However, I look for entertainment in a novel and I found precious little in this one. Hard work and I could only take ten pages at a time whereas I usually swim through good novels easily. Discretion being the better part of valour I gave up halfway through. My rating is as high as three because I have read many of Vidal's other efforts and found them very rewarding. Perhaps it is just me on this one!

Heavy going...., 25 Jun 2008
I really struggled with this, taking three weeks (with a weeks break in-between) to read it which is shocking considering I normally read at least a book a week! I found the language stilted, the endless reams of philosophical prose an effort and the detailed descriptions of Roman warfare dull.

However. Let's get this into perspective. This is an extensively researched work of historical fiction and you're only really going to read it if you have an interest in the subject matter in the first place? In which case I think you'll find it fascinating and well written. I knew nothing about the Roman Empire other than the bits and pieces kids are fed at school, so I read the book partly to learn more about the subject and partly in pursuit of my quest to broaden my literary horizons. As for the historical accuracy of the book I couldn't comment and defer to my learned colleagues below!

My interest in the story increased in the last 100 pages, although who knows whether this was because the book was improving or whether I was excited as I could see the light and the end of the proverbial tunnel?

It's not all doom and gloom though. I liked the way the memoirs of Emperor Julian Augustus are broken up by letters between two old men who knew him, one of whom is compiling the memoirs for publication, and how this often gave a different perspective on the events of his life. These inserts are often humorous and help to lighten the book a little. Another thing I found fascinating, as a lover of the English language, was just how many words and phrases commonly used today originated from the ancient Greeks.

Julian was known as Julian the Apostate as he renounced his faith (Christianity) and reverted to Hellenism. It is interesting to read a record of that period when the Christian faith was in its infancy, reminding you that it is a man-made religion, adopting elements of other religions, created for political reasons. Julian was the last emperor to publicly worship the Pagan gods and originally stated that he would allow all religions to exist together. However, sadly he proves in the end to be just as blinkered, intolerant and supertitious of the Galileans as they are of others. It's also interesting to see the detrimental effect that power has on even the most gentle, intelligent and philosophical of men.

So how many stars do I award this? In terms of my enjoyment as a whole, it will have to be 2 stars, but if I'm playing devil's advocate then maybe it would creep up to a 3...partly for the elation I felt when I actually finished the thing!



Not for the feint-hearted., 10 Aug 2007
What would the be the prerequisites for a sympathetic novel about Julian the Apostate? A detailed knowledge of the late Roman Empire, a detailed knowledge of early Christianity and a certain antipathy towards that religion. Gore Vidal demonstrates a virtuosity in all three that makes for one of the best reads of the last fifty years. This is, quite simply, a tour-de-force that has few parallels in historical fiction. For those who don't share Vidal's suspicion of organised religion, especially Christians, this novel might prove an uncomfortable experience. For those who like their history warts and all, it is simply brilliant. One of the few works of fiction that takes a serious look at the origins of Christianity and gives a reasoned account of its development, it refuses to even pay lip-service to the unthinking acceptance of Christianity as a religion that sprang fully formed into the world. Nor does he shrink from comparing the morality of two very different religious systems and finding Christianity wanting. It almost makes you wish that Julian had obtained his goal and had, after all, reinstated the ancient philosophy that was tolerant of all beliefs and had little concept of evangilism or heretical thinking.

APOSTATE, 27 Feb 2005
The fourth century AD is a period I have never known much about. The first I ever heard about the emperor Julian the Apostate was actually the unflattering caricature by St Gregory Nazianzen, quoted here again in the novel. There is a plus-side and there is a minus-side to reading a historical novel from ignorance of the background, the plus-side being obviously that one is not distracted from appreciating it for what it is - creative writing. I feel sure the downside outweighs that, all the same. There is obviously considerable erudition behind this book, and if I ever improve my grasp of the background I would expect to find real historical insights, whatever the author may have adapted, removed or added. What is clear to me is that Vidal at least thinks as a genuine historian - his narrative is about the right things that should go into a historical analysis.

The novel is partly concerned with rehabilitating Julian, but it is about more than that, indeed about more than his life-story altogether. It is about early Christianity and the mind-sets that went with that. Julian was appalled by Christianity, and so, quite evidently, is Vidal. For him, early Christianity was a noxious perversion of human thought-processes. Christianity of this period tried to enforce beliefs, and would stop at nothing in the process. This should make us pause to ask - how can any belief be obligatory? Only our actions can be subject to our own will, let alone anyone else's, and holding a belief is not an action. There is a restricted sense in which it could be described as that, namely the sense in which 'holding' means 'propounding', as in a book or a lecture. In more normal usage to 'hold' a belief is just to 'have' a belief, and we either do or do not believe something - it's a state of affairs like having a headache, not a voluntary or enforceable act like holding a sword or holding a meeting. On top of that there is the question - what, if anything, did the doctrines the Christians were slaughtering one another over even mean? The doctrine of the Trinity was something to kill for, it seems. Even in my time the answer to rational questioning was that some 'truths' (in whatever sense) were above reason but revealed by God, but of course one had to take someone's word for that. It was all of a piece with mortification of the flesh and repression of natural instincts, as Vidal quietly implies - any faculties, brain or body, that the Creator may have given us, presumably to use, were not only suspect but evil and those who saw the matter otherwise would be dealt with, as Julian himself was finally dealt with at the age of 32.

The book ends with a fascinating question left suspended, as much good history does. Julian was killed in his early prime, through treachery by one of his own officers, at Ctesiphon on the Tigris, the scene of new unresolved issues even as I write. He had made a serious error in that battle, the first of his brilliant military career, but all was not lost by any means. If he had lived out a natural lifespan, or even postponed being murdered for some years, would he have stopped Christianity in its tracks throughout the Roman empire? Vidal does not go into the question of its origin in any depth, but what he highlights clearly is that it was unique among religions in being new. The associated myths and legends that in other faiths had grown up gradually from the dawn of time were being strenuously created for Christianity at top speed and even more strenuously enforced. Julian and his author saw it as still having only shallow roots, but it was an idea whose time had come, it commanded fierce loyalty as Julian's own beliefs did not, and the odds must have been against him.

Julian's reign is well documented, not least by himself, and the story rests on his own accounts supplemented by those of two familiars. The narrative is accomplished, the writing style elegant and often ironic and witty as one would expect. However the reasons that led Vidal to put nearly five years of his life into writing about Julian in particular go far beyond the availability of copious source-material. There is nothing mysterious about these reasons - the author makes them abundantly clear. The real mystery, as he leaves me in no doubt either, is how human beings in the mass manage to think the way they seem to.

Excellent, 15 Sep 2004
I was advised to read this novel in preparation for a course in later Roman history during my final year at university.

Don't let that put you off. along with the Claudius novels this must be one of the best pieces of historical fiction ever. A marvellous read, grounded in excellent research. Gore Vidal clearly did his homework before sitting down to write Julian as his novel provides an excellent introduction to the history of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.

Absorbing, rich and erudite, 18 Jul 2004
Creation takes the reader to a singular time in human history, when the Persian Empire of the Great Kings, the Indian kingdoms of the Ganges, Confucian China and Periclean Athens were simultaneously at their peak. Through the eyes of one man, a half-Persian, half-Greek, who travels for many years through these varied and brilliant empires, we experience worlds we have lost. He himself is the grandson of the Prophet Zoroastrus, and aide to the Great King Darius, and as Persia's roving ambassador, encounters legendary Greek figures, three generations of Persian kings, marries into the Indian royal house soon to conquer the Gangetic plains, meets the Buddha and encounters Confucius. This vast and ambitious work is simultaneously a fictional autobiography, an exploration of a sublime and fascinating era and its civilisations, and a story of one man's ceaseless inquiry into the nature of existence, truth and human origins. The title of the book is the focus of this ceaseless quest, and through this sweeping, exciting novel, the reader will find himself educated - without realising it - on the differing views of civilisations whose existence has ended, but whose ideas have lived on. Gore Vidal's painstaking research grants him absolute mastery over his subject matter, and his skill as a writer make this a splendid, majesterial and moving work of fact-fiction.

Absorbing, rich and erudite, 18 Jul 2004
Creation takes the reader to a singular time in human history, when the Persian Empire of the Great Kings, the Indian kingdoms of the Ganges, Confucian China and Periclean Athens were simultaneously at their peak. Through the eyes of one man, a half-Persian, half-Greek, who travels for many years through these varied and brilliant empires, we experience worlds we have lost. He himself is the grandson of the Prophet Zoroastrus, and aide to the Great King Darius, and as Persia's roving ambassador, encounters legendary Greek figures, three generations of Persian kings, marries into the Indian royal house soon to conquer the Gangetic plains, meets the Buddha and encounters Confucius. This vast and ambitious work is simultaneously a fictional autobiography, an exploration of a sublime and fascinating era and its civilisations, and a story of one man's ceaseless inquiry into the nature of existence, truth and human origins. The title of the book is the focus of this ceaseless quest, and through this sweeping, exciting novel, the reader will find himself educated - without realising it - on the differing views of civilisations whose existence has ended, but whose ideas have lived on. Gore Vidal's painstaking research grants him absolute mastery over his subject matter, and his skill as a writer make this a splendid, majesterial and moving work of fact-fiction.

Very very impressive, 04 Jul 2004
This is one of those books you will push your children to read

An extraordinary combination of erudition and creativity, 23 Oct 2001
Vidal demonstrates an uncanny ability to grasp the finer details of ancient cultures and bring them to life. I come to this conclusion because of my own familiarity with one of the philosophical sytems and cultures covered - and here he achieves an extraordinary versimilitude with regard to the day to day life of the teacher and his followers, and the political intrigues surrounding the ruling aristocracy. A wonderful book with a strong narrative thread and for much of the time with the authors tongue firmly in cheek.

An incredible trip to our cultural origins, 26 Apr 1999
This marvellous novel pick us to the beginnings of the Occidental Culture guided by Cyro Spitama, a supposed descendant of Zoroastro, the persian prophet. With him we visit the ancient Greece of the V century b.C. ( the Presocratic Greece), The magic India ( Budha, Janin) and the misterious China ( Lao tse, Confucius ). In his long life, Cyro will know all the inportant evens of this decisive century: the century in which the greatest empires were built.

Leonardo Benito de Valle y Bermejo

Biography but only if you know your US history, 11 May 2004
A bit of a weighty read that I cannot help but think could have been a lot better written. Vidal chooses to write this biography through the eyes of a journalist of the time (1804) who in turn is writing a biography of Burr with the direction from his editor to get “some dirt” to discredit an opponent in a political campaign. The book is written in first person narrative of the journalist describing his relationship with Burr and further first person narrative of Burrs description of his life to the journalist. This makes it a fairly one-dimensional read over what is potentially a very big story. I also feel that Vidal expects us to know who the other characters are in the book from our knowledge of American history; well I didn’t and Vidal didn’t give a great deal away with elaboration or portrayal of these protagonists.

Excellent Starting Place for a Burr Exploration, 01 Dec 2002
I ignored Gore Vidal for most of my life. He was always way too media for my tastes. Especially after that encounter with Mailer on the Cavett show those many years ago. I had a friend who was in the movie version of Myra Breckenridge, so I saw that film in a Manhatten cinema and wished I hadn't. It just confirmed my prejudices towards Vidal. What I discovered after reading this book was that I'd been doing myself a disservice.

Gore Vidal is the wittiest, and thankfully, one of the least lugubriously erudite, historian we have. Burr and Schuyler come across as three-dimensional characters, much more so than Washington or Jefferson ever have.

Yes, this is biased, not to mention jaundiced, history. We must remind ourselves that it is an historical novel, not purporting to keep strictly to the facts. Washington comes across as a militarily incompetent, but poticially shrewd egomaniac. Jefferson is not treated too reverentially either.

Burr, whom we know from American History classes only because he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, comes across as a witty and urbane statesman who perhaps didn't display the greatest amount of common sense in that murky New Orleans business.

This novel opened my eyes about Vidal and I promptly went on a Vidal tear, reading five of his other books. I'd stick to the American History novels (particularly Lincoln), however. I found Creation to be a lot more contrived than his other works (and I love Byzantine/medieval history). If you want a good picture of Byzantium, stick to Procopius.

an awesome and illuminating novel, 28 Dec 2000
The only Vidal novel I had read previously to this had been Myra Breckinridge which i had not been particularly impressed with. I had heard that his historical novels were a different kettle of fish, but being a history buff I tend to avoid 'historical novels'. This one certainly might bring about a change in my reading habits. Its an absolutely brilliant book and I certainly cannot recommend it enough. Based around the interactions between an aspiring journalist in the New York of the 1830s and the aging and notorious Colonel Aaron Burr - war hero, ex-vice president, murderer of Alexander Hamilton and accused as the villian of an infamous plot to break up the united states and set himself up as king of Mexico, the novel serves to not only provide an 'alternative' look at the American War of Independence, the framing of the Constitution and the characters of several of the founding fathers, but also to illuminate the political culture of the subsequent years. It is wonderfully written, intelligent, questioning, witty, often laugh-out-loud-funny and ultimately enormously touching and sad. Mr. Vidal sticks to the facts for most of the way through - it is in the interpretation that he runs counter to the current of received history. After reading this one just cannot think of Jefferson et al with the same unquestioning hero-worship one is indoctrinated with in the classroom. Though this book was written a couple of decades ago, I have only reccently read it. It set me on a path to reading a number of Mr Vidals other historical novels. Certainly it is one of the best books I've read in a long time.

Gore Vidal's book does much to vindicate an innocent man., 05 Nov 1998
As an historian, I have always doubted the guilt of Aaron Burr whose greatest curse seems to have been his willingness to consider both sides of an issue. As a 'middle-of-the-roader' he was not much liked by persons with stronger opinions. If we recall how nearly Burr came to winning the presidency from Jefferson, consider how his temperment at the time was viewed, and note the support he received at his trial, and from whom, the reader ought to be left with questions which, as a reviewer with a legal background concluded, creates serious doubt as to Burr's purpose and guilt. Burr's Americanism is proved by the way he accepted what he knew was political policy of the day; government condemned individuals rather than accept blame for filibustering schemes gone awry.

Entertaining from page 1 through the end, 25 Aug 1998
I couldn't put it down once I started reading! The portrayals of Washington, Hamilton, Jackson, Jefferson, etc were wonderfully sarcastic & humerous. I've always wondered as Burr if the members of Continental Congress were such patriots why weren't they out with the troops getting shot at. The founding fathers weren't 2 dimensional models of perfection. I adored Burr's character. His memoirs of his treason trial were especially entertaining.

Gore blimey..., 27 Jun 2008
As a late discoverer of Gore Vidal I am amazed at his literary dexterity. Such an erudite observer of America, the world, himself, and all of life. The essential ironic American. A rewarding read. Now to read more Gore...

A pleasant surprise, 03 Aug 2007
Vidal has managed to present this volume of his memoirs with a winning mix of the self-effacing and the candid whilst at the same time even managing to render his trademark immodesty in an endearing way. The outcome for the reader is not dissimilar to that experienced when allowing an elderly relative to muse on times past, an effect accentuated by Vidal's tendency to move disjointedly between the most unlikely topics brazenly ignoring any supposed need for structure or continuity.

Where he succeeds is in bringing his life to life with a splash of colour and some memorable anecdotes, and the result is an extremely likeable anthology.

Vale for Vidal, 09 Jan 2007
If ever your life feels a little thin or uneventful, blame Gore Vidal. He's had enough event and diversion in his time for five or six of us, and he keeps making us feel even worse by not only telling us about them in superbly written memoirs, but looking out of the cover at us all handsome and assured, both in youth and old age.

First there was Palimpsest (1995), dealing with his early life, which Martin Amis called "a tremendous read, down and dirty from start to finish. It is also a proud and serious and truthful book." Now Vidal gives us Point to Point Navigation, subtitled A Memoir 1964 - 2006.

And it is full of everything we have come to expect. Strange stories of all the great and good of the American twentieth century, from the very very famous to the known-in-certain-circles. Vidal's life has been not just more eventful than most, but lived at a more rarefied level; he was brought up among the renowned and the ruling classes, and so the line for him between the personal and the political has always been a thin one.

Quote:
"During the next quarter century I re-dreamed the Republic's history, which I have always regarded as a family affair. But what was I to do with characters that were - are - not only famous but even preposterous? When my mother was asked why, after three famous marriages, she did not try for a fourth, she observed, "My first husband had three balls. My second, two. My third, one. Even I know enough not to press my luck.""

There, he is talking - initially - about his series of novels, Washington, D.C., Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood and The Golden Age, 'factional' accounts of the USA, which he refers to collectively as 'Narratives of Empire' but which his publishers keep insisting on branding as 'Narratives of a Golden Age.' Throughout Point to Point Navigation, Vidal is at pains to mention his fictional output at every opportunity, making a vain (in both senses) attempt to mark his patch in literary history as a novelist, rather than wit, essayist and polymath. But he can hardly be dissatisfied by how he is already remembered.

And there is a good reason for his interest in remembrance, and how he will be viewed in retrospect. Vidal is now 81 years old, and the spectre of death shadows most of the book. There will not, we suspect, be a third volume. He is writing in "the awful year 2005," after his first full year spent without his partner of 53 years, Howard Auster, and making the move for health reasons back to LA and away from his beloved La Rondinaia, the extraordinary home on the cliffs of Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy, where he and Auster had lived since 1963.

The memoir is less structured than Palimpsest, taking almost a diaristic form as he reflects both on the things that happen to him during 2005, the events in the world, and the people he knew whose deaths invoke a flurry of anecdotes. If the book had been more orderly, there is no doubt that Vidal would have left the strongest material to the end, instead of one-third in where it now appears. This is his report of the death of his partner Howard Auster in November 2003: the long struggle from illness to illness, the childlike reduction in his life, and most movingly, an extraordinary account of how Vidal looked into Auster's still-alert eyes after his heart stopped and held his gaze as he watched life ebb away from him. It is worth, as they say, the price of admission alone and if it doesn't move you to weeping then you should have your tear ducts checked by a qualified professional.

So strong is the feeling of mortality throughout the book (assisted by the black cover) that it almost feels like a posthumous publication. Vidal is still vital however, and the effortless quality of his prose reminds us that although he is "moving, graciously, I hope, toward the door marked exit," he is still fully with us.

And I do not want to suggest that the book is overwhelmingly gloomy or morbid. There is plenty of Vidal's wit in evidence, and his contempt for the current (and most past) American administration, and his country's cultural mores.

Quote:
"A current pejorative term is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meaning of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume."

Despite the occasional stretches where he mistakes his intimate knowledge of some lesser-known folk with our interest in them, the overall feeling of gratitude and what Martin Amis called "a transfusion from above" when reading Point to Point Navigation, means I can offer it only the highest praise. It is a perfect vale for Vidal.

Between Obituaries, 10 Dec 2006
"No other writer has peered so intently under the hood of American Society. None can match his uncanny gift for "telling us what we want to know' about public life, including politics, theatre and the movies. His new book is sad, spotty chronicle that would suggest Gore is stuck in a fog from a dwindling set of landmarks. Vidal's' imagination has always been able to get into the past" James
None of us know much about Vidal Gore, he likes it that way. His two memoirs have shed light on himself and the people he liked and loved. Gore's wit could cut someone, usually politicians, to the core with out them even realizing they had even a sliver. However, with his contemporaries, authors, he is even tempered and respectful. His stories about Tennessee Williams, whom he adored, but wrote about with sarcasm, are ones to savor. As are his stories about and with Johnny Carson. Carson and Gore liked each other and when Gore appeared on 'The Tonight' show, that was what television is all about. Marcus There are witty remembrances of Paul Bowles, Federico Fellini, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Onassis. Gore Vidal's father had a 'fling' with Amelia Earhart and hits inside is a story in itself. Of course, the fact that Gore Vidal had entrance to the Camelot known as the Kennedy Administration was his forte. He and the Kennedy's had spats but one of the final chapters in this memoir is about Kennedy and his death and has credence.

The most painful to read portion of this book is the time and death of Vidal's companion Howard Austen. Vidal gives s a vivid portrayal of his life just before his death and the final moments of Howard's life. These are poignant and give us insight into this great man.

We learn about Vidal Gore's entry into politics and why it did not work out. The writing of his forty-sox books, his philosophy of life and the writers he revered. Montaigne is the author he reveres and reads time and again about memory and the lapses of memory.

"Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters." Larry Mc Murtry.

This is a book to be revered if you are a Gore Vidal fan, as I am. I did not want it to end. Gore Vidal is now eighty-one and his memoirs may end but a trilogy would be most welcome. Highly Recommended. prisrob 12/09/06


Gore the lot of them, Vidal, 24 Apr 2008
An old friend of mine every now and again would recommend Gore Vidal to me and tell me I would really appreciate Vidal's writing. I did heed him but I never found the time to actually pick up one of this great writer's books. A few months back I read a glowing review of this book in a British newspaper and thought, well now is the time to see what that old friend was on about. I have to say, after reading this book, I am really sorry that I didn't pay more attention to my friend's advice much earlier. I am now in the position of having set myself the arduous (but no doubt rewarding) task of having to read all of this author's entire writings. I am obsessed. He writes with such intelligence, wit, wisdom and overbearing authority that it is impossible not to love this man. Some of his subject matter (the modern French novel, to give but one example) will be obscure to your average anglophone Joe (me, for instance) but every essay in this collection manages to be both entertaining and rewarding. I have even found myself browsing in second hand bookshops for translations of Robbe-Grillet. I was (am) particularly enamoured of Vidal's slant on the rise and (hopeful) fall of the American Empire, but there is nothing in this collection of great essays that is either superfluous or dull. Buy it, rent it, steal - just read it and judge for yourself. As for that old friend, I owe him a well-deserved drink when I see him next.


Dull Dull Dull, 29 Jun 2008
I love good historical novels but for me at least this is not one of them. Vidal clearly has great knowledge and I suspect that the history content is accurate and complete. However, I look for entertainment in a novel and I found precious little in this one. Hard work and I could only take ten pages at a time whereas I usually swim through good novels easily. Discretion being the better part of valour I gave up halfway through. My rating is as high as three because I have read many of Vidal's other efforts and found them very rewarding. Perhaps it is just me on this one!

Heavy going...., 25 Jun 2008
I really struggled with this, taking three weeks (with a weeks break in-between) to read it which is shocking considering I normally read at least a book a week! I found the language stilted, the endless reams of philosophical prose an effort and the detailed descriptions of Roman warfare dull.

However. Let's get this into perspective. This is an extensively researched work of historical fiction and you're only really going to read it if you have an interest in the subject matter in the