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Gore Vidal - Mira Breckinridge

 
 
Looby
11:50 / 06.05.04
I've nearly finished Myra - going to read Myron right afterwards. I just wondered what people think of this? Strange book, but it feels oddly normal while you're reading it - I guess that's Vidal's supreme talent!
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:23 / 06.05.04
Never yet got round to reading any of his novels... but I swear by his essays. Man, Vidal's a fucking genius.
 
 
Looby
12:32 / 06.05.04
He is a bit, isn't he?! Myra's theories on world population, sex and dominance are bonkers and yet they somehow make sense. I'd be curious to know how far Vidal's theories inform Myra's - as it's almost all in her voice I can't tell his opinion of her.
 
 
matsya
22:47 / 09.05.04
Big fan of Kalki. Also didn't mind Messiah. Would advise staying away from his historical dramas, as they're very exacting and a bit dry unless the history of US presidents is the kind of thing that has you creaming your jeans. If you've read Myra you should track down "Myron", which is kind of Myra's sequel/counterpart.

I keep finding copies of Myron everywhere, but i haven't read Myra so I never buy it. And you almost never see Myra in 2nd hand bookstores around here. don't know why...

m.
 
 
Looby
10:46 / 10.05.04
I'm reading Myron at the mo. More weirdness! It's very strange when two books that are very much tied together by characters and histories have such different plots! Myron's shaping up to be a sci-fi!
 
 
Spatula Clarke
16:27 / 10.05.04
The only Vidal I've ever read is The Smithsonian Institution, which is a fun, fizzy bit of alternahistory sci-fi about the USA's ambitions of empire. Also features a brain-damaged Abraham Lincoln, plucked out of the timestream a split second too late to stop the bullet from doing any harm.
 
 
matsya
03:15 / 22.05.04
now THAT's cool.

I went to an exxo book sale last month and scored A Search for the King and Three, but I haven't read any of them yet. So there's a piece of useless information for you.

looby - you know Gore had a part in the film Bob Roberts?

m.
 
 
bjacques
11:56 / 03.06.04
He's the liberal Senator who Bob Roberts defeats through a dirty-tricks campaign. "Oh, the times they are a changin' back!"

I've read a few things by him, mostly essays. His 1960s novel "The Judgment of Paris" is a hoot, in which a thinly-disguised young Gore spending his European wanderjahr meets women offering beauty, knowledge and power. I's one of those Lawrence Durrell-y musings on life with olde European backdrops, but entertaining enough, especially the bit about the hermaphrodite in Paris.
 
 
Looby
09:47 / 08.06.04
Matsya - no I didn't know that. I'll have to try and rent it.

So many books to read, so little time... The Parisian hermaphrodite sounds great!
 
  
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