gore vidal, a man for most seasons...

If you have never read a word of Gore Vidal's, then run out and find a copy of Palimpsest.

It was the first of Vidal's writings I chanced to discover, and though much has been made of his sexual exploits and the relish with which he documents them in this book (and others, though often through the lens of fiction), it is the quality of his writing, his singular voice, and the total lack of reticence that makes Palimpsest a thrilling page turner, happily discovered in my mid-twenties, a time past hero worship, and yet...

I did look up to Gore Vidal (beautiful in his youth, but arch and crushingly witty too), perhaps I fell a little bit in love.  I started wading through his back catalogue, reading City and the Pillar, and then a clutch of essays (all of them damned near perfect), and whatever other Vidal marginalia I chanced upon I read with great admiration, enjoyment and a slight touch of resentment at his capacity to live so freely and without shame.  At the height of his writing career he fully inhabited his most vital self, his works a residue of a man living for himself, a man who had been characterized by friends (and his many enemies) as "without a subconscious" so completely did his interior and exterior worlds correspond.

Much has been made of his uneven later career, his ill-conceived political stands, especially surrounding the tragic events of 9-11, the increasingly retrospective nature of his output, his diminishing powers, the unfortunate emergence of an ageing human being from that mass of superhuman living.  This too shall pass...

His legacy is the voluminous output of his early and middle career, his manner of engaging his peers in a constant challenge to the American status quo, and ultimately, his determined quest to raise the bar, speak and write honestly, and undermine hypocrisy (political, literary, sexual) with a vocational zeal.

I offer a pair of tributes to Gore Vidal below, and in the meantime intend to dig out my copy of Palimpsest for an eager re-reading.

NY Times Tribute to Gore Vidal
LA Times Obituary for Gore Vidal