MATTERS OF FACT AND FICTION: Essays 1973-1976

by Gore Vidal ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1977

Non-essentials from an essential presence: long pieces from The New York Review of Books, short ones from New Statesman, almost all of them literary, since even the matters of ""fact""--history, politics, autobiography--are usually occasioned by a book-reviewing assignment. The Book of Abigail and John inspires a Vidal version of the Adams chronicles, surprisingly plodding (""The Third Generation was on the rise. . . . Now the focus shifts to the Fourth Generation"") but edgy enough to make one wish that Vidal had had a hand in the television scripts. Julia Grant's memoirs elicit a faint-praise tribute to the General and The Power Broker brings on a passionate, hollow paraphrase of Caro's content. Vidal does far better with ""West Point""--he was born in the cadet hospital--and with Tennessee (""Bird"") Williams' Memoirs, which receive a personal (""I looked myself up in the Index"") and affectionate gloss. If the history, self- and otherwise, is a bit bland, the ""bookchat"" is not. Straw men abound--""The Top Ten Best Sellers,"" ""The Hacks of Academe,"" Donald Barthelme's favorite authors, the French ""New Novel"" theorists--and Vidal glories in playing Wicked Witch of the West, pouncing on exaggerated stances, torching them as if he were the first to notice, for example, the failings of the ""American academic machine."" His tribute to Louis Auchincloss seems just and solid; his exaltation of Italo Calvino, who ""has advanced far beyond his American and English contemporaries,"" finds inadequate grounding in a tortuous book-by-book appreciation. That same chronological approach becomes maddening when applied to the oeuvre of E. Howard Hunt--until we realize that it's leading to the notion that Hunt ghosted Wallace assailant Arthur Bremer's diary. After such fancies, Vidal's blueprint for America's future is downright mundane: 100% nationalization, demilitarization, rigid state birth control. Better examples of crackling Vidal prose can be found elsewhere, and without the deja vu; will Eisenhower forever be the ""Great Golfer"" and Nabokov the ""Black Swan""? Will ""hypergamous"" and ""heterosexual"" never be displaced as favored adjectives? At one point, Vidal provides a footnote: ""I notice that I am cannibalizing earlier pieces."" A tasty cannibal stew then, but mighty low in protein.

Pub Date: April 1, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1977

Categories: NONFICTION