The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal

by: Gore Vidal

Published by: Vintage International

Reviewed by Gene Hayworth

Several years ago, during a summer vacation in Rome, I ventured south to the Amalfi Coast with the hope I might chance upon Gore Vidal sipping Prosecco at some outdoor trattoria near his summer home in Ravello. I had written a fawning letter to him once but it had gone unanswered; the notion of catching a glimpse of this patrician curmudgeon across a bustling Italian piazza was too charming to resist. Though the drive along the coastal road was treacherous, fraught with speed-hungry Italians honking horns and flashing headlights, maneuvering those hairpin turns seemed little to sacrifice as a demonstration of my admiration. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived late that summer, Vidal had disposed of his venerable villa and returned to California.

Fortunately, his work is more readily accessible. The most recent collection, The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal, offers twenty-four pieces gathered together from a lifetime of memoir, biography, literary criticism, and political commentary. These essays reflect an intellect at the boiling point, a wickedly seething wit that simmers over every topic the author chooses to drop into his pot. Vidal is unequivocal in revealing his pleasures and aversions. In one of the most pointed essays in the collection, “American Plastic,” he states that Grace Paley ”…has an extraordinary ear for the way people sound. She do the ethnics in different voices.” And, reflecting on John Barth’s novel, The Sot-Weed Factor, Vidal says, “I have never entirely completed this astonishingly dull book….”

Yet Vidal is just as quick to praise. Dawn Powell, Italo Calvino, and Carson McCullers are just a few individuals Vidal applauds. The collection is divided into two sections: “Part One: Reading the Writers,” and “Part Two: Reading the World.” Much of the book focuses on individuals, but there are also essays on pornography, politics, monotheism, and Black Tuesday. It is the kind of collection you can pick up again and again: entertaining, challenging, and provocative.

The essays reflect the wide range of Vidal’s career, from 1953 through 2004, and even the earliest pieces seem fresh and stimulating. Highly recommended.

Armchair Interviews says: Wonderfully entertaining 5-star read.