Williwaw takes place in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska during World War II. The main action takes place during a freak, intense wind storm the eskimos call a "williwaw," it whips down off the coastal mountains and causes havoc, freak seas, etc. Gore Vidal, in this, his first novel (1946), creates a wonderful Joseph Conradian feel as tensions mount aboard a army transport ship making a weekly run. I don't want to spoil the ending. There is (I thought) a very CLIMACTIC moment when the tensions among the crew rise to their heights just as the williwaw hits, and - something happens. The serious tone and cool style of this book I found admirable. As a war novel I liked it as much as the ver different Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," and the lyrical, Tennessee Williams-like John Horne Burns' novel "The Gallery," while I liked it more so than Mailer's "Naked and the Dead" - which I liked for its themes and observations, I just wish Mailer could have (in my opinion) skipped the repetition and saved about 400 pages.

...and a brilliant essayist, Vidal shines in this book. The breadth of his scholarship is astonishing, and his matter-of-fact, cynical, mildly humorous take on American life is always interesting. He explodes all manner of literary, political, and religious pretensions in these essays, and makes serious, salient criticisms of our government, particularly what he deems the "National Security State" of the past 50 years. Vidal must be one of the most erudite individuals in American letters, and his grasp of U.S. history is unparalleled. The only downside of reading these essays is that one may feel like an uneducated rube afterwards.

This is some of the sharpest commentary on politics and literature that is available in print today.

That said, I must strongly disagree with another reviewer's characterization of Gore as a secret conservative. I'll deal with his points 1 at a time:

-Distain for postmodernism: OK, Noam Chomsky also hates postmodernism. Is he a conservative too?

-Historical care because "Most liberals think of history as somehing to forget.": Wow. Most idealogues think history is something to forget, liberal or conservative. Even if true, this would show that Gore is not most liberals.

-"Many liberals distrust humor": Once again, Wow. Gary Treudeau? Tom Tomorrow? (very funny liberal cartoonists) One's political views have absolutely nothing whatever to do with enjoyment of humor. A lot of people generally distrust humor. I call them humorless, I don't know what the other reviewer would call them.

-"Will Vidal ... be received into Christianity at last? It wouldn't surprise me a bit.": Did you read this book? He repeatedly lambasts Christianity and the Bible itself. He's not Jerry Falwell's best friend by any means...

However, if we take the definition of a liberal as a humorless, postmodernism-loving, history-hating person who can't write well, and a conservative as anything else, then Gore Vidal is definitely a conservative. Tried and true.

Historically, hasn't conservativism had something to do with politcal views? Oh, I forget. All that history stuff is too complicated for my delicate liberal brain.

Gore Vidal possesses an immense erudition and a willingness to inflict it on anyone and everyone who doesn't measure up to his standards, with tremendously entertaining results. He is a pedant and a nitpicker who will not let be even the smallest things, and I would hate to be subjected to his merciless eye, but it's great to read about the people who have been.

I bought the book for its first section, which consists of essays on literary matters (quite a few of them concerning people of whom I had never heard before -- some of whom I have now started reading just because of the essays), figuring that I could at worst skip the politics (the idea of which bored me) and still have quite a collection of essays in my hands. As it turned out, though, once I had made my way through that section I was so hooked on Vidal's drily contemptuous writing that I couldn't help continuing. I'm glad I read on, because his views (many of them bolstered by first-hand experience with the issues about which he's writing) and ability clearly and convincingly to expound them are amazing. He has really changed my ideas about a few issues. (There are also a few issues on which I think he can say nothing but educated nonsense, but I didn't read the book to have my own opinions parroted back at me.) The essays are fascinating, educating and entertaining, and the collection is superb -- trumping (in quantity and quality) just about any other book of his essays available. The ``sequel'' to this collection, Last Empire, can be a bit repetitive and shrilly alarmist, but this one is fresh and insightful throughout (perhaps because he's talking about events from which I feel sufficiently detached to be open-minded?).

The only slight complaint I have is that Vidal, in the middle of his complaints about the style and spelling problems of others, has some stingers of his own. (One of the most glaring is that he likes to set off parenthetical notes for example this one, with only a final comma.) I'd try to ignore this in an ordinary writer (should I say mere mortal?), but with someone who so clearly values pedantry and precision it is extremely jarring.

Historical fiction, particularly from classical times or earlier, can either be great or believable; I'm not certain it can be both. To make a story entertaining, it must be comprehensible to modern readers, couched in impossibly modern motives. Robert Graves's Claudius complained about this in reference to an assessment of Livy's histories (meant to be understood as an inside joke, as Graves was happily doing the same thing). No matter what period Vidal inhabits, his narrative figures have a modern, cynical eye, informed by ages of experience that the originals could not have enjoyed.

This engaging story is based on a coincidence of history -- that in one lifetime of travel, one man could have met Zoroaster, Socrates, Democritus, Confucius, and the Buddha. THE Buddha. Persian ambassador Cyrus Spitama does this -- it's a lot of shoe leather, but barely possible -- and combines this epic journey with a pesonal search for the origins of the world. At the end, he comes up empty (as we all must), but still feisty: still Vidal's standard narrative persona (Charlie Schuyler), but a bit tougher.

A lot of the book uses Cyrus's Persian/Greek viewpoint (he's mixed blood) to skewer the Age of Pericles. I enjoyed the hell out of that, since I've always been unimpressed by the Greek ideal. It sounded nice, sparked a lot of clever talk, but lasted only a lifetime in its purest form before it was snuffed out. But we're still talking about it, so there must have been something there. At least Vidal gives us an alternative story of that perilous time.

'I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.' - Eliot, Burnt Norton. Vidal's narrator is the grandson of the prophet Zoroaster. Now, late in life, he is the Persian ambassador to the Athens of the 5th century before Christ. This is a time when Hellenism is hardly newborn in the scheme of history. The rest of Europe is an obscure and forested peninsula beyond the vision of civilisation. What the Persian ambassador describes to the listening statesman Democritus is his lifetime's experience of the Eurasian landmass from Greece to Cathay. Aboriginal, Dravidian India are already immemorially ancient and even Aryanism is already a thousand established in Northern India. The world is a mysterious levathianic, where it comes from and where its going he doesnt know, he's at a loss as to what it portends. The narrator, trapped in time, seems astonished that the world can be so dense and pregnant with meaning. The reader will perhaps recognise in his account the synchronous historical moment at which Europe, India and China were all in momentous change. Vidal should be a history professor, so effective is he at reanimating a continuum of human history otherwise closed to us. I felt that Vidal had completely me lifted out of the local Christian era while I read this book, perhaps as effectively as Eliot and Kafka transported me in 'The Four Quartets' and 'The Great Wall of China'. Human history is so ancient and so cyclical. Our own myths of recent history are brought into their proper insignificance by Vidal's perspective of historical scale. Human civilisation, in the long term, predates our farthest memories and in turn remind us how ephemeral we might be. --- Stephen Fleming

This is one of my favorite books that I re-read from time to time I have learned a great deal of history from this book, as Mr Vidal makes history come alive. Ultimately a book on "who we are/where did we come from?" Cyrus, the narrator feels like us all. By the way, it has some of the funniest lines i have ever read in a novel, as only Gore can do!

Don't ask me why I read OF HUMAN BONDAGE. I guess it looked lonely on the shelf and I wanted to see what it was all about, and to my surprise this was actually an entertaining, yet semi-tough book to endure till around page 350.
Early on W.S.M sets up Philip's life: where he started, and the underlying motivations and convictions that caused him to make the tragic decisions he ultimately does. In a nutshell, Philip is this orphan who is raised by his uncle and aunt a Vicar 60 miles from London. Philip is very unhappy, yet very impressionable at the same time. As Philips grows older we see how he will react to Religion, Management, Friends, the arts and his loves. It is not till Philip meets Mildred and begins to date her, that Maugham gives Philip free reign of the novel. It is from this point that Maugham makes Philip a pathetic predicable fool for love. I personally know many people, both male and female who went through exactly what Philip endured during the beginning of his relationship. Maugham's dialogue was so raw that I was cringing when they argued.
It is in my opinion that many people who wrote prior reviews, had a hard time with this book because either they were on the receiving or giving end of this very neurotic love affair themselves and it instilled in them the same feelings of anguish.
But ultimately what I got from this novel, was that life is not perfect. There are alot of directions we could take life, and sometimes we have to do what we want to do, even if our piers are dead set against it. Yet we must throw caution into the wind and see if our decisions are the right choice. We must learn from our mistakes, we must get lost before we can find ourselves.

This Somerset Maugham classic is a must-read. Of the hundreds of novels I have read in my years, THIS is the best. Period. While Maugham has been placed near the bottom of reading lists in literature classrooms, this enduring masterpiece shows why that is a travesty. How many critics does it take to say, "Maugham may have been the greatest storyteller ever," before people actually begin to READ him again?

"Of Human Bondage" is the story of Philip Carey up until Carey is thirty. You LIVE the life of Philip right along with him. The writing is so riveting that as you conclude, you close the book and ask yourself, "what am I going to do now"? It is easy to experience "Philip withdrawal" after finishing "Of Human Bondage." Don't let it last long though - catch more writing from the master, the great William Somerset Maugham.

I find Maugham to be the finest of storytellers. I have read all of his short stories and many of his novels and I never cease to be amazed at his prowess at being unabashedly entertaining in all his works.

This novel is life contained between two book covers. As Maugham traces the early childhoood, teenage years, and young adulthoood of an English everyman at the end of the 19th century, we are privy to the entire range of human emotions -- jealousy, anger, greed, unrequited love and longing, fear, self-pity, passion, desire, hope .... the petty emotions as well as those that overwhelm us and, ultimately, make us slaves to the smallness of our own lives (hence the book's title).

As Maugham writes of his protagonist's stint in medical school in turn-of-the-century London, he unwittingly could be describing his own novel: "It was manifold and carious; there were tears and laughter, happiness and woe, it was tedious and interesting and indifferent; it was as you saw it; it was tumultuous and passionate; it was grave; it was sad and comic; it was trivial; it was simple and complex; joy was there and despair; the love of mothers for their children and of men for women...There was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It was life."

Indeed.

A ship's mutiny forces a young noble English couple to live on the African coast. They have a child and then die a short time later. Their infant son is adopted by an ape mother and raised as her own. The boy, Tarzan, rises to jungle dominance and subsequently discovers another group of marooned Europeans.

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. This is mindless jungle entertainment at it's best. Of course it's ludicrous that a human baby could survive living with a family of apes. Of course it's silly that the human could not only survive but thrive to become the supreme jungle power. Of course it's ridiculous that he could teach himself to read and write English from books alone. Does all that really matter though? Of course not. Don't expect deep characters, life-changing philosophies, or even intricate plotting. Burroughs wrote this book as entertainment, pure and simple.

Burroughs style may be a bit dated but he certainly does know how to write an engrossing adventure tale. He uses tried and true writing techniques like ending chapters on cliffhangers and presenting his protagonist as the underdog in a struggle against all odds. Early on in the book I found myself rooting completely for Tarzan.

For the sensitive reader, I'll offer a couple of warnings. First, Burroughs presents native Africans as superstitious, cannibalistic "savages". Second, the book is surprisingly violent. I'm sure that in the screen adaptations Tarzan never stabbed or throttled to death so many humans and animals.

One final caution -- the book ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger. Make sure to have "The Return of Tarzan" ready.

Edgar Rice Burroughs will never be nominated for world's great writer. But to quote Stephen King, "it's all about story dammit, story. Edgar Rice Burroughs knew this better than anyone." In Tarzan of the Apes you will discover the true meaning of "suspension of disbelief." You will not care about the geographical liberties Burroughs takes with Africa. The fact that Tarzan's jungle has lions and elephants which live in the more arid regions of Africa. All you will care about is "travelling along the middle terrace" of Tarzan's world and racing along to his next adventure. You will cheer for the heroes and utterly loathe the villains. Also do not expect the grunting, snorting, and nearly mute Tarzan of film. In all 24 Tarzan books he never said, "me Tarzan, you Jane." you will find in Burroughs' Tarzan a symbol of every ones desire to go primitive. If you are not a fan of highly imaginative fiction avoid this book at all costs. But if you do love a good STORY by all means pick up this book.

Listed in Cawthorn's and Moorcock's "Fantasy: The 100 Best Books".

The Weissmuller movies didn't get him right. The TV series haven't got him right. And the Disney movie CERTAINLY won't get him right. Burrough's original narration of the story of Tarzan is a mix of bloodthirsty savagery and unrestrained suspension of disbelief that few would attempt to capture these days.

The Tarzan series is unique among his author's body of work. Where the Barsoom, Pellucidar and Caspak series concern modern men travelling to exotic lands and falling in love with native women, this time around it is a modern woman who comes to the wilderness and steals the heart of the savage protagonist, who must now step up to her civilized ways.

The tale is laced with bloody scenes of man-against-man and man-against-beast rampage. The great apes among which Tarzan grows are a cannibal species, who eat the prisioners of raids against other simian clans. The king ape kills Tarzan's father in a moment where he is caught off guard, mourning the recent death of his wife. When Tarzan first encounters men (an African tribe), he hunts and kills one of them to steal his arrows (killing being the way of the jungle, since Tarzan knows nothing of human behavior). Also, these men turn out to be cannibals too. And when the white men finally arrive, they raid their village and kill almost every one in an attempt to rescue a captured comrade.

After growing wild among beasts, Tarzan (whose name menas White Skin) realizes that he is different from his ape family. And through a series of inventions of his own (like making a rope) and fortunate coincides (like the use of a found hunting knife), he steps up the evolutionary ladder by himself. The moment he learns to read and write from illustrated primers and a dictionary is among the most improbable in the whole book. But if we have kept up with it until now, allowing ourselves to accept that a human child can be raised by apes, then his ascension to superiority isn't that hard to embrace.

Tarzan turns out to be the primeveal lovesick nerd. After the first time he sees Jane Porter (the first white woman he ever casts his eyes on), his heart is all for her. He writes her a love letter, which smacks of the most pityful puppy love ("I want you. I am yours. You are mine... When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Tarzan of the Apes loves you"). Yet our hero is true and noble, and he holds the upper hand in his homeland. The girl can't do anything but be carried away by her primeveal pretender.

I recommend you get this edition I'm reviewing, the one by Penguin. Besides the introduction which gives a valuable background to the place of Tarzan among popular literature and some details on the life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, it contains a series of notes that signal where he took some liberties with his story's setting (like placing American plants in the African jungle).

The English is a little bit archaic, the characterization tends to cartoon and stereotype, but the story is powerful and nothing captures the beauty of the original like the original itself. Read Tarzan of the Apes, and meet again for the first time an archetypical hero of timeless charm.

Vidal is turning into the most important essayist in American history. His prose can crackle with wit and insight. No one understands politics better than he. He can also be a curmudgeon, a nasty critic, a meanspirited bully, and a deliberate contrarian. His essay on John Updike comes across as a juvenile attack with no purpose save to belittle. His take on the events at Waco is so far out and absurd that I can only question his sincerity and/or his sanity. The recent article in Vanity Fair on Timothy McVeigh by Vidal (not included here) is ludicrous (Vidal suggests conspiracy and that McVeigh did not act alone) and grossly insensitive/indifferent to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. Then again, Vidal can be right on target (and often is) when he writes on political and entertainment figures. I laughed several times at his characterizations and descriptions. Never boring, sometimes deliberately antagonizing, always a good read, this volume will keep you reading late into the night.

More political and literary essays from Vidal (The Golden Age, 2000, etc.). Vidal's style is unmistakable: erudite, contrarian, self-aggrandizing, elegant. Cranky. Never has it been more Vidal-ian than here, in his ninth volume of essays, a collection of pieces written between 1992 and 2000 that occasionally borders on self-parody. By far the strongest works are the literary and historical sketches grouped at the beginning: witty, knowing, insightful, and carefully written, taken together they comprise a prickly tour of the midcentury world of American letters. The last 20 essays are far more problematic, however. In these Vidal rants endlessly about the National Security State and the American Empire, two self-identified postwar political structures that he claims have ruined everything good about America. If one hasn't read Vidal's take on these issues before, perusing one of these essays might be fun-but reading 20 of them is not. Although they have different titles and are nominally written on different subjects, the monotony of analysis is numbing. (Plus, it's hard to take Chicken Little seriously when, after nine volumes, the sky still hasn't fallen.) But no matter, there are plenty of fireworks in the literary and historical sections-most compellingly, in a wonderful riff on Sinclair Lewis that interlocks with a controversial defense of Charles Lindbergh in an attempt to revive an intriguing pre-WWII American icon: the plainspoken, isolationist, independent hero from the Great Plains. Amazingly, Vidal, for all his namedropping and urbanity, can't help but see himself in this role. A similarly palpable identification warms, to fascinating effect, the pieces on writers as diverse as Cavafy, Dawn Powell, and Mark Twain. And a merciless attack on Updike is not only provocative but wickedly funny, a flash of the younger Vidal's dead-on comic sense. Vidal's gossip can feel as stale as his (very dated) political concerns, but few today have what he still displays in abundance: the desire, the intelligence, and the wit to continue living as a true man of letters.

And we rejoice. Raconteur, critic, historian, polemicist, name-dropper - Gore Vidal either knew everybody who was anybody or is related to them. In this successor to "United States," we meet FDR, JFK and Jackie, Dawn Powell, Edmund Wilson, Nixon, Lindbergh and Sinclair Lewis, to name a few, and gain perspectives that nobody else could provide. We watch as Mr. Vidal hilariously demolishes a critic and marvel as he tears into John Updike. We learn that Thomas Mann was inspired by a Vidal novel to return to "Felix Krull." But for most of the book, we are treated to Mr. Vidal's vehemently expressed political views (the military-industrial complex runs the country, the American polity is a single party state with two right wings - Democratic and Republican, the Federal government is a form of tyranny, the majority of Americans are worse of than their counterparts in other rich countries). Whether you agree or not, reading Vidal always has the salutary effect of making you revisit your assumptions. This reader certainly awaits more from Gore.

I was enthralled by this book, yet can't help but feel it brought me no closer to the figure at its centre. Vidal captures accurately the 'feel' of Washington as a city at war - the intrigue, the booming brothels, the personalities, the sweep of great events happening. We see Lincoln as the still centre of a hurricane - because the focus of the novel shifts to the people around him - his secretaries Nicolay and Hay, the assassin David Herold, even Mrs Lincoln. I feel Vidal's Lincoln is basically that of Edmund Wilson, with Lincoln as the American Lenin, a revolutionary forging a new nationalist creation (the 'United States' in the singular, not the plural) without its full consent. However, this view has been exploded by Lincoln biographers, notably David Donald's latest effort. True, a revolution did happen, but not by Lincoln's foreknowledge and volition. He was more like a ship's captain steering a course with uncertain maps and compasses and his own sense of what was right. That been said, I loved the way the book captured the air of the Civil War as it actually happened. A must for all Lincoln-philes, and others who enjoy historical novels.

This book had everything I look for in a historical fiction. It tells the tale of a pivotal time in U.S. History as it was presumably lived by Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet and staff. Instead of wallowing in Civil War statistics and data, we experience the spirit of the times through the people who lived them. Abraham Lincoln was very believably portrayed as a real human being with weaknesses and strengths we aren't told about in History class. It was fascinating to see inside the political machinations of that time and note that very little has changed. There were also interesting side plots to keep the reader's interest and provide a respite from the accounts of the war and affairs of state. Since I read historical fiction for education as well as entertainment, I feel I was well served on both counts. I look forward to reading other books of American Historical fiction by Gore Vidal.

Gore Vidal is known as a great cynic, with an acid tongue and combativeness that create such delicious ironies in his novels and essays. But in this novel, I believe that he sincerely admired Lincoln, which raised his writing to an eloquence that few of his other novels attained. In addition to his cabinet and entourage, Lincoln really comes alive in this one, as a political genius who used machiavellian means to attain his goal of keeping the US unified. THere is much humor and wonderful stories of the manuevering that went on behind the scenes, which can be read again and again at leisure.

This book was so stimulating and fascinating that it encouraged me to become a Civil War buff. That is the mark of great historical fiction, that it is a fertile starting point. But nothing else I read seemed so immediate, so real. It is so multi-sided that, soon after we met, my future wife and I argued about Vidal's Lincoln for hours.

I don't know american history in its details, so when I saw what "Burr" was about I was very interested in reading it. Burr's life, his participation in the independence of the US, the fact that he killed Alexander hamilton in a duel, the suspicion that he was father to future (past now) president Martin van Buren, all this makes Aaron Burr's life an interesting subject for a book. I don't really like proper biographies, I rather enjoy them if they're fictionalized.

Vidal, although he thinks of himself much more than he is, is an extremely able writer. He takes the reader, through the eyes of a fictional character, the lawyer/jornalist Charlie Schuyler, for a tour in Washington DC and New York from the early ninteenth century. Costumes, people, politics are described in a light and amusing tone.

"Burr" is lighter and easier to read than "Lincoln", for example; this may happen because of the nature of the main character. Lincoln is taciturn, introspective, while Burr is expansive and talkative.

Among Vidal's american chronicles I think "Burr" is the best book.

Grade 8.3/10

Burr is intelligent and insightful as well as fun and interesting. The book chronicles the life of the notorious Aaron Burr from his days as a soldier in the American Revolution to his term as Vice President and his treason trial. And it culminates in an thoughtful vision of the man's remaining years. Vidal's book is brilliant and refreshing in its portrayals of the founding fathers, particularly Burr, Hamilton, and Washington. A must read for anyone who loves fiction, history, and good writing.

For years I've enjoyed Gore Vidal's essays. Nobody alive shows more mastery over this most vital of literary forms. Although I have read an occasional Vidal novel I've tended to give his fiction short shrift. After reading Burr, it's clear I have some catching up to do. I read Lincoln independently, but now that I've devoured Burr with mounting excitement, I've decided to read his entire historical cycle in sequence.

I don't quite see how Vidal is going to top Burr, for in his choice of protagonist he found a worthy successor to Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. Before reading this novel, I only knew that Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and that he served as Jefferson's Vice President. But set firmly in his time, and seen through the eyes of Charley Schuyler, Burr acquires a wonderful depth. By the time this novel was drawing to a close, I was reading it as slowly as I dared, reluctant to give up its pleasures. In my lust for fiction, I must say this doesn't happen very often.

Some of the past reviewers went to take an aspirin and swallowed the whole bottle. Myra was but an amusing story that posed the deep question of what part one's sexuality plays in defining one's ultimate identity. If a guy should discover half way through life that he wanted to be a she-read this book before whacking it off. The amputation solved nothing for Myron. Myra had hoped she'd evolve into a new, superior species but discovered that a lovely woman's body didn't erase her loneliness. Myra did claim a temporary uniqueness but Vidal's heavy handed ending decapitated that idea.

The sequel Myron was a totally different cup of tea. Since by then there were no characters the reader could identify or sympathize with, a comic book quality emerged which did very little beyond illustrating the amusing war of the sexes. You needn't be a sadist to enjoy this book but it wouldn't hurt. I suppose some of Neal Gabler's (LIFE THE MOVIE) questions regarding psuedo reality and life imitating art were also illustrated here-but don't expect any clarification.

Vidal's Myra Breckinridge is one of the most insightful books I have come across in all of my extensive reading. Through outrageous humor and wit, Gore Vidal communicates powerful messages about sexuality, psychology, and the human condition. The reader follows Myra Breckinridge from her arrogant and obnoxious narcissism to a complete transformation which has such an impact, I don't dare try to describe it. This book is wonderfully one-dimensional on the surface, but a bit of thought reveals it's depth and perceptiveness; so cleverly hidden it seems to jump out and bite in a few incredible sentences! I am recommending this book for anyone who is questioning traditional and orthodox views of the world, or their own sexuality.

This book is hysterical and Myra is the greatest "woman" who ever lived! Every woman should have her style and confidence! Vidal's simplistic but stylish writing is so easy to read that the words just flow off the page. I recommend it to everyone I know (except my poor, misguided, conservative friends)! Myron is excellent too-- and it's a must read if you liked Myra. It's very different in tone, but still incredibly funny and engrossing!

I figured I would give this one a shot after reading Vidal's masterpiece Burr. Burr was absolutely brilliant and flowed like rich cream. This book, which deals with an apocalyptic scenario set against the background of 1970's pop culture, was much less impressive. Maybe I should stick to Vidal's historical fiction pieces and not expect much out of his social satire work. Having started this review with this somewhat negative comment, I should say there is some good stuff about this book. There is still plenty of "Vidalian" wit to enjoy, and some of the imagery and references to 70's culture is pretty amusing. I always get a kick out of end of the world books too, so I am biased in that regard. Still, for this genre, Kalki is pretty out there.

The main character of Kalki is Teddy Ottinger, a smart mouthed feminist who is a world-renowned aviatrix, an author of a feminist tract called "Beyond Motherhood" and an avowed bisexual. It isn't hard to see that Vidal is borrowing heavily from 1970's feminism, with its calls for the ERA and loud blustering. The big news of the day in Teddy's world is an American who is calling himself Kalki, or the avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Kalki has returned to the world to end the last cycle of mankind and usher in a new Golden Age of man. Kalki recruits Ottinger as his personal pilot while she is writing a story about him for an American newspaper. Needless to say, lots of hijinks follow, as secret government agents, drug lords and a freaky dude by the name of Dr. Ashok, run around and provide lots of plot twists and turns. Vidal drops lots of clues to what will happen in the end of the book, but the apocalypse Vidal unfolds here is not what Stephen King would have had in mind.

What is interesting about this book is that it serves as a snapshot of late 1970's culture. I can just imagine that if this book is still read several centuries from now, that there will be fifty pages of footnotes in the back, defining such terms as Reverend Moon, est, and other events that were so relevant in the 1970's. The book also attacks the widespread attention that religious cults were attracting during the time this book was written. It's not surprising that Vidal picks a religion from the East as his delivery device for destruction. Lots of people were turning to Katmandu for guidance, apparently as the 1960's and early 1970's faded and new ideas of "turning on" were hard to find. Vidal savagely attacks the shallowness of cults and people that believe mindlessly in any type of contrivance that promises them something. In this way the book works, but it fails in other ways.

As mentioned above, this book lacks Vidal's usual magic. Maybe this sub par book is part of the larger malaise that gripped the U.S. in the late 1970's. Maybe it is part of the national hangover that occurred during this time, as America woke up from the 1960's with a dry mouth, a nasty headache, and wondered where it had been the night before. Even better, maybe Vidal planned his book to read this way to reflect the weariness of the time, although I'm probably giving him way more credit then he deserves with this theory. Anyway, it just lacks his typical majesty, although the book was hard to put down at times, and I did care somewhat about how things turned out, which isn't too bad. I can't say I cared much for Teddy, who quickly became annoying with her smart mouthed comments and her constant references to ghostwriter Weiss (who helped her write Beyond Motherhood). Maybe Gore was dealing with memories of his own experience with a ghostwriter? Whatever it is, it became wearisome very quickly.

Would I recommend Kalki to someone else? It depends on whether that someone is a Gore Vidal fan. It also depends on whether someone knows the 1970's and likes apocalyptic literature. If none of the above criteria are met, skip this book. Recommended (with reservations).

This is a very enjoyable read from Vidal. A cult led by a charismatic figure may or may not be able to bring about the end of the world. This is a funny-and scary-novel. Vidal's dialogue is witty. His observations are dead on target. The story moves forward rapidly, with few of Vidal's usual tangential meanderings. This may be because Vidal realizes that he has a great story to tell or that he was writing with one eye on a film deal (In fact, it was once planned as a movie with Mick Jagger playing the role of the cult figure). Not to be missed.

This book revolves around the most clever plot device I have ever encountered. It is stunning, twisted, diabolical, brilliant . . . well, you get the point.

This book is also notable in my experience for the seeming inability of friends to whom I loan it to resist skipping to the end to learn what happens. They find the suspense unbearable.

What else do you get when you read Kalki? So much. You get Vidal's elegant prose and his witty dialogue. In fact, spending an evening reading this book must be very similar to spending an evening with Vidal himself. His personality shines through on every page, without detracting from the story.

I believe Vidal is America's greatest living writer. He has turned his hand to nearly every literary form, and aced them all. He should win the Nobel Prize (except he isn't boring enough to win the nod from the Swedish Academy). If you don't know his work, then it's time to get acquainted, and this is a good place to start.