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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 1st, 2012
Gore Vidal, the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86. Vidal died Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills of complications of pneumonia, said nephew Burr Steers.
Vidal was a literary juggernaut who wrote 25 novels, including historical works such as “Lincoln” and “Burr” and satires such as “Myra Breckinridge” and “Duluth.” He was also a prolific essayist whose pieces on politics, sexuality, religion and literature — once described as “elegantly sustained demolition derbies” — both delighted and inflamed and in 1993 earned him a National Book Award for his massive “United States Essays, 1952-1992.”
His 1948 novel The City and the Pillar was the first major American novel to feature unambiguous homosexuality. His public feud with conservative columnist William F. Buckley was legendary:
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MsRowena
August 1st, 2012
Rest in peace, one of our own. I think the novel is “The City and the Pillar,” though. I found it at my uncle’s when I was 13, and boy it was some kind of eye opening for me in 1969! I had heard “queers” whispered about, but never had I seen one portrayed or mentioned in a way that didn’t involved some horrible end or twisted, monstrous life. For a small-town kid in the South, that little beat-up paperback was a tiny ray of light in the closet.
Tony Konrath
August 1st, 2012
Probably the best president America never had.
MattNYC
August 1st, 2012
R.I.P., Gore. Not that I believe in this stuff but, I hope Gore is Buckley’s next door neighbor somewhere “out there” and his beautiful home puts Will’s to shame…
Timothy Kincaid
August 1st, 2012
There’s something delightful about two extremely intelligent people sniping at each other.
PaulR
August 1st, 2012
Tim, LOL, I wish there were a way to “like” your comment with something as simple as a click.
Lucrece
August 1st, 2012
“I’ll sock you in the goddamned face!” and follow that up with “placcid”. Nerds have the funniest fights.
Charles
August 1st, 2012
I remember that feud when it began at the August 1968 Democratic Convention. When we started my senior year in high school, I had a friend who could not believe that they allowed a queer on TV. The 1968 Democratic Convention had riots ………. and the hard hand of Mayor Daley’s police force to crack down hard. RFK had been murdered by Sirhan Sirhan in June. If he had not been murdered, he would have won the nomination and the election. History would have been very different.
Andrew
August 1st, 2012
Gore was so delightfully fun to listen to. They had a piece on NPR this morning in which he talked about being a formerly famous author in light of literature as being a dying value in American society. When queried by an interviewer, he pointed out that, in fact, he was doing just fine… it was the profession that had suffered. To paraphrase:
Being a famous author is an oxymoron, like being a famous ceramicist. You can be a great ceramicist, a wealthy ceramicist, a ceramicist respected by other ceramicists, but you can’t be a ‘famous’ ceramicist
Soren456
August 1st, 2012
My sophomore year in college was what I think of as my “Vidal year.” In my scant spare time, I read his essays and criticism, his memoirs and some of the novels (the American histories).
It was dangerous to read him because it was impossible to take him lightly: he was a superior teacher who not only told you what you ought to know and read, but said it so persuasively that you had to track it down and read it for yourself.
It is this aspect of him that I will miss the most.
Robert
August 3rd, 2012
He also had a small but memorable role in “Gattaca”. The portrayal of a stately, eminent man so suffused with self-satisfaction as to quiver slightly was most enjoyable.
I have to admit, I enjoyed his essays more than his prose, although “Julian” was readable.
Charles
August 3rd, 2012
Gore never graduated from any college. He led a very interesting and curious life. Look up his bio on Wikipedia.
William Buckley’s anti-gay position got a serious set back out when one of his close friends that worked with him on his magazine came out publicly to Buckley and others. Buckley did not fire him.
Hue-Man
August 4th, 2012
Fri, Aug 3, Charlie Rose on PBS had clips from Gore Vidal’s past interviews, including his accurate prediction about the extreme-right militaristic state of the USA today. His discussion about sexuality – no homosexuals and no heterosexuals – stops just as it got interesting. Vidal’s story about Tennessee Williams and JFK is fun – always name-dropping. The link has Vidal’s video archive (the Aug 3 video I assume will appear in due course). http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/1735 KCTS Seattle viewers – Monday at 2:00 PM PDT.
It’s disappointing to me that today’s gay generation is unlikely to see or read anything about Vidal or any other gay – he would hate that appellation – pioneer of the 20th century.
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