I read Burr when I was a teen-ager and it made a great impression on me. I like this too:
“I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”
by DougJ| 17 Comments
This post is in: Books
I read Burr when I was a teen-ager and it made a great impression on me. I like this too:
“I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”
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Keith
In memory
The prophet Nostradumbass
My favorite Vidal work was Live from Golgotha. Cheerfully, awesomely offensive.
Citizen_X
Oh, crap. Never read Burr, but now it goes on my to-read list. Highly recommend 1876, though.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@The prophet Nostradumbass: @Citizen_X:
Damn, didn’t take you two to name two of my three favorites (Hollywood being the third).
NotMax
First thing I read by Vidal was Visit to a Small Planet (for several years, was really into reading plays).
Never warmed to his novels (other than Williwaw and the original version of The City and the Pillar).
Did like his memoir, Palimpsest.
He would be on my fantasy list of great party guests.
Suffern ACE
Didn’t he somehow inspire Bachman to enter public service?
Jewish Steel
I was just listening to him argue his isolationist POV on an old recording. I was surprised to discover he was still alive. Last week.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Suffern ACE: Yeah, she allegedly read Burr, and she was so disgusted she instantly became a Republican. Supposedly.
peggy
Vidal’s essays are my favorites. Wit and and a rapier, we will miss him.
NotMax
@The prophet Nostradumbass
Giving the world Ms. Bachmann and Myra Breckenridge does not go into the plus column, reincarnation-wise.
Yutsano
@NotMax: Well as they say no one is perfect. :)
erik
Creation is one of my favorite books…
Lee Baker
I never read the fiction, but I agree with Peggy about the essays. I don’t know of a finer American essayist.
After the famous 1968 televised verbal brawl with Buckley (I can still remember Vidal’s ashen face — on my black and white TV! — and Howard K. Smith saying, “Gentlemen, gentlemen!”) Esquire allowed both men to write up their views of the matter in consecutive issues. On matters of style alone Vidal wiped the floor with that pompous, verbose SOB, who was never satisfied with a three-syllable word if he could find one with four.
Lee Baker
For the record, I tried to correct my spelling of “syllable” but the editor froze me out. Must be a Buckley fan.
Maude
When Vidal was asked about John McCain’s POW camp experience in 2008, Vidal said McCain said he was there.
peorgietirebiter
Burr was the first for me . I read it in my late teens and it made quite an impression on me as well. I’ll always be grateful to Gore for igniting an appreciarion for history that my history teachers had all but killed. I’ve wondered about some of the mind boggling statements of his late years. Maybe he actually did care what others thought and could no longer disguise it, maybe it justs one more indiginity old age brings. No matter, I was saddened by the news and the unkindness we often display toward our true originals. RIP
Frank
The collection “United States” should be on every Americans book shelf.