Duluth [Paperback]

Gore Vidal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1991

"A wild spoof of absolutely everything: social pretenses, law enforcement, marriage, open marriage, racism, literature, television, science fiction, and sex. Dozens of plots perk along at an amazing pace . . . . raunchy, dirty, outrageous, rife with cliches -- and often very funny." -- People
"One of the most brilliant, most radical, and most subversive pieces of writing to emerge from America in recent years." -- The New Statesman
"Vidal belongs to that group of writers of our time who, precisely because they have always kept their eyes open to the disorders and distortions of our age, have chosen irony, humor, comedy -- in other words, the whole range of literary instruments belonging to the universe of the laugh -- as their means of settling accounts." -- Italo Calvino

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"A wild spoof of absolutely everything: social pretenses, law enforcement, marriage, open marriage, racism, literature, television, science fiction, and sex. Dozens of plots perk along at an amazing pace . . . . raunchy, dirty, outrageous, rife with cliches -- and often very funny." -- People
"One of the most brilliant, most radical, and most subversive pieces of writing to emerge from America in recent years." -- The New Statesman
"Vidal belongs to that group of writers of our time who, precisely because they have always kept their eyes open to the disorders and distortions of our age, have chosen irony, humor, comedy -- in other words, the whole range of literary instruments belonging to the universe of the laugh -- as their means of settling accounts." -- Italo Calvino --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (July 1991)
• ISBN-10: 9994917323
• ISBN-13: 978-9994917327
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Gore Vidal has received the National Book Award, written numerous novels, short stories, plays and essays. He has been a political activist and as Democratic candidate for Congress from upstate New York, he received the most votes of any Democrat in a half-century.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Duluth is a wickedly funny book., June 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Duluth (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

Duluth, a wickedly funny satire by Gore Vidal, is the funniest novel I have ever read. It is a satire of 1980's Reagan-era America, and of the rich in particular. However, the reader should be advised that it is not going to make sense, and one should, like I did, just give up on figuring it out, and go along for the ride that Vidal takes us on. It may be absurd, but it is great fun, and I heartily recommend Duluth to anyone looking for a funny novel written in great style.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Caustic...dizzying...hilarious.... Brilliant, April 30, 2004

By 

Earl Hazell (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Duluth (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

There is a tremendous amount of violence in this book; the kind of subversively funny violence that makes it a bridge from the violence of Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 1940s to Quentin Tarantino's PULP FICTION and KILL BILL today. And that violence, profoundly enough, like its antecedents and descendents, is not in the plot; it's in the construction, deconstruction and delivery of each line in the novel as a whole. It is that kind of violence that is subversive enough in how it is delivered, in terms of context and irony, that makes this book so important, and, ulitmately, hilarious.

Only someone as well associated with the barbaric hypocrisy of the bourgeousie in American society like the Master Gore Vidal could write a book that reveals it to such maddening detail with such incredible humor. And yet, like an ADD child gone too long without his pills or a self-loathing genius comedian riffing while high on drugs, Vidal refuses to stop there. He begins to contemptuously deconstruct the very art form that is the novel to rip from it the very selfsame pretensions of artistic superiority inherent in it via its destruction--as it has existed for mainly the middle to upper middle classes in the first place. He makes his point that the novel is essentially dead, replaced with movies and the television hour drama as a vehicle for storytelling in the modern world; yet he does it while going off Hollywood television culture, in the context of his many stories. He even goes off on the very self-conscious postmodernistic style of novel writing after Pynchon, while staying true to the character and story development of about six or seven different absurd plots that form the bedrock of this sick but oh so American town named Duluth. Imagine a small, racist, politically corrupt town in the mid West with UFOs, Aztec terrorists who speak like Shakespearean heroes when their Spanish colloquialisms are translated, and people who, when they die, get reincarnated into characters on a television soap opera made about the town itself...and you have about HALF of what is going on in this incredibly silly and profoundly beautiful novel.

Gore Vidal is to Mark Twain what John Coltrane is to Charlie Parker. Read this novel, and see what I mean. Brilliant.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, Perverse,Incorrigible, and a Great Read!, November 9, 2006

By 

S. Henkels (Devon, Pa United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Duluth (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

Who else but Gore Vidal can write great historical novels, contemporary essays, and some of the most subversive and hilarious "Comic Novels" out there? He deserves the Nobel Prize, but is too good for it! Anyway, here is a very tall tale about some politicos, police officers, Aztec terrorists in the barricades, and some of the most hilarious comments on 20th century US pseudo-culture you'll ever read. Throw in some real sci-fi with some strange aliens stuck inside some swampland, with multiple US Presidents, and some truly bizarre imaginings, and you have a can't- miss oddball novel that could only be cooked up by a mind like that of the great Gore Vidal!