Gore Vidal's final memoir
2006-12-23 13:35
Los Angeles - Gore Vidal bats a large
purring cat off his lap in the living room of his home in the
Hollywood Hills as he argues, whiskey in hand, that America's
Puritan attitudes on sex has made it "the dumbest country on
earth."
At age 81, Vidal is not known as the national scold for
nothing. There are few fights the famed novelist, playwright
and polemicist has shied away from over the last 50 or 60 years
and in this case, it is hostile American attitudes toward
homosexuality that draws his ire.
He has been open about his sexuality for years but refuses
to be defined by it.
"They say sexual activity is the equivalent of human
identity. What a crazy notion. If you are a vegetarian, does
that mean you are the enemy of all meat eaters. Does that mean
that every time a vegetarian sees meat served, he kills
butchers or smashes up restaurants?"
Having said that, Vidal then embarks on a tour of the
universe of his pet likes and dislikes, a good number of which
are detailed in the just-published second and last volume of
his memoirs, Point to Point Navigation.
The book takes its title from his experience in World War
Two aboard a Navy ship in the Bering Sea, where it was so foggy
that the stars could not be seen and a pilot navigated by
looking at rocks and capes in the sea rather than by compass.
Points in the sea
This idea allows him to jump from rock to rock, subject to
subject, person to person much the way he converses.
An attack on homophobia morphs into a tale about the 19th
century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and then into
a warning that the US economy will collapse.
A collector of people and wicked or revealing tales about
them, Vidal can sound like he knew someone even if a century
separates them as when his talk about how homosexuals are
demonized leads him to think of the troubles Disraeli had as
the biggest outsider ever named prime minister of Britain.
"He was a Jew who converted to the Church of England but
was still a Jew as far as the Archbishop of Canterbury was
concerned. Disraeli was visited by the Archbishop who told him
'We are a bit disturbed about your religion. You were born a
Jew but were confirmed an Anglican. You will be appointing
bishops, so may we ask you what your personal religion is?'
"Disraeli replied, 'All wise men have the same religion. As
to what it is, all wise men never say.'"
That is Vidal's way of saying he will only go so far in
revealing his personal life and no further.
Vidal says he and some of his closest friends, like
playwright Tennessee Williams, all suffered the backlash of
homophobia but he is not interested in talking much about his
sex life or even much about himself. He refuses to be
categorized according to sexuality.
"I hardly write about myself at all. I thought I should
have some gift that sets me apart from other American writers
who only write about themselves. I know the end of the road is
coming. I thought it was time for a summing up," Vidal said as
the cat crawled back up on his lap.
And that gives him a chance to write lovingly about his
companion of 53 years, Howard Auster, who died of brain and
lung cancer after the pair moved back to the United States from
Italy where they had lived for 30 years. When Vidal dies he
expects to be buried next to Auster.
- Reuters