Customer Reviews

Conversations with Gore Vidal (Literary Conversations Series)

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In 11 interviews from 1960 to 2003, Vidal talks about sex, religion, the movies, politics, literature--in short, everything that makes life interesting. Lots of gems scattered throughout. Vidal is America's greatest living man of letters. Not since Edmund Wilson have we had such a great critic, and the two of them along with H.L. Mencken comprise the three great public intellectuals of 20th-century America. Hear America's greatest public intellectual talk in this new volume. The only disappointment you'll feel is when the conversation runs out at the end.

Gore Vidal is one of America's wittiest and intelligent commentators (besides a first class novelist and essayist). This collection of interviews given between the years 1960 and 2003 are presented chronologically which allows the reader to watch how Vidal's views and opinions develop and shift. Being a collection of interviews many of the anecdotes get to be a bit repetitious. Other than that, the collection covers a wide range of subjects -- American history, the craft of writing, the state of literature, television, movies, and politics of all kinds. And all subjects, Gore Vidal gives a lot of food for thought.

Being more familiar with Vidal the personality than Gore the author, I was fascinated by this series of interviews that took place over decades. He is incredibly bright, witty and insightful. He is also very consistent in his stories from interview to interview. It was a pleasure to read.

As always, Gore Vidal is direct,honest and penetrating in his perceptions of the American and human cultural experience. Who do we have to fill this gap when he is gone?

So enticing is Vidal's cruel wind that a beautiful, rapacious genius lights each of these interviews. Gore Vidal is a reflector, our mirror. Looking, we see truth, as we see ourselves. Such is his charism; his accomplishment is our unaccustomed vigor at discovering the man in the mirror. There's a spacious lot of vintage Vidal here, but more - the Larry Kramer interview is haunting. The interviewers are uniformly a fine match, and everywhere Gore reigns! The end piece with Amy Goodman getting down deep. I'm sorry the book ended. It's a remarkable set of pieces, the most pleasing I've read in a long while. Big recommendation.