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56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Entertaining, and Informative, January 11, 2003
This review is from: Burr: A Novel (Paperback)
Burr was my first introduction to Gore Vidal's panoramic vision of American history, and I have to admit that the first time I picked up the book I drifted off and put it down, disappointed by the early focus on elderly Aaron Burr's marriage to a wealthy widow. I wanted an inside account (albeit fictionalized) of the revolutionary years, intimate portraits of men like Jefferson, Washington, Arnold and Hamilton, as well as accounts of the famous duel and Burr's subsuquent political travails and treason trial. Alas, I should have given the book a little more time. When it picks up and the mythical autobiographical journal of Burr begins, this novel becomes entertainment of the highest order. Burr, through Vidal, writes a wickedly amusing first-hand account of many of the seminal points in our nation's young history, from the winter at Valley Forge to Benedict Arnold's early success as a general. In telling his story, Burr never passes up an opportunity to point out George Washington's ineptitude as a field general or his plumpness, Jefferson's lack of military duty and his resemblance to the mulatto children living at Monticello, Ethan Allen's lack of popularity with his superiors, etc. Nobody is spared, nothing is sacred in a Gore Vidal novel. As for the historical accuracy, Vidal points out in an afterword that with a couple of very minor anachronisms (which he details), every character in the book acts as he or she did in real life - their speech and writings are borrowed from actual correspondence, and the historical events depicted are painstakingly researched (Vidal took 10 years to write the book). Even narrator Charlie Schuyler's girlfriend, the prostitute Helen Jewitt, is based upon a real life character. So while some graduate students might object to a phrase or two, and perhaps some Jeffersonians will object to the two-faced opportunist Jefferson portrayed here, for most of us with a casual interest in history the book educates as it entertains.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
History for Pleasure, February 2, 2000
For years I've enjoyed Gore Vidal's essays. Nobody alive shows more mastery over this most vital of literary forms. Although I have read an occasional Vidal novel I've tended to give his fiction short shrift. After reading Burr, it's clear I have some catching up to do. I read Lincoln independently, but now that I've devoured Burr with mounting excitement, I've decided to read his entire historical cycle in sequence. I don't quite see how Vidal is going to top Burr, for in his choice of protagonist he found a worthy successor to Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. Before reading this novel, I only knew that Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and that he served as Jefferson's Vice President. But set firmly in his time, and seen through the eyes of Charley Schuyler, Burr acquires a wonderful depth. By the time this novel was drawing to a close, I was reading it as slowly as I dared, reluctant to give up its pleasures. In my lust for fiction, I must say this doesn't happen very often.
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47 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
gore the great, May 6, 2000
This review is from: Burr: A Novel (Paperback)
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 not the most 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 Julian 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.
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