"The Lives of Gore" (Larry McMurtry reviews "Point to Point Navigation" by Gore Vidal)

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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19654

In 1904, when Leonard Woolf steamed off eastward to become a cadet in the Ceylon Civil Service, he took with him seventy large and well-printed volumes of Voltaire, the edition of 1784, in Baskerville type. In Ceylon his duties were not light—from time to time it became necessary to hang a felon. Fortunately, in compensation, native women were available, and also, it appears, cheap. Very little more is heard from Leonard Woolf about Voltaire or the Baskerville type.

If I were planning to embark for a far place and stay for several years I think I'd take my forty-six volumes of the writings of Gore Vidal. (The forty-sixth, a collection of short fiction called Clouds and Eclipses, has just appeared.<1> ) This count does not include the pseudonymous work, which would be for another essay. Given that print is smaller now, and margins meaner, I probably have about as much wordage of Gore Vidal's as Leonard Woolf had of Voltaire's; and the two men, Voltaire and Vidal, seem to me to have several things in common. Both were brilliant talkers; likewise brilliant satirists. Both initially needed money and worked very hard to get it. Both also needed courts: Where better to place their well-sharpened darts than in royal rumps?

Fortunately, they had courts: Voltaire the Versailles of Louis XV, as well as the Berlin of Frederick the Great and courts of lesser brilliance. Vidal had the Kennedy Camelot in Washington, D.C., as well as the courts of several emperors of the silver screen: Sam Spiegel, for example, and there is probably no better example.

Gore Vidal has the looks of a prince, the connections of a prince, more wit than any prince I can presently recall, and a prose style that should be the envy of the dwindling few who realize that prose style matters, both for the glory of it and also because if one makes one's living mainly by the making of prose sentences, as Gore Vidal has, it's nicer if the sentences are strong, supple, and pleasing. And his are.

. . . much more.

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1. By the way, jonnyblitz and terrya have both read this book and have

given very positive notes.

I loved the book, me, and will read it again soon in tandem with a rereading of Palimpsest, the Vidal's first memoir.

[jonnyblitz]

2. i still have yet to read "Lincoln" and "United States (essays)"

that i have sitting right here in my pile of books.

anyways i am off to read this. thanks.

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3. De nada.

I haven't read Lincoln either.

Loved United States and return to it again and again.

Happy reading.