Customer Reviews

The Golden Age: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

There is an old saying that when it's time to go out, go out with a bang. This is exactly what Gore Vidal does in this, the last novel in his "American Chronicles" series. An updating and rewriting of his earlier novel, "Washington, D.C.," "The Golden Age" shifts its focus to the nation as a whole and the chain of events that involved us in World War 2 and the Cold War. Gossipy and inclusive rather than pedantic and exclusive (as many historical novels tend to be), Vidal gives the reader the view of an insider, partially because he had grown up on the fringes of that inside. Among the many historical character the reader meets in the pages of the novel is none other than Gore Vidal himself. This should be no surprise as Vidal is one of the most autobiographical of American authors, his memoir "Palimpsest" reading almost like a novel. Non-Vidal fans may not like the Calvino-esque ending, but those among us who love Vidal's writings will feel more than a touch of sadness at the end. More entertaining than "Empire" or "Hollywood," "The Golden Age" belongs on the shelf of all serious readers.

I gave The Golden Age three stars primarily because the book had three tiresome flaws that kept it from achieving the excellence of his novel Lincoln.

The first weakness of this book is that Gore Vidal was far less subtle in controlling his own political philosophy in The Golden Age, possibly because the era in the novel was one in which Vidal lived, whereas in Lincoln, there was enough distance in time that Vidal was able to show more objectivity. For fans of Gore Vidal, of which I am one, his political philosophy is no secret. He believes that the Civil War allowed Lincoln to consolidate power into the presidency at the expense of the legislative branch. He thinks that we turned from the values of the republic and adopted the values of empire. During wartime, the power of the US President is heightened even further, thus becoming an incentive for a US President to declair war. He places both FDR and Truman into this category of expanding the power of the presidency through World War II and the Cold War. Vidal believes that the country has always been ruled by an wealthy elite group of citizens. As the technology of communication has evolved, this power seeking elite has learned how to control the media. The elite controlled first the printed press, then Hollywood in the 1930-1950s, and then television. Through mass media they shape the perceptions of the common American family. Vidal also believes that the Cold War and the search for Communism is also a strategy used by the powerful elite to evoke fear in the common family, thus keeping taxes high to pay wealthy defense and security contractors.

I actually also believe this to be true, however Gore Vidal is so heavy handed in The Golden Age that he ruins the novel by over emphasis of his political agenda. I wished for the subtle interpersonal power plays that he depicts so well in Lincoln.

My second concern is his treatment of the historical characters. The historic characters in the novel are far more lively and multi-dimension as compared to the fictious characters, but their motives and actions are grossly bent to accomodate Vidal's political agenda. FDR's critical conversations take place "off stage" so that we only see him mixing martinis and engaged in witty commentary with his wife, Eleanor. Vidal seems to strongly believe that FDR knew about the Japanese intention to bomb Pearl Harbor prior to the bombing. I certainly believe this to be false and Vidal does not really make a strong case here in this novel at all of convincing me. He never gets into the head of FDR because in the end Vidal doesn't really have the goods to back up his outrageous claim. There are hundreds of historic characters in the novel and toward the end when he has Dawn Powell, Virgil Thompson, and Paul Bowles all delivering witty cocktail chatter, I realized the novel had melted into name dropping.

My third concern is that there were far too many cardboard one dimensional fictitious characters who all sounded just alike in their witty, upperclass sarcasm and jaded pessimism. We never understand why there is so much animosity and friction among many of the fictitional characters, most of whom are related to each other. The fictitious characters caused the book to be over long and drawn out.

I wish Gore Vidal had really written a good book about the way FDR analyzed the role of the USA prior to and during World War II. This would have been great. In Lincoln he stuck to the facts and it produced a wonderful political novel. In The Golden Age, Vidal veers from the facts into his own agenda, and when he can't support that agenda with factual events, the novel becomes soggy.

In his historical novels, Gore Vidal brings the solemn marble statues of American history to brilliant life by letting them talk. And talk. His books are long, sometimes lacivious conversations, and his characters distinguish themselves -- sometimes extinguishing themselves to the reader-- through their own words.

For instance, in The Golden Age, a large helping of World War II era spilled beans, a young man at a New York party responds to the idea that America needs a new civilization to go with its new global ascendancy by saying, ''Do we really want a civilization?... We've done awfully well as the hayseeds of the Western world. Why spoil it?... No, we've got to stay dumb.''

Yes, that signature cynicism is uttered by the author himself, making a brief cameo. So if you won't find gore, you will find Gore in this 100 percent action free wartime novel, the seventh and last in the linked sequence of American history novels that begins chronologically with ''Burr'' (although Vidal wrote what's now volume 6, ''Washington, D.C.,'' way back in 1967) and adds up to a talkative masterpiece.

Also in captivity, among a mob of mid century American potentates, are Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover, Cary Grant, and Tennessee Williams.

As usual, the conversation's good. Vidal's animated historical figures aren't farcically pompous, but they are, like Vidal himself, trenchant, sporadically wise, and routinely malicious. He delivers verbal stilettos to just about every eminent back that appears.

The more ominous conversations are about America's backing into the war and its lurching role in the postwar world. If you've been following the story through previous novels like ''Empire'' and ''Hollywood,'' you know the anti imperialist gospel according to Gore.

Here, Vidal's FDR sees involvement in the Nazi launched European war as a winnable shot at an American administered worldwide New Deal, and -- craftily and charmingly -- he goes for it mainly (in what has been the novel's most controversial assertion) by provoking the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor. The global war produces, in Vidal's version, a new America that loses its republican innocence and becomes a Cold War garrison state.

In other words, we should have stayed dumb, or played dumb. One of Vidal's mostly marginal fictional characters, wandering in from the earlier novels, launches a magazine and declares, ''I intend to create... America's Golden Age.'' For Vidal, it was that brief parenthesis of national elation, between war and Cold War, that was a Golden Age, followed by fool's gold -- we're now stuck in a congested ''technological Calcutta'' of a planet.

Wherever you shelve its populist isolationist politics, ''The Golden Age'' works as a mordant evocation of historical personalities and turning points, and above all, as monumental past tense gossip.

Following on the heels of "Burr," Lincoln," "Empire," and "Washington, D.C.," among others, we now have another fictional take on American history from one whom some have dubbed the penultimate curmudgeon. Whether that sobriquet is true or not, one thing is for sure - he is always entertaining and enlightening. He does make us think!

However, this audiobook is even more than entertaining and enlightening - it's a terrific listen as rendered by Broadway actress Kathryn Walker. Her inflections are perfect, and she has those Gore-isms down pat. She not only reads with skill but also with understanding.

A particularly delicious reading occurs in the section in which Vidal places himself in his own saga. All in all, a topnotch tale offered by an A-one performer.

"Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust." And so it is with Gore Vidal and his bright and shining fictional characters of "Washington, D.C." who conclude their lives in what Vidal considers the only war-free Golden Age 1945-1951.

"Golden Age" despite the increasing infirmities of the characters, is a lively book. I have a special place for Vidal; in spite of his monumental conceits, his brilliance sweeps one along. On the conceit front, he actually gives himself a cameo part noting that poor fictional Peter Sandford has gone to fat, but Vidal is imperially slim. I had to smile, as the real-life Vidal has always had a weight problem.

Most of the publicity on this book concerns whether FDR "knew" in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor. There is a nicety here that the publicists overlook. Vidal maintains President Roosevelt "knew" there would be an attack in the Pacific, but not where. His best guess was the Philippines. To me, this is an important difference and casts a much more kindly light on FDR. Vidal's unusual take (negative) on Harry Truman is worth the price of the book. As always, Vidal is waspish with historical characters that do not meet with his approval. I vividly recall my shock at his unfavorable view of Thomas Jefferson in "Burr." He has satirist Dawn Powell, in a two-page monologue, doing a non-stop hilariously wicked take on Ernest Hemingway. I don't know if Vidal is quoting Powell direct or if we are hearing Vidal speaking through Powell, but whatever it is, one of them (or both) are masters of invective.

"Golden Age" is an entertaining and thoughtful read. The history is precise and the conclusions are compelling. If you like your history with a dash of wry, this is the book for you. Recommended.

I must confess that I feel ambivalent about this book. I greatly admire the other volumes of the series, not only for their value as iconoclastic evocations of American history, but as novels in themselves with vibrant and fascinating characters. Vidal is, simply put, one of America's greatest living artists. His voice is unique and unmistakable. In other volumes, his personal views are hidden and cryptic, which is great fun as the reader is kept guessing. Alas, in this one, I found his views to be baldly plain and that the characters were used as vehicles to serve these ideas. This terribly weakens its value as a work of art. Instead, it often reads like one of his essays.

In my reading, Vidal is arguing that FDR saw WWII as the only way to stay in power, a life-saving decision as there was nothing else of intimate value in his life. To do so, he took a giant step in creating the "national security state," which upon his death in office an unwitting Truman completed. Now in my view, this is a simplistic reading of a bewilderingly complex period, a watershed if you will.

Nonetheless, Vidal succeeded in getting me to question my assumptions, and that I think is of the greatest value and the unique contribution that an historical novel can relate. That saved the reading experience for me, which was more wooden than Vidal's previous accomplishments. Perhaps it is Vidal's talent that got him to create this as a crucial moment in American foreign policy, in which our involvement in such places as Irak are under scrutiny and our ideals are distrusted by the very allies that are supposed to benefit from them. It is an age of the most profound disillusionment and Vidal is providing the art that reflects this period.

Finally, the swansong machinations of the Sanfords are wonderful to follow. Also, the fate of Clay - the JFK-like villain of "Washington, DC" - is also advanced. It is a fitting conclusion to one of the great cycles of novels of this age. There are, of course, many hilarious moments in which the manners of the ruling class are dissected and exposed for questioning. In his hands, their vanities are so human, and this is a good thing.

Warmly - and this time cerebrally - recommended.

Gore Vidal is perhaps the most enlightened writer of 'inside' American politics, ever. His works "Burr", "1876", Lincoln", and "Empire" are sweeping in their scope and devastating in their laying-waste to 'average' American concepts of the myths which make up our "history" as a country. All written with great wit and insight...all 5-star are all of those mentioned. "Hollywood", the penultimate novel in the series, suffered only a little from, I feel, an inferior political plot-line. "The Golden Age" can not be said to suffer that way; in fact, I think Vidal's notions of true American history are completely 'on the mark' in this novel. Unfortunately, it is his writing style that seems to come down a notch here. Perhaps like a family too long followed, the ideas seem to be losing steam along with it...or maybe just the way they're presented. That is very sad, since the points in this last (?) one are so very important to the whole series. Lest anyone think that Vidal has lost the touch, a quick read of the first essay in the recently released "Cheny-Bush Junta..." pamphlet shows that he is still in fine form as a writer. I truly hope Vidal will take one more crack...at a post 1960 historical fiction perhaps. Sometimes brilliance skips a generation...but Gore Vidal is no less brilliant, as his essays continue to show.

Whether or not one agrees with every last thing Vidal says, I have to say I found myself doing once again what I always do when I read one of his historical novels - rushing to read the history books on the era - I did the same thing with Lincoln, Burr and Empire (not to mention Julian and Creation). And I agree with the reviewer who says, Hurrah for Vidal's last hurrah. The Golden Age is a highly entertaining literary read.

Do not be too shocked by some of the claims here that Vidal is skewering the memory of Pearl Harbor (for example)- the detached reader can more than see what Vidal is up to and come to his own conclusion. Just enjoy it, and see if you aren't very interested in making your own exploration of the era with a armful of history books.

Having savored Vidal's irreverent, sardonic interpretations of various eras in Americna History I had always hoped that he would fill the void with a "final" volume about the pre and post World War II era. He has proved the ability to be more than just iconoclastic and shocking, however, as evidenced by the sound scholarship and sympathetic representation of the era in his novel "Lincoln". Therefore, I was pleased and excited when I learned that this work was coming out and I looked forward to Vidal's interpretation of this rich and fascinating period. It is an understatement, however, to say that I found this effort disappointing. I think the author forfeited the opportunity to effectively interpret an era about which his previous readers would particularly value his perspective.

Vidal has a distinctive viewpoint in terms of nostaglia for the days when the United States was still a republic, and offers ongoing, valid, and entertaining (albeit, often also depressing) criticism of the nation's transformation to an empire. While perhaps obvious, I anticipated Vidal fully exploring the extent to which this became true during the World War II era. However, it seems as if he's run out of steam and was too tired, or jaded, to bother in this work.

He does offer interesting and characteristically gossipy passages about the Roosevelts and some members of that administration. Additionally, he offers some interesting insights about Truman (though most are predictable). However, he entirely bypasses the war itself, and most of the McCarthy era, concluding with a surrealistic ending at the time of the millenium in which he inserts himself. Not only does the end seem a nonsequitur, it comes across as a vain self indulgence.

Based upon my established admiration for Vidal, finishing the book I felt badly for him and found myself wishing that this hadn't been written. It is certainly not in keeping with the quality of his previous work.

Gore Vidal's "The Golden Age" is a magnificent book by our greatest living author and man of letters. As the capstone on his historical novelization of the rise and decline of the American Empire, it is a fitting end to a series which enlightens and entertains. For Vidal strips away the myth of America that neo-conservatism seeks at virtually all cost to perpetuate, be it the myth of a noble "Founding," the myth of a saintly and simple Abraham Lincoln, the myth of a noble empire bent on enlightening the world out of sheer altruism, the myth that we fought World War II because we were attacked without provocation, or the myth that our actions at the beginning of the Cold War were entirely in reaction to those of the Soviet Union.

This is Vidal's great theme. Over the course of his work, the main line of character development lies, not so much in Vidal's people, as in the country and then the nation itself. Vidal grew up surrounded by the men who became the ghosts that haunt our history; which is why, I suppose, that the end of this book is so fitting and so beautiful a finale to what has become a monumental work.