Palimpsest: A Memoir

Gore Vidal has written one of the most honest, revealing and entertaining memoirs I've ever encountered. It's a book that can be dipped into casually or, preferably read from the beginning to the all too soon end when he reaches the age of 39. It's full of insights into the various people he has met during those years such as Tennessee Williams , John and Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote and other figures in the literary and entertainment world of the forties and fifties. He talks of his family, his mother whose attitudes he had to jettison; and his grandfather, the blind Senator Gore from Oklahoma of the 1910's. (He and Al are cousins) He talks of his relationships with all of these people in an almost stream of consciousness style that jumps back and forth from the distant past to the more recent past to the current writing of the book (1994). All of this comes with comments, observations and anecdotes that illumine his attitudes then and now in a way that makes the reader, who knows little or nothing of these people, a part of the audience of his experience. While that description, might sound unappealing to the regular reader of more straightlaced memoirs; rest assured that it is a formula for a most entertaining read. Of course the name-dropping can't be helped as he is part of that circle (and that's one reason we read books like this). One of the interesting aspects of his book is that he tells us what happens when he gets back in touch with people he used to know (like Allen Ginsburg), or people that knew the same people who were important to him, like the 91 year old mother of his first love. Great stuff. The leitmotif of the book is the first love of his life who was killed at Iwo Jima in 1945. What might seem to some people a maudlin display of nostalgia, is in actuality a very human story of something that was lost and never recovered, if indeed it was ever possesed at all. It is a sort of a Citizen Kane mystery that has continued to haunt and influence Vidal's life, providing a counterpoint to everything that was done and experienced ever after. Through it all the wit and personal wisdom of Vidal shows itself . Not merely a famous author, but another Rider on the Storm of life. Recomended even if you don't know who Gore Vidal is.

..a line from one of his earlier books, which perfectly describes Mr. Vidal. I give Palimpsest a mere "9." Entertaining as this book is, Mr. Vidal leaves out the best parts, those being what he did AFTER he turned 40. What a magnificent life he has led, and I hope he's pounding out the second volume instead of wasting his time and ours on silly fantasies like "Smithsonian Institution." Mr. Vidal is far too young, mentally and chronologically, to devolve into such goofiness. Write more essays, please! We fans can't get enough of his dead-on social and political analyses layered with his wicked and terrible wit and his "been there, done that" crankiness. Mr. Vidal is the only living celebrity I'd love to have lunch with, but would wager my 401(k) plan that he is THE orneriest person on the planet and not much fun to talk to. Reading him is another story -- he is simply the best, no matter what he is writing about. READ Palimpsest, READ Burr, Lincoln, Hollywood, Washington DC, READ Myra Breckenridge, Live from Golgotha and Duluth and even Smithsonian Institution. Especially check out Mr. Vidal's essays. His body of work is amazing; you WILL learn something of yourself in every paragraph. Palimpsest tells you where Mr. Vidal came from -- his books and essays tell you who he is, and what we Americans should be thinking about. Go and READ! You will not be disappointed. Palimpsest is the very best introduction to Gore Vidal -- it will make you run to the library and devour everything he's ever written.

What's a man to do when he's more talented than everyone else? Vidal's answers, told through the lens of his old age, are fascinating if only because the world has no other figure whose work bridges literature's twilight, pop culture's dawn and a political past when our leaders didn't seem so patently ridiculous. Gossipy, yes, but in an idiosyncratic way that lends credibility. I mean is it really malicious to have include a scene with Jackie giving douching instructions? I think not. The Truth? God knows, but that much-abused word is given a breather in this memoir, relieved of the pressure by memory's sleights of hand, readily admitted to throughout the book. Without the pressure to create an encyclopedic autobiography, Vidal leisurely rambles through his first 39 years, pausing to gaze upon an astounding collection of acquaintances. Details in the book but the effect produced is saddening on both a cultural and personal level. Culturally becuase in our compartmentalized age of "experts", wise folks with Vidal's breadth of talent can not flourish. Personally, because he feels his strength diminished, his time ending as he struggles to come to terms with a lost boyhood love. For what it's worth Gore, take your vitamins, strap on your six shooter and keep firing away

America's best essayist and arguably one of our best stylists writes about his first forty years. He chats frankly about his randy adolesence and with brisk honesty gives us revealing sketches about politicians in Washington and witers, actors and directors in Hollywood. Vidal casts a cold eye on all he sees and we the reader can only benefit from the ink he spills. Having been born with the need to read copiously he peppers his reminiscences with asides such as, "It was the genius of Proust to take for granted that every appearance is either a deception or subject to misrepresentetion and that the only gift the killer Time bestows is to allow us to see, on later viewings, what it was that we missed first time around." A palimpsest, as Vidal is quick to clairify, is a tablet that is written on then imminently erased. This book is a tablet from which we should all glean what we can to sharpen our own view of our comparatively impoverished realities