The insecurity of aging men of words
Salon’s Allen Barra reviews Gore Vidal’s latest memoir and finds it as overstuffed as its author.
More than 20 years ago I was a fan of Vidal’s books. Then I grew up. Part of growing up was noting that while I understood and appreciated what Vidal was against, I couldn’t see what he was for. Now I know: nothing. Because it’s harder to be for something.
One thing Vidal is increasingly for is his self-image. Although that’s extremely boring to most of us, I don’t begrudge him the self-indulgence, partially because I’ve seen it in other aging men of letters who met with great success. Jerome Lawrence, for example, was not only the co-author of “Inherit the Wind,” “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail” and many other famed plays, he was also a wonderful, kind man who put a lot of money and personal energy into helping future generations of playwrights, and who always told the same stories about himself. I felt less forgiving toward Athol Fugard, whom I met in 1990 and who seemed to be taking personal credit for ending apartheid in South Africa thanks to his plays. (My response at the time: “It seems to me that Nelson Mandela played a role in this too.”) More locally, many of us in my playwriting workshop have had personal exposure to a literary figure who for 20 years has perfected the art of turning every topic into a disquisition on his own recent relative success. You wouldn’t think that any — any! — subject could be related to the daily doings of this minor writer, but it can. I’m sure that if you were to win the MacArthur Fellowship it would turn out that he had once actually been MacArthur.
I haven’t noticed Philip Roth falling into this, and his work is as strong (or stronger) than ever. I like to think that his toughness is being rewarded on the page.