Gore Vidal, Dead at 86
via Gore Vidal, chronicler of American life and politics, dies – CNN.com.
(CNN) — Gore Vidal, the eclectic author who faithfully chronicled the major shifts and upheavals in the United States in books, essays and plays, has died. He was 86.
Vidal died at his Los Angeles home Tuesday evening of complications from pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers said. The author had also been suffering from heart ailments.
Widely hailed as one of America’s greatest man of letters, Vidal was a high-profile commentator on politics, including his bitter opposition to the war in Iraq.
Born into politics as the member of a rich and powerful family, he joined the Navy at 17 before shocking the world by writing one of the first novels to include an openly gay character: his 1948 work, “The City and the Pillar.”
In all, he wrote some 25 novels, two successful Broadway plays, numerous screenplays, more than 200 essays and the memoir “Palimpsest.” His collection of essays, “United States: Essays, 1952-1992″ won the National Book Award in 1993.
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Good writer. Vile person.
Well stated.
Mediocre writer, vile person. A corrupt and corrupting windbag motivated in youth by perverse pleasure-seeking, and in age by hatred and resentment. May he lose the World to Come, and may his fame evaporate like spilled rubbing alcohol.
Once I made a point of it not to speak ill of the dead. But ever since zayin Adar 5772 (1 March 2012) and the vile “progressives’” orgy of celebration over the body of Andrew Breitbart, I will now make a point of the opposite. Sorry I was late to the fun after the foul Alexander Cockburn went to his unenviable reward.
Andrew died on the same day as Moses?
Gore Vidal. Vicious anti-semite. Boruch hamokom shehorgo.
Yes, same day. I belong to a chevra kadisha, so it has some extra resonance. (And who else would look it up?)
Lest you worry too much about the impropriety of “speaking ill of the dead” let it be said that Mr. Vidal was not at all troubled by this measure of common decency.
Evidence:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080320_gore_vidal_speaks_seriously_ill_of_the_dead/
Decency was not in that dried up old queen’s lexicon. Nothing so became him in this life like his leaving it.
If that is an example of his legendary wit and writing (and his ’69 essay on Buckley pulled by lawsuit is identical in style) then I declare myself a better writer and wittier. I am however neither a writer nor witty.
He’s boring, pedantic, obviously thinks he’s clever and superior, apparently in love with his hacked up, jerky prose and did I say boring?
I knew of Gore Vidal’s books back when I still lived in the USSR. He was being translated into Russian and promoted as one of the best American authors. The Communist Party did that to any sufficiently anti-American author regardless of talent. And they just LOVED Vidal’s anti-Americanism. And now he’s become extinct like them – rigid, ancient, inflexible dinosaurs all.
These dinosaurs may be gone, but their toxic manure will continue to poison our world for generations to come.