Comments on: Gore Vidal: 75% cynical visionary + 25% conspiracy nut =100% entertaining!

By: New Feature: Links! « Emily Rutherford

New Feature: Links! « Emily Rutherford — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:20:34 +0000

[...] does a good job of highlighting the interesting passages from the interview in [...]

By: Buster

Buster — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:34:47 +0000

Thanks for this post! First, because I would have otherwise missed the article being sunk in the depths of dissertation-writing, seminar-leading, and job-market-despairing. And second, because it reassures me that Gore can still bring the bitchiness. I’d heard a couple of years ago from a friend/scholar of Vidal that the old man was drifting away into aloofness and depression. I’m glad to see that he’s recalibrated his humors with a fresh injection of vinegar.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:59:05 +0000

Thanks for stopping by to comment, Lambert.

Indyanna: funnily enough, I had a great uncle who wasn’t a drunk, but certainly loved to drink, and his drink was vodka gimlets!

Paul, you’re right–I think it’s because a lot of those snarling fights were among men and women who shared either a WASP sensibility (like Buckley and Vidal, with the caveat that yes, I know Buckey was Roman Catholic), or a kind of upper-West side arts-and-letters sensibility (like Mailer, who confined his murderous attacks to women, and only threw punches at other male writers.) Some women had their feuds, too–like Mary McCarthy versus Lillian Hellman, although I don’t think they ever came to fisticuffs. (The insults were purely verbal, that is.)

On the one hand, the tenor of these vicious rivalries seems more civilized, perhaps because it (sometimes) involved a more clever use of language than most people can muster these days. On the other hand, I find myself agreeing with Janet Flanner, and thinking, “My god, these people are so totally tiresome and provincial and self-referential, as though the edge of the world is the western shore of the Hudson River.”

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:58:22 +0000

What strikes me in those links (Vidal vs. Mailer and Vidal vs. Buckley) is the combination of lots of hostility and even threats with a relatively restrained manner, i.e. voices only raised slightly. In more recent times, the standard in public debates seems to be either non-confrontational to the point of being bland, or going straight to shouting at each other.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:54:17 +0000

This post made me look up “gimlet-eyed,” something I had ALWAYS intended to do, and was I surprised to learn that it didn’t refer to something about drunk! A bit off-thread, but I would love to read a big fat (but accessible) cultural history of the trope about the drunk (or otherwise belligerent) “uncle” at Thanksgiving. It’s a figure of speech I use all the time, although I don’t think I ever had an uncle come to Thanksgiving.

Back to your regularly-scheduled thread on Gore Vidal…

By: lambert strether

lambert strether — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:42:35 +0000

Thanks for the link. You write:

Vidal is and always has been gimlet-eyed (to say the least!) about political power and the National Security State.

Yep. Why I read him. There aren’t very many people — let alone WASP Zeligs — who are both gimlet-eyed about the National Security State. That’s to be valued and respected.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:36:55 +0000

I know I really shouldn’t like him, but I do. He was born into privilege, but he knew it and did something with himself anyway. I think his experience in WWII shaped him as much as it shaped any of his nemeses (Mailer and Buckley among them) and contemporaries. The stories he has to tell are amazing, even if you don’t like him–he’s a kind of WASP Zelig of the 20th century.

Funny, CPP: I included a line when I was drafting the post about how he was like a loud-mouthed, somewhat embarassing but always entertaining member of the family. He’s in his eighties–I cut older people some slack, but the truth is that he’s always been pretty outrageous!

Bavardess: Vidal’s greatest role as an actor was his turn in 1992 in Bob Roberts as incumbent Senator Brickley Paiste, who was defeated by Tim Robbins’ title character. (That’s just a great political movie–among the best, surely.) It’s the role he was born to play.

By: Comrade PhysioProf

Comrade PhysioProf — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:11:40 +0000

He is hilarious in the same way that your vicious drunk-ass uncle at Thanksgiving is hilarious: pathetically.

By: Bavardess

Bavardess — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:47:06 +0000

I adore Gore Vidal, in all his curmudgeonly glory. I don’t know if he’d be successful in politics, though. I can’t imagine him being willing to spout the kind of mealy-mouthed spin produced by professional speech writers that too often passes for political discourse these days. That last line is great.

By: KoshemBos

KoshemBos — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:45:50 +0000

Above all, Vidal is a hateful person and a tiny author. Constantly he looks around to find someone else to hate. No reason to listen to a person who is arrogant and empty.