The Golden Age – Gore Vidal

This was my first encounter with Gore Vidal – arguably I shouldn’t have started from the last book of his Narratives of Empire, but hey. As a historian of the 20^th century, I had great expectations form this novel. Surely, it does offer an interesting angle to the presidency of FDR, and is undoubtedly very daring when it tries to debunk the myth of one of the most loved presidents in American history.

The problem is that Vidal himself appears to me as a rather awful man: he and his grandfather are portrayed as always the most acute observers, the best thinkers, and, ultimately, the great owners of the world’s truths.

I just hate it when people use their art to glorify themselves, be that Gore Vidal or Julian Schnabel (I still can’t get over the way he portrayed himself in Basquiat – and I also think that Gary Oldman, who played Schanbel in the movie, is way better looking than him).