Listening to Gore Vidal Talk About Writing and Politics

I went looking for one thing, and I found another. That happens a lot to me, sometimes it gets me into trouble. This time it was a video on YouTube: Gore Vidal: On Writing  Being Vidal, it also has a lot of politics. Listening to him, I forgot how much of what we dislike in Trump began with George W. Bush. This seems to be from around 2008.

I have been a fan of Vidal since reading Burr back about 50 years ago. Except for Burr and Duluth, I think he is a better essayist than novelist. Not that he is not a good novelist - I think he will be read long after we stop reading Norman Mailer or William Styron, his contemporaries. However, many of his novels are essays in disguise. That said, I admit to not having read all of his novels.

I wonder how long what I call the World War Two novelists - William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, James Jones - will continue to be read. Americans not only do not read, but it seems we no longer can think, either. We have Congressmen succumbing to conspiracy theories and advocating a coup. We have become too certain in our hates to think wider thoughts, of feeling for others, to be critical of ideals that can get others killed - all issues which I think these writers concerned themselves with. Perhaps the day is coming when Slaughter House Five and Catch-22 and The Naked and the Dead and The Thin Red Line and Sophie's Choice will join those books talked about and not read.

Why listen to him? Well, Reason Magazine will give you one reason. My reason is that few are as articulate about the business and ideas of writing.

 sch 12/15/22