Politics, sex, Caesar, Kennedy, and everything in between

I've always had a guilty pleasure for the work of snarky social commentators - and yeah, I'd say Gore Vidal is definitely in this genre. Others I like include Martin Amis and Truman Capote - but for his experience and breadth of knowledge, Vidal just beats everyone.

So - this collection of essays he wrote over the second half of the twentieth century is just gargantuan (a word one so rarely has an opportunity to use in a sentence), but somehow it's not difficult at all. I'll admit that I jump around from essay to essay in the collection, as it's clearly not intended to be read straight through, and I have a short attention span. Even read non-chronologically like this, the tone of Vidal's work doesn't substantially change over time - just his topics. And come to think of it, those don't change all too often either.

I guess it'd be easy to level the charge against Vidal that he has a limited repertoire of subjects on which to write. Over the years, the genre of the majority of his work could be characterized as historical fiction, as we saw with works like "Julian" and the "Narratives of Empire" series. But these weren't the usual historical fiction; rather, they were works of high intelligence and detail often subversively revising history and the figures who permeate it. Vidal's historical novels often presented unusual ideas about historical figures - for instance, Burr's notion of Aaron Burr as an unsung hero of the revolution.

The unorthodoxy of Vidal's thought carries through to his nonfiction, where he amusingly skewers the sacred cows of American life. But what makes his work so interesting in this regard is that he's not just tearing down the idols of populism (well-loved political figures, anti-intellectual trends in religion), but also the "received wisdom" of the intelligentsia. In this collection, Vidal relentlessly skewers everything from the New York Times bestseller list to mainstream feminism, and leaves the reader unwilling to look at anything with the same comfortable lack of skepticism as before.

What typifies Vidal's observations here, whether he's discussing literature, history, or current events, is a refusal to accept anything at face value, a contempt for the vague, the second-rate, and often the populist. Maybe it's reading too much into the matter to think that Vidal's upper-class upbringing in the middle of all the political intrigue of Washington led to a certain elitism on his part. But it's notable that where other leftist commentators (though I hesitate to use such a crude label talking about Vidal, who grounds his views in exhaustive knowledge of history) fill their work with references to the hoi polloi, Vidal focuses entirely on the affairs of government and international relations, not on their effect on the people as a whole.

Though this book is full of some of the most intelligent commentary I've seen, Vidal is at his best when he avoids abstractions and launches into specific critiques, often taking on an amused tone as he rips apart the most elevated icons of American life. He rounds out his critique of the top ten bestsellers of 1973 with snarky mockery of all the writers; he rips televangelists and Republicans and idealized political figures such as Barry Goldwater to shreds; he even reviews a book about himself, finding the end result somewhat bemusing.

On the other hand, when he admires a writer or a political leader, he's never effusive or uncritical in his praise, but always tempers it with acknowledgment of human imperfections, making it all the more deeply felt. And his consistent focus on the importance of historical context in viewing such figures - in particular as he discusses the Kennedy dynasty in a series of essays including the famous "The Holy Family" - brings such discussions far beyond the level of mere tribute.

In his short recent collections "Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace" and "Dreaming War", Vidal displayed a critical voice - strident for its urgency and timeliness - that really doesn't find any parallel here. Here his critiques of American intellectual life are much more subtle, yet still on-target. Essays such as "Sex Is Politics" (a classic discussion of normative American attitudes toward sex and relativism), "Pink Triangle and Yellow Star" (dealing with views of homosexuality) and "Feminism and Its Discontents" (exactly what it sounds like) take the purported intellectual pacesetters of America to task, demonstrating that what we often consider to be enlightened thought retains deep, unexamined prejudices.

In the end, that's the great virtue of Gore Vidal's work - his way of questioning all the assumptions we hold dear as Americans. Rejecting the worst and celebrating the best, "United States" is one of the most lasting legacies of a distinguished career.