Customer Reviews

The Essential Gore Vidal : A Gore Vidal Reader

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I s Gore Vidal a great writer? It depends on what he is writing. This compilation is long overdue as Vidal has never been taken as seriously by the Eastern literary establishment as he deserves. Certainly, he is one of the very few serious writers who also know how to entertain. This is what makes him so successful. Included here is his play, "The Best Man," the complete "Myra Breckenridge," selections from his historical novels, and a number of essays. My own opinion is that few writers are capable of such elegant prose as Vidal is when he is writing in the essay form. He understands politics better than any other fictional writer, which is why his historical novels make such splendid reading. His wit is uneven; brilliantly hilarious and insightful at its best, unnecessarily vulgar and savagely mean at its worst, which is why his comic novels are such hit and miss affairs. Vidal's work, taken as a whole, is an impressive library. Few good writers have been as productive as he, and who else can claim to have been consistently on the bestseller lists for nearly four decades as he has? Anyone who admires Vidal will argue with some of the selections here but there is also much to entertain and enlighten. Enjoy.

I was very much under his literary influence as a youth, but he doesn't wear well as one matures. Whatever he wrote in the '60's and '70's I devoured, yet at around 30 years old or so his work seemed to strike a sour note. Works I once admired now seemed silly. He could write well manicured prose sitting in the middle of a battle field but it is his cynicism and hate for his native land that doesn't wear well once one matures beyond a rebellious youth. It is a cruel fate to have outlived the relevance of ones work.