by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. You will never understand Gore Vidal, among the last generation of American writers (along with Norman Mailer and Truman Capote) who were also celebrities, household names unless you understand that he loved language, its power, its cadence, its lyric beauty, its capacity to raise men up and cast them down more than he loved any person, but one.
He, along with a handful of peers were audacious manipulators and inventors of language. Words, most often English words, enthralled them, lifted them from obscurity, made them rich and sought after, and were always there when in moments of pain and perplexity they delivered solace and comfort.
No single person, however beloved, was ever as important, as thrilling, as exalting as the sinews of our forever living, forever growing, forever captivating language, language used daily by billions worldwide but mastered by a mere handful of these users; Gore Vidal being undeniably one of them, for good, for ill, but always with the precision, clarity, power, and assurance of a master.
Like many such masters, he could be arrogant, condescending, impatient with the vast run of language-impaired humanity. He could be dismissive, rude, insulting, snapping orders, commanding obeisance because of his Talent, the basis for everything he was and did. He was among the People Who Mattered... he knew it and always acted accordingly, generally to the fury of lesser men, people who envied him and therefore looked for ways to "take him down a peg or two". They succeeded only when Vidal ran for public office... and then they pummeled him, each and every time.
Ben-Hur.
In 1959 one of the last great extravaganzas of money-burning Hollywood hit the silver screen. It was "Ben-Hur", based on the celebrated 1880 novel "Ben-Hur: "A Tale of the Christ" by General Lew Wallace. I saw it in Chicago on a massive screen on my 12th birthday, a treat from my parents. I was riveted. So was America... so were the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who bestowed a jaw- dropping 11 Oscars on this cinemagraphic event. Gore Vidal had a hand in it, never missing an opportunity to advance his lifetime agenda of sexual freedom, particularly a recognition of the rights of homosexuals to live and love as they would, unhindered by bigotry, hate, and state-sponsored prejudice.
In this instance, Vidal had been hired by director William Wyler to help write the script. Without so much as a nod or a by-your-leave, he began to cast the relationship between Judah Ben-Hur and the Roman Tribune Messala as an adolescent love affair gone seriously awry after Messala returns from Rome, fully expecting to rekindle their intimate relationship.
Of course, he couldn't just write this in the script; it was 1959 after all. He had to insinuate it... and so he did with Stephen Boyd (Messala) and Charleston Heston (Ben-Hur) giving us the kinds of "I want you!" looks that presage nights of sizzling passion. It was the very thing which conservatives complain about, the advancing of the "homosexual agenda". Charleston Heston, as squeaky clean as they come, thereafter spent a lifetime abashed by Vidal's semi-authorship claim and propaganda success, denying that Vidal was even an insignificant aspect of the script. However, the looks Heston and Boyd exchange on screen for all eternity are as tell-tale today as they were then.
Vidal took a pair of Roman-style armchairs used by them in the film and, in later years, often sat consul-like in one with his latest comely morsel in the other. It was very much his own particular triumph without Nemesis riding on his chariot whispering in his ear, "Remember, thou art but mortal." He would never have believed that anyway.
Musical accompaniment. Before continuing with the text, I suggest you go to any search engine and locate Miklos Rozna's incomparable Academy Award-winning theme for the film. We may well imagine Vidal playing it in the background when he wanted to create just the right, awe-inspiring effect for an evening's amorous objective.
He is born, Eugene Louis Vidal, Jr., October 3, 1925.
Vidal was born into one of the Great Republic's many necessary but not quite illustrious governing families; people who have prominent cousin this, powerful uncle that but whom in themselves don't quite break the surface. An only child his father was at his birth West Point's first aeronautics instructor. His mother's father was Thomas Gore, blind Democratic senator from Oklahoma. The two of them, young Gore guiding, became as notable in the Capitol as Aeneas carrying his father Anchises from the inferno which had once been glorious Troy.
At 16, Vidal took Senator Gore's surname for his given name, explaining he "wanted a sharp, distinctive name, appropriate for an aspiring author or national political leader." It need hardly be pointed out that its dictionary definition is "to pierce; as if with a tusk or a horn; wound." Or, "blood after effusion, especially clotted blood." No one could claim he hadn't given fair warning or alerted them to what his acquaintance might effect. And so he heralded his vocation in his name...
The question was where to begin his ascent to a greatness he always thought his destiny? "Write what you know," some well meaning Mentor suggested. But what did a nineteen year old know anything about? The result was "Williwaw", published in 1946, a military novel based on his Alaskan harbor detachment duty. So far, so good.
What else did he know? All the world was shortly to see when in 1948 he released "The City and the Pillar," a novel which put a dispassionate gloss on the love which hitherto dared not speak its name. It was dedicated to "J.T.". Only many years later did he acknowledge that these were the initials of the only person he had ever truly loved, James "Jimmy" Trimble III, killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima on March 1, 1945. his lover who had given his life for the salvation of the Great Republic which condemned him...and left Vidal bereft in the face of a wartime tragedy that was also a social injustice.
Under the circumstances, his dedication to sexual rights was understandable, laudable, even heroic. And so as one toxic review after another of this novel went to press, the public persona of Gore Vidal took shape: outspoken, bold, relentless in his pursuit of justice, using words like the sharpest of scalpels, eviscerating his too often thoughtless, superficial, inhumane critics. He was a literary commando of fierce aspect and fiercer determination, fueled by a single word, "Remember!" It was inscribed on his heart...
Prolific, pungent, pompous, pugnacious, always politically incorrect.
And so Vidal found his metier... as a scribbler touched by malice and an unrivalled ability to make the people of "Main Street" squirm. He demonstrated this ability in hundreds of learned (and opinionated) essays and novels like "Julian" (1964), "Myra Breckenridge" (1968), and "Burr (1973) where he wrote to absolve our most treacherous vice-president, his ancestor Aaron Burr from the obloquy and disdain of history and the nation and office he dishonored.
They were all page turners which often confounded our beliefs and introduced us to the burdensome task of thinking. But for my money, it was his novel on Abraham Lincoln (1984) where he reached his apogee as one of America's most important writers and originals. It is pure poetry, wrenching, lyric, often painful to read but compelling. It goes without saying that its subject was the only Republican he ever admired, unto sainthood. Yes, Vidal was a lifelong Democrat and was even persona grata at the Kennedy White House, where he and First Lady Jacqueline shared a stepfather, Hugh Aucincloss. But here as elsewhere he argued, squabbled, criticized, belittled, carped, disdained, and bellowed. The Kennedys, like most everyone else, dropped him. It was the recurring patten of his life. If he cared, he never said so.
Rest in peace.
Now this often most inconvenient man, too often with the foul mouth and manners of a churl is dead. He has gone the way of all flesh, but unlike most others he has left his rich legacy of words. They will speak well of him forever.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com
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