Gain Your Copy Palimpsest Designed And Illustrated By Gore Vidal Formatted As Paper Copy

worst part about this book is that in it, GV dishes out scandal like the rent is due tomorrow,
The best part about this book is that in it, GV dishes out scandal like the rent is due tomorrow,

Highly enjoyable in terms of prose as well as details and secrets, You'll learn things about the Kennedies that many people today don't realize seeing the cleanscrubbed pictures on the History channel, But we also hear many unsavory details about other personalities and politicians,

But Vidal does keep focus on his own life, though it does veer off that path multiple times, Nonetheless, the story of GV's live literary, political, sexual will keep you reading,

It's a must, Another book discovered through a swap that just blindsided me with it's brilliance, I've read it several times due to the layering technique that Vidal uses,



He's apparently quite open about not only much of his life, but also the rich, powerful and lucky family ties that allow him to share anecdotes about the Kennedys and the satellites, such as Jackie, who didn't come from money, but certainly knew how to carry herself in such a way as to allow her to keep marrying "up" as it were.




I found it quite amusing that he chose for his title the very same one that Nabakov wanted to use for his collection of autobiographical stories.
Unfortunately Nabakov's publishers told him no, as they believed that people wouldn't want to go into a bookshop and have to ask for a book whose title they couldn't pronounce.
So Vidal got to use it and appear even more erudite,



His insights into his life and the philosophies he developed are fascinating as well and it definitely will remain one of my favorite books, as well as a favorite autobiography.
Highly recommended, in other words, Of course one cannot help but be entertained by the pompous and regal Vidal, raised in privilege but excluded from his apparent birthright because he was not quite straight he didnt believe in the sexual orientation labels that became fashionable so I am treading gingerly.
It didnt matter what others thought of him for Gore Vidal only his own opinion mattered, And so many opinions! What fervently nursed grudges! All those unforgiven slights!

For some reason I believe it is important to remember that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were among his best and longtime friends.
The metaphor of a palimpsest for writing a memoir is an ingenious one, and there are scraps of Gore Vidal's welltextured parchment that are genuinely fascinating.
Stepbrother to Jackie Kennedy Onassis nee Bouvier and her sister Caroline Lee, and generally very wellconnected from an early age, Vidal is nevertheless at pains

to observe throughout the book that the essential choice he made was never to let his possible privileges make him passive.
As he writes, "Jackie, Lee, and I were brought up in a wealthy manner and yet were penniless, . . Of necessity, Jackie married twice for money, with splendid results, Lee married twice, far less splendidly, I went to work. "

That work has produced several fine and often groundbreaking novels, A weakness, though, of "Palimpsest" is Vidal's decision not to discuss these books and their consequences in greater detail, He is generally more preoccupied with personalities, and there are times when the book reads like a collection of memorable oneliners from sometimes memorable people.
Two of the better oneliner scenes: Tennessee Williams proposes that he and Vidal sleep together after a night of unsuccessful cruising, "Don't," responded Vidal, "be macabre, " Or there's Williams' own wildly inaccurate metrics for why the Kennedys would never attain to the White House: "They're far too attractive.
"

Vidal repeatedly laments the death of book reading, which has been overrun by the usual suspects of television, movies, and journalism.
But Vidal's memoir often reveals how much he himself is overrun by the very thingcelebritythat these media often reinforce, Vidal's lengthy disquisition on the Kennedys is easily the most selfindulgent and boring chapter in the book, Maybe Vidal's purpose is to reveal, by boring us, how uninteresting the Kennedys themselves really were, If Americans spend not enough time reading books and too much time obsessing over celebrity, it's frustrating that, with this chapter and other sections like it, the normally maverick Vidal join the ranks he purports to be above.


The best parts of this book, especially the touching descriptions of Vidal's one true love who died young at Iwo Jima, are unfortunately too sparse to hold the book together.
Vidal has a way of ending paragraphs and large sections eloquently and with a rueful but not overly wistful touch the final chapter is perfect.
It's the verbiage between those wellcadenced endings that drags,

Fun, if not necessarily truthful, read, The problem is that he makes these lordly statements about virtually everyone who was anyone in the last seven decades of theth century, and the net result makes it pretty plain that he can only see other people as extensions of himself.
Jackie truly improbable as he presents her is Gore Vidal Bill Walton is Gore Vidal Bobby exists for Gore to hate, Schlesinger to patronize, etc.
His voice is funny, but he only has one, I have the same issue with his novels, nearly all of which I have read, They're entertaining as hell, but more listening to a gossipy friend talking than, say, actual history think Nancy Mitford's "biographies", but with more spite.
Still, you go in knowing what you are getting, and the writing is sharp, È il quarto titolo di Vidal che leggo: Giuliano, capolavoro, l'età dell'oro, altro capolavoro, la statua di sale, pietra miliare, Poi incappo nella biografia e ci metto tipo un mese a finirla perché è noiosissima,
Vidal è cresciuto tra la gente che conta, nel periodo d'oro della cultura americana, C'era in ogni avvenimento fondamentale delº secolo, Ha conosciuto chiunque. E ce lo fa sapere,
A volte i paragrafi sembrano elenchi telefonici,
Poi il terribile vizio, così radical chic di chiamare tutti per nome, Jack, Jakie, Bob, Ma di chi parliamo AlJock, Jake, Jack, mi son persa,
Non posso nemmeno dire che sia particolarmente ben scritto, perché non riesce a dare alla narrazione un'anima,
Nonostante sia una voce diretta della cultura americana, nonostante racconti retroscena divertenti e sconosciuti, nonostante si parli di ogni personaggio famoso dagli anniin poi, non riesce affatto ad essere coinvolgente.

È, ripeto, noiosissimo.
Un episodio sfortunato. This book revealed many things to me that I had not previously known about Gore Vidal, all of them enlightening, He was in so many ways a remarkable person, What I took away from it was his straightforward honesty in nearly all facets of his life and his razor sharp commentary on our modern day tendencies and mores.
It's a very good read, .