I wanted to know people's thoughts about Gore Vidal?

Question

Do you have a book you like by him or have anything interesting to say about him?

Im trying to find a topic for a research paper and I just wanted to know people's thoughts about him.

Answer 1

Wonderful writer, especially of historical fiction (try BURR, 1876 and LINCOLN) and essays, with a quick wit and Brahmin bearing. He's also very funny--he did "The Simpsons" this past season (the episode with Tom Wolfe and Michael Chabon), and he still lectures regularly around the world.

I was at the Texas Book Festival with a friend this past fall, with the main intention of hearing Vidal speak at the lovely Paramount Theatre. We arrived 45 minutes early, and the line was already around the (very long) block. Needless to say, we didn't get in, but I did find an autographed copy of his latest collection at a bookstore on Sunset Blvd in L.A. over Christmas.

Sadly, both he and our great conservative intellectual, William Buckley Jr., are both well up there in years. They were excellent combatants in a world before the advent of talk radio and moderators who think yelling makes a good argument.

Answer 2

There must be a connection between the name 'Gore' and inconvenient truth. Just as Al Gore has recently exposed the inconvenient truth of climate change and our responsibility for it, so Gore Vidal has been telling us what we didn't want to hear for many years.

Gore Vidal's critics, when searching for material to discredit his arguments, have often resorted to criticism of his homosexuality in the absence of any other ammunition.

Read any of his published works and they will be confronting as he tells it like we wish it wasn't.

Answer 3

He is an excellent writer, and fascinating to read, especially his political and social opinions. His historical fiction novels (LINCOLN, BURR, 1876, etc.) are solid and very interesting to read. He did some great satires in MYRA BRECKINRIDGE and MYRON, too.
But his "personal" essays, etc. are just as interesting to read. (He's kind of like a really masculine version of Truman Capote, and his opinions are always interesting.)
I remember seeing him on Television being interviewed, and he was fascinating. He is distantly related to Jacqueline Kennedy, and from his experiences with the Kennedy family, he despised them for the most part, especially Bobby Kennedy, who taunted him for being Gay. Gore Vidal saw the Kennedy family as "users", one of the keys to their great national success, and was disturbed by the way Jacqueline was dominated by them.

Answer 4

Scintillating writer, perhaps the last of the great American intellectuals, so politically mature and sharp that an army of lie-spouting neo-cons would fee before him. I read the "City and the Pillar" as a 17 year-old (gay) boy in Europe and it changed my life.

Answer 5

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. It's about how we (America) got to be so hated. You can read an excerpt on Amazon.com.