Reviews for The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal

The average rating for The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-04-14 00:00:00 Joseph Ahearn Alternately acerbic and decorous, Gore Vidal's Selected Essays samples the famous fiction writer's catholic tastes and interests. Italo Calvino, Dawn Powell, and Tennessee Williams are but a few of the many writers whose work Vidal reviews; he also skewers prominent academics such as Alain Robbe-Gillet and Nathalie Sarraute, and profiles famous members of the political dynasties of his time, from the Roosevelts to the Kennedys; other essays of his critique executive overreach, imperialism, and heterosexism. Witty jabs are sometimes embedded within Vidal's elevated prose, but his analysis of literature and politics often feels flat and superficial. Worse yet, as well crafted as many of these essays are, the views they present tend to come across as antiquated, especially regarding the writer's antipathy toward television and film.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-17 00:00:00 Krystal Civil This irresistible sampler of Gore Vidal's essays presents a lifetime spent thwarting the dunces of the world with his acid-tipped pen and monumental intelligence. This collection is of more delight to those interested in his literary leanings, as excepting an essay on Egyptian dictator Nasser, the first 338 pages concern literature and authors. His evisceration of the top ten bestseller list circa 1973 (Herman Wouk being the only name one might have heard of'and still apparently active aged 98) is a marvel, and unexpected and rational probings into the French New Novel with focus on Sarraute and Robbe-Grillet alongside the rise of the theorists provides both an accessible explanation of their modus operandi and a sensible explanation as to why Robbe-Grillet is basically unreadable (with which I happen to agree). Vidal also takes on the postmodernists, to whom he is generous if sceptical. His tolerance for Barth and Barthelme is poor'the former in particular is given a dismantling'while his appreciation for Gass and Pynchon appears to be sincere with two thumbs-up for Omensetter's Luck. Engaging if less essential are his pieces on obscure writers William Dean Howells and Dawn Powell, and his review of the work of Calvino is fantastic despite ending in 1974. Also in this collection as his takes on Montaigne, John Updike, and clotted academic prose. The rest of this sampler contains famous essays on gay equality, pornography, and some of his finest political essays on the American constitution and its agents of corruption. No writer has exposed the capriciousness and deceptions at the heart of America as coolly and (rightly) cynically as Vidal. I want more. (Gore).