United States: Essays 1952-1992 (1993)

יש לי, קראתי כמה, רחוק מאת כולם, עוד יבוא היום​ ( )

Thankfully this collection stops just as Vidal's politics are becoming annoyingly cranky. Vidal in the twenty-first century has unfortunately taken some of the joy and some of the credit out of his sometimes daring, sometimes bitchy, but always entertaining essays from the late twentieth century. Which is a shame. They can still be a guilty pleasure though ;-) ( )

Vidal is a true liberal contrarian (he subtitles his essay on Theodore Roosevelt "An American Sissy"). For all that, his essays sparkle with wit and cynicism and a highly personal voice.

The three sections of this collection are entitled "State of the Art" (literary criticism); "State of the Union" (politics and history); and some more personal essays in "State of Being".

A nice astringent collection.

Essays

Vidal write clearly and presents a very lucid point of view, which he marshals from a vast corpus of his reading, listening, watching, and thinking.

Many will disagree with his conclusions, or even with his presuppositions. The clarity of his arguments, however, gives the reader the opportunity to absorb his wisdom and experience without risk to his own.

It is hard to fault anything in this volume except for its length. The three main sections; on literature and the arts, on American politics, and on his own experience, could be as easily divided into separate volumes. ( )