The golden age gore vidal

Selected memories of the glorious bird and the golden age. The encounter permits a few haunting moments as vidal once again brings together the elements of his life and work. The golden age its title is deeply ironic and bitter concludes in february 2000, with an aging peter sanford visiting a most unusual friend to tape a political discussion for american tv. Also note that vidal cited history, not the notion of the discrete historical fact. It is a supreme entertainment that is not only sure to be a major bestseller but that will also change listeners understanding of.

The difference between the self that is out for the public to see and the self that is real and working behind the curtain is a major theme that runs throughout the book. The historical novel is once again in vogue, and gore vidal stands as its undisputed american master. Five years ago today, vidal died at the age of 86 from complications of pneumonia. The golden age follows chronologically washington, d. The reader may enjoy reading the novels in order, since they follow a small number of families through history. The vidals endured a rocky marriage divorcing ten years after gore s birth. As the capstone on his historical novelization of the rise and decline of the american empire, it is a fitting end to a series which enlightens and entertains. Gore vidals the golden age is a magnificent book by our greatest living author and man of letters. The golden age by gore vidal pittsburgh postgazette. Vidals last american chronicle rewrites history and his own literary past. Farrell suddenly visualized the opening shot to the film that he had planned to make of daphne du mauriers lush novel rebecca. The golden age is the final, eponymous novel that brings to an end what gabriel garcia marquez has called gore vidal s magnificent series of historical novels or novelised histories, narratives of empire. Though its narrative temperature remains dangerously low, entertainment value is dependably high in this seventh and last of vidals delectable novels of empire.

This brings home, once and for all, the central thesis of his chronicles. Gore vidals novel takes a different view of america from world war ii to the korean war. Vidal is right to press the issue of pearl harbor, but its centrality in the golden age not only unbalances the series causing it to end with two novels on pretty much the same period but distorts the final volumes picture of the age. The golden age is the seventh and last in the american chronicle series by gore vidal. His ambitious series of historical novels, a meditation on the meaning of america in seven novelistic parts, is essentially about an america in a. The golden age is the last chapter in a series of books that stretch from aaron burr and the birth of america, all the way to the apogee of the american empire, as gore vidal describes it. Like a latter day anthony trollope, vidal masterfully balances the personal with the political, the invented with the historical fact. History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place. At the center of vidals politics in the golden age is all the evidence and innuendo he can muster about how fdr, disturbed by his countrys pacifism in the face of the menacing hitler, allowed america to be attacked and thus enraged into joining the european war. It begins in 1939, when fears of inevitable american involvement in another european war. The golden age offers up united states history as only gore vidal can, with unrivaled penetration, wit, and high drama, allied to a classical view of human fate. The golden age from the golden age, by gore vidal, 2000. The golden age is vidals crowning achievement, a vibrant tapestry of american political and cultural life from 1939 to 1954, when the epochal events of world.

Of course i like my country, gore vidal has written. The golden age gore vidal delivers the final volume of the american chronicle series, his sweeping, scoresettling fictional history of the united states. At age 83, gore vidal remains a sharp provocateur, as irascible and irreverent as ever. The golden age is the concluding volume in gore vidals celebrated and bestselling narratives of empire seriesa unique pageant of the national experience from the united states entry into world war two to the end of the korean war. Though american motives in the roosevelt years may not have been golden, it is hard to accept them, as. The golden age, a historical novel published in 2000 by gore vidal, is the seventh and final novel in his narratives of empire series. The golden age is the concluding volume in gore vidals celebrated and bestselling american empire novels a unique pageant of the national experience from the united states entry into world war two to the end of the korean war. Ghosts are mentioned on numerous occasions and are used for one particular metaphor in the novel. With the publication of the golden age, the biography draws to a close. The golden age an american chronicle novel by gore vidal doubleday. The golden age is the concluding volume in gore vidal s celebrated and bestselling narratives of empire seriesa unique pageant of the national experience from the united states entry into world war two to the end of the korean war. The truth according to gore vidal university of pittsburgh.

Gore vidal, original name eugene luther gore vidal, jr. The golden age is vidals crowning achievement, a vibrant tapestry of american political and cultural life from 1939 to 1954, when the epochal events of world war ii and the cold war transformed america, once and for all, for good or ill, from a republic into an empire. Gore vidal the golden age gore vidal was born in 1925 at the united states military academy at west point. Gore vidal was born eugene louis vidal in 1925 in west point, new york, to nina gore and west point aeronautics instructor and aviation pioneer eugene luther vidal. The golden age, which takes place from 1939 to 1954, is vidals seventh and last novel in the series. American author and public intellectual gore vidal s historical novel the golden age 2000 is the last book in his narratives of empire heptalogy, which chronicles the long evolution of.

Buy the golden age by gore vidal online at alibris. It is a supreme entertainment that is not only sure to be a major bestseller but that will also change listeners understanding of american history and power. Gore vidal, the elegant, acerbic allaround man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of american civilization, died on tuesday at his home in the. The golden age is set in the years 19391954, and in 2000. Everyday low prices on a huge range of new releases and classic fiction. I previously read burr and lincoln, both of which i enjoyed more than this novel. Gore vidal is the author of twentytwo novels, five plays,many screenplays and short stories, more than two hundred essays, and a memoir. Buy the golden age by vidal, gore from amazons fiction books store. He had just pulled into the driveway to laurel house, set high above the slowchurning potomac river, and there before him.