Customer Reviews

Hollywood

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is unquestionably one of the best of Vidal's longitudinal series on the governing classes of the US. While the cover is something of a double misnomer - Hollywood is more of a theme than the plot and it barely gets into the 20s - the book offers a deep and hilarious view of what was going on in the period. You feel what it was like (for some of the monied elite) to be there as witnesses and occasionally shapers of events, which is the essence of successful historical fiction, making the reader curious to look to history books for greater detail and analyis. Indeed, I found this volume to be Vidal's most subtle since Lincoln, full of themes and concepts that fascinate and titillate. It is often difficult to know where Vidal stands, at least for me, and that is a big part of the fun.

In addition to the usual characters of the Sanford sibs and Sen. Day, at the center of the novel is Woodrow Wilson. You watch his decline, at once political - he loses his grip on the nation's political imagination with WWI and then the wrangle over the League of Nations - and physical. While he was indeed a messianic idealist, Vidal also creates a very human portrait of him that I read as sympathetic and, while typically sarcastic, almost entirely lacking in vidalian cynicism. You get Wilson's vision of the future as well, which events were surpassing as he dug in his heals, pointing directly to WWII. The nation at war, with all of the moral principles so blithely thrown about, also appeared to me as a prescient evocation of a key part of the American character, its narcissistic belief in the face of contrary evidence that it always acts for a righteous cause on the good guys side - just look at the current war in Iraq! More particularly, Vidal portrays the repression of free speech and the blatant hypocracy in light of our stated constitutional ideals.

But there is also WG Harding and his courtiers, who added up to a disastrous mix of executive inattention and the crudest corruption, complete with murdered scapegoats. This too is a huge part of the American system, the desire to let things go and seek the good life while the rats are chewing out the bottom of the barrel. Sound familar? Again, it seems so prescient.

Lastly, there is a taste of the power that Hollywood was becoming. This was the most unexpected part for me, as I am a hardened political junkie and quite ignorent of this part of American culture. Essentially, Vidal questions whether the incipient movie moguls' vision - that of shaping the dreams of the American psyche - will become more important than the shenanigans going on in Wash, DC. As such, his characters see a progression from politicians telling people what to believe, through Hearst's yellow journalism evoking what they should fear, to the far deeper tappng into the public's collective unconscious. That Vidal succeeds in getting a person as jaded as I am to take a new look at so many things is indeed a feat.

Recommended as one of the best of the series. Now that I have read them all, I feel I must go back through the entire series to see more subtle linkages. This series is a wonderful experiment in a new style of hyper novel.

With an absolute grip on detail, Gore Vidal describes an era: the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding. Vidal's storytelling skills are venerable, however, the text often reads like a stream of consciousness rather than one marked by satisfying conclusions on his characters' actions. Rather than being swept up in the narrative, I kept getting lost in the vast number of characters introduced. Vidal's incisive wit seems to have been tempered by age to the point of blandness at times.. Hearst, Hollywood, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt drift through the pages without bringing impact to the story.
I still love anything Vidal writes, but this book disappointed me.
Judith Clancy
Kyoto, Japan

The fifth novel, chronologically, of Gore Vidal's American chronicle series deals with much more than the evolution of the industry that bears the title of this book. There is at least as much political chicanery in Washington as movie-making propagandizing in Hollywood. Politics runs through Vidal's blood so he can never escape the subject entirely. The dual career of Caroline Sanford as east coast newspaper publisher and west coast starlet, while not completely implausible, seems to be a way of weaving the world of the entertainment capital into the fabric of the political capital. I was quite interested in many of the strands of both stories but I felt they were welded together more than organically linked.

I have read the American chronicle novels preceding this one and two of his early novels (The Judgement of Paris and Messiah). I had thought that Vidal had a workmanlike but non-descript style similar to Steinbeck's, at the opposite end of the spectrum from writers like Faulkner and Hemingway who announce their unique presence on every page. In the American chronicle novels, however, the god-like narrator is none other than Vidal himself, the catty, gossipy gadfly insider/outsider who can't resist giving you the inside scoop on every major development that occurs in his world. There are passages of spectacular wit and irony as well as a few in which he seems to be straining for an effect. Hollywood is nonetheless quite readable and especially indispensable in Vidal's American mythology and contributes new evidence to support my belief that he is one of America's most underrated writers from the mainstream.

Hollywood, at least as it stands in relation to Empire, Vidal's previous book on turn of the century power politics, is dissapointing. Vidal's old gang of power brokers, Caroline Sanford, James Burden Day, Blaise Sanford, William Randolph Hearst and the rest do return, though older and strangely out of breath.

Vidal's main focus, the joining of Hollywood and Washington as collaborating sources in producing a particular type of propaganda -- America as it must and shall be -- is only forcefully embraced at the end of the novel. Earlier chapters set in the movie capitol, though meant to support this thesis, are unfocused and star-struck. Trivial personalities, simply because they were stars 80 years ago, are given the bulk of Vidal's precious pages. The deft and conceited Caroline, one of Vidal's best all-time creations, is really not allowed to say that much.

Instead, horribly, she becomes a movie star. Nevermind that she is co-publisher of the most powerful newspaper in Washington and, if she were a more realistically fleshed out charachter, might prefer to stay there. Added to this she is given a filmmaker boyfriend.

"Yes, this was her lover. Women, Blaise noted, not for the first time, had no taste in men." With his own pen Vidal dismisses Caroline's love interest, the hapless Timothy X. Farell. As we are inclined to do also.

In spite of its flaws, Hollywood is a necessary read for those won over by its brilliant predecessor Empire. Strangely enough some of its finest writing centers around the lowly charachters of the Harding Administration -- as swinish, one senses, as their day.

Washington is Vidal's comfort zone, the place where his writing reads the most accurately, where his charachters speak the most assuredly. In Hollywood much of those gifts are wasted.

Gore Vidal's Empire series is pretty much the best thing ever to happen to American historical fiction, and his style alone makes anything of his catalog readable. Readers will no doubt notice that this is the sort of prelude to a critique of someone you admire, and this is indeed what it is. Hollywood, Vidal's fifth book in the Empire series, qualifies as one of the lower points in a series that has seen nearly unimaginable highs, but this entry often feels more erudite than inspired, and more harping than insightful.

This being said, there's much to like in this book. It roughly covers the second Wilson Administration, as well as the Harding years, and ends shortly after Harding's death. I thought that the political elements of the book are strong--Vidal has always had an uncanny knack for getting in the heads of powerful men, and rendering to life forgotten figures like Harding and Harry Daugherty is admirable and invaluable. Even more appreciated is Vidal's focus on important women--the second Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Harding both provide vivid presences, just as poor old Mrs. McKinley in Empire. Vidal's characterization in this book is a little spotty at times, but there's lots of good stuff to be had here: Harding's arc, in particular, is a fascinating look at how power can change a fundamentally good man, and there's a thoroughly-covered convention scene that has Vidal running on all cylinders. There's also the rise and fall (mostly fall) of Woodrow Wilson, who is blessedly complicated here as a man of genuine idealism as well as incredible pigheadedness and ambition. Other political notables, like Theodore Roosevelt, make appearances. I've always been amused by Vidal's dark--and evidently accurate--take on Teddy, whose enduring popularity mostly proves that not only are elections popularity contests, but so are historical appraisals. How else could Andrew Jackson find himself anywhere near the top of any lists of presidential historical rankings?

So, that's all well and good. But much of this book is given over to a main plot about Caroline Sanford moving to Southern California and becoming something of a minor screen star in silent pictures, having random encounters with contemporaneous film industry notables, engaging in some affairs, etc. This story isn't followed through quite as nicely as one would have hoped. The story fundamentally lacks dramatic tension, the observations aren't quite fresh enough to count as insightful (really, if stars using drugs and "political" films being whitewashed of any controversy to avoid angering the powers that be are revelations to you, you should pay a little more attention) and while he makes some good narrative argumentation about the importance of movies, there's not much tension in this storyline. Even a murder subplot at the end of the novel can't quite make the material sing (though I echo the official Amazon review--the bathhouse scene is pretty amazing).

In any event, Vidal still has a pretty high batting average when it comes to American historical fiction, despite some of the less compelling material here. Vidal fans will find much to like, but when one thinks of what Vidal could have made of the movie business and what kind of stories could have been told about it, it just seems like we should expect more from such a legend. And if you're new to Vidal's work, it's probably best to start with Burr or Lincoln.

The first scene is grand, with William Hearst's bulk shattering an antique chair and dropping to the thick Persian rug. The place to be now is Hollywood, says early 20th century media mogul Hearst as he bids good-by to his host and owner of the demolished Biedermeier chair, Blaise Sanford. Unlike Hearst, Washington newspaper publisher Sanford is fictional.

But it's the second scene that starts the more mesmerizing narrative thread. Madame Marcia conducts a séance for Mrs. Harding and Jesse Smith--the Hardings' Ohio friend, owner of a dry goods emporium, a dewy-eyed political groupie and an unofficial lobbyist-government contractor of sorts. Poor Jess suffers from diabetes and sees ghosts.

The shadows on the screens merge with shadows in Washington as power shapes the manufacturing of screen fantasies and conversely the making of fantasies leads to power. The wonderful movie, Wag the Dog, is many decades in the future. But as Gore Vidal presents it, the 1920s is when politics became integrated with moving pictures and the latter took over the world.

What's so wonderful, says Hearst, is that all over the world the illiterate masses are watching my Pauline. His Pauline keeps moving on the screen because otherwise the audience might move out of the theater. This vivid depiction of Hearst stays close to the real man while making his foray into the movies the emblem of a society increasingly ruled by the image.

But Hearst is a side character. President Harding, Sanford, his sister Caroline, Senator Burden Day and blind Senator Thomas Gore--quite a cast. But it's Jess who's truly unforgettable.

At the end of the book, the shadows and ghouls get Jess, in a manner of speaking. As the reader wonders how he could have committed suicide by shooting himself on the left side of his head when he is right handed, all kinds of recent events involving lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, wars and sex in the oval office come to mind. Vidal is a master in bringing the distant past alive in a way that helps you think about the recent past and the present.

The whole perhaps does not match the brilliance of some of the parts, but this historical novel, and indeed the series of five novels that starts with Burr and ends with Hollywood, are a must read for anyone who wants to understand America. And if you have any thoughts of what exactly happened to Jess, I'd love to hear.

Images manufactured with the intent of directing public opinion to support adventurers and profiteers is the tragic central theme of this novel. Our nation is in the hands of rascals and criminals, but as long as the pictures are pleasing and square with some melodramatic logic, the great unwashed stay quiet. It's enough to make you weep.

This book provides several leitmotifs from the perspectives of several major fictional characters (Caroline Sanford, Blaise Sanford, and James Burden Day) that easily intermingle with the era's most historical non-fictional figures. With uncanny serendipity, each fictional character is able to find themselves engaged with every major political player at the exact moment they are making a major international decision. As there is no real historical figure to personify the influence of Hollywood on global politics, only Vidal's historical fiction can investigate the connection. His main character, Caroline Sanford, a.k.a. Emma Traxler, has an impossibly rich life transgresses the boundaries of American socialite, newspaper mogul and movie starlet. All while raising an illegitimate daughter and having affairs with America's most powerful men (two directors and a senator). Wow! What a woman!



The story covers the transition from the pre-World War I presidency of Woodrow Wilson through the convoluted election of his successor, Warren Gamaliel Harding. As the Presbyterian Minster turned History Professor turned quixotic dictator, Woodrow Wilson, personifies utopian ideals of "peace without victory" and "League of Nations" while insulating himself personally from Americans. Wilson is the main non-fictional character of the book, but is neither portrayed as a villain or hero. He is an apparent victim; a man with vision and ideals, but unable to navigate the ruthless power struggles with Teddy Roosevelt nor the recent Republican majorities of the congress and senate. The League of Nations becomes a logomachy for the political advancement among party power brokers rather than a realistic foreign policy. The 1920 presidential campaign was characterized less by the stature of the candidates who ran but by the stature of those who could not run (Teddy Roosevelt -died suddenly; Woodrow Wilson - stroke). Warren Gamaliel Harding is, at best, the third most popular candidate in the 1920 Republican Primary. He is the ideal "middle of the road candidate" who prefers the sports pages to the editorials election and is addicted to chewing tobacco. As everyone's second favorite, he is able to slip past two more popular candidates at the republican convention, then easily pass an unsupported democratic candidate, who never has a chance because Woodrow Wilson refuses to pull out of the race, despite his physical and mental incapacities. An appreciation I have for Vidal is that he dispels the myth that political futility has only occurred in the last twenty years. Through his American Chronicles Series, he truly illustrates that politicians since George Washington have been caught in the organization of government and have found themselves spinning their myriad wheels frantically in the mud, going no where. Self-promotion, deception and manipulation were as prevalent for the founding fathers and their rowdy successors as they are today.



However, the common focus of the book is the examining a fledgling American Empire that is bent on expanding its capitalist markets while professing democratic demagoguery. For Vidal, America's top export is its military. Despite an isolationist bent and fear of foreign entanglements, America is a burgeoning market looking to expand. Although the League of Nations makes rational sense and had supporters on both the Republican and Democratic parties, it was implausible because "Americans are too used to going alone in the world. You're also at the start of your own empire, and no rising empire wants to commit itself to peace when there are still so many profitable wars to fight (p. 119)." Hence an ongoing theme for Vidal: ongoing demagoguery for democracy while implementing militant actions with the intent of enriching the nation. Not so coincidently, the term "gilded" is ubiquitous in a not so subtle illusion to Mark Twain's "Gilded Age." America is a world power with a perceivably dominant military, but still a neophyte to the international power business and the American citizenry is largely folksy, ignorant and superstitious. Vidal further points out the hypocrisy of America's "freedom" while implementing quasi-fascist legislation including the Espionage Act, Prohibition and Selective Service. There has always been tension in America between individual rights and the common good; however, the decisions about "common good" usually come at the leisure and advantage of the reigning political elite.



In his elitist style, all decisions are made by an exclusive star chamber of the rich and educated social superiors. As in past novels, senatorial cabals interplay with corrupt Party power-brokers to create historical events. For Vidal, "the American voters" act as a singular player; a pawn moving at the whim of the newspapers and politicians. Often, Vidal portrays the intent of American politicians as being as much to deceive the American voters as our enemies. For example, the Committee on Public Information was established to propagandize for the war. In this vein, Hollywood is introduced and becomes a new national player. The few small towns on the west coast become influential in international politics as the wealthy (William Randolph Hearst) and powerful (Colonel George Creel) discover that if Americans can be easily influenced by what is on the printed page, then they will be exponentially seduced by what they see on the silver screen. Vidal connects the celebrity endorsements of Liberty Bonds, which predominantly funded the effort for World War I, with the propaganda movies that vilified international enemies; first, the "Huns" of Germany, then, the "Reds" of Russia.



I would warn readers that this is first and foremost a novel of historical fiction based primarily on the political events of 1917 through 1920. If you are primarily interested in the industry of Hollywood during that era, I would recommend looking elsewhere. Hollywood is merely a tangential player in the novel "Hollywood" in that the fledgling industry propagates the political manipulation of the masses. Actors, actresses, directors and studio moguls of the times are mentioned but are not primary players. For example, Vidal provides a great monologue of Charlie Chaplin as he flits through various characters in a Robin Williams-esque manner. However, smoke filled meetings of strategizing senators are the scenes of climatic intrigue, not the dynamics of a growing silver screen industry.

I bought this book because it was ostensibly about Hollywood during the golden days of the silent movies. I found the beginning of the book so tedious I actually stopped reading it-- starting over again a few months later. After at least one hundred boring pages introducing endless Washington characters (trying to sort out their relationships to each other is mind numbing), you finally get a glimpse of Hollywood. The book then goes back and forth, with the majority of "action" (a term I use very loosely) taking place in the east. I enjoyed the last fifty pages or so. If you like Gore Vidal, okay read it. But if you are interested in old Hollywood--I suggest you skip this book and find something else.