Gore Vidal (1925-2012)
Like millions of people around the world, I mourn the passing of Gore Vidal. Life will never quite be the same without his acerbic, waspish, entertaining presence. For me, he was a writer and raconteur of supreme elegance, and over the years his work has given me huge pleasure, and not a little intellectual stimulation.
These few books, taken from my shelf, pretty much sum up the man. The City and the Pillar (1948), a novel concerning homosexual love, was his first foray into controversy and scandalised the American establishment at the time; Myra Breckinridge (1968) was equally scandalous, this time raising gender and transsexual issues. Indeed, the novel was regarded as so beyond the pale that the British edition was heavily censored.
Lincoln (1984) was one of his towering novels based on fact, with the President’s political and personal struggles (rather than the civil war) at its heart.
However, for many people, Vidal was at his finest as an essayist. Collected Essays (1974) is one of several volumes of this type of writing. He was also no mean memoirist, either, as Palimpsest (1995) proved. (A palimpsest, incidentally, is a parchment from which writing has been partially or completely erased in order to make room for fresh text. No, I didn’t know, either.)
In the mid-1980s when I was working in television, I produced a half-hour interview programme with Gore Vidal. He was relaxed, witty, urbane, waspish and hugely entertaining – and offscreen, he was as courteous as he was in front of camera. The bonus for me was that I spent something like an hour and a half with this great writer. He also signed his essays for me.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012)
Like millions of people around the world, I mourn the passing of Gore Vidal. Life will never quite be the same without his acerbic, waspish, entertaining presence. For me, he was a writer and raconteur of supreme elegance, and over the years his work has given me huge pleasure, and not a little intellectual stimulation.
These few books, taken from my shelf, pretty much sum up the man. The City and the Pillar (1948), a novel concerning homosexual love, was his first foray into controversy and scandalised the American establishment at the time; Myra Breckinridge (1968) was equally scandalous, this time raising gender and transsexual issues. Indeed, the novel was regarded as so beyond the pale that the British edition was heavily censored.
Lincoln (1984) was one of his towering novels based on fact, with the President’s political and personal struggles (rather than the civil war) at its heart.
However, for many people, Vidal was at his finest as an essayist. Collected Essays (1974) is one of several volumes of this type of writing. He was also no mean memoirist, either, as Palimpsest (1995) proved. (A palimpsest, incidentally, is a parchment from which writing has been partially or completely erased in order to make room for fresh text. No, I didn’t know, either.)
In the mid-1980s when I was working in television, I produced a half-hour interview programme with Gore Vidal. He was relaxed, witty, urbane, waspish and hugely entertaining – and offscreen, he was as courteous as he was in front of camera. The bonus for me was that I spent something like an hour and a half with this great writer. He also signed his essays for me.