Creation: A Novel {original}

This is a thick book, and it is largely about religion. Many will not read past this point, either of the review or the novel. But this is an area were many escapist readers feel uncomfortable. And religious fundamentalists have trouble dealing with the shared tenets of the major faiths. But Mr. Vidal is not a fundamentalist, but a humanist and his take on the divided world with shared truths is quite a nice way to spend a week of reading time. It's worth the effort, even though the body count is low.

A long time ago I saw Gore Vidal on Bill Maher's show Politically Incorrect. I was very impressed with just about everything he said so when I saw this book at some used bookstore or thrift store (can't remember which) I picked it up. I actually started reading it and then the size of it scared me off. But now that he just died the other day I figured it would be a good time to read it.

This book took me 5 months to read (although I was reading other books at the same time). It's huge (593 pages) and the font is small. It wasn't action-packed. I never felt sad or happy for the characters. There weren't any aliens, magic or "lasers". No mind-blowing, extrapolated future technologies or cultures. BUT. I really liked it.

It really was like show more taking a tour through history. The main character meets Buddha, Confucius, and a host of other famous historical personages. Reading it feels like Vidal had some kind of time machine and just went back and took notes on everything. Complicated (royal) family trees, religious schisms, assassinations, coups, love affairs, wars etc...

The closest thing I can compare it to is [book:I, Claudius|18765] but with a much larger scope and so a larger cast of characters and so (again) less intimacy with the characters.

Thank you Mr. Vidal for letting me take a ride in your time machine. show less

Vidal's novel serves as a background for his exposition on the history and philosophy of the 5th Century. His knowledge is expansive and, while the breadth of experience for his main character is simply not believable, he does a reasonably effective job of entertaining the reader while commenting on political and religious isses (often inseprable) of the era. This is not a book for those who want their reading quick and easy and will be far more enjoyable for those who go into it with some knowledge of the era, of the development of the world's great relgiions and, particularly, of Periclean Greece.

Cyrus Spitama is half-Greek half-Persian nobleman, who is the Great King's ambassador to Athens in the 5th century BC. He dictates his memoirs to his great-nephew Democritus in response to a reading of Herodotus's Histories.

Cyrus Spitama's grandfather was the prophet Zoroaster, and as he had previously undertaken diplomatic missions to India and the country to the East of the East, Cathay, he was able to meet everybody who was anybody in those days: Mahavira (the founder of Jainism), the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Darius, and Xerxes. Pericles and the young Socrates get small parts. Cyrus's great-nephew who he is dictating his memoirs to was the inventor of atomic theory.

There's lots of palace intrigue and adventure as Cyrus tries to show more carry out his missions and just plain survive in a world where he doesn't really fit in any category, and intellectual and religious discussion as he pursues his main interest, the nature of creation, where did the world come from and why and how. All very enjoyable. show less

Candidly a bit of a disappointment after the tour de force that was Julian. Biggest irritation: Why do authors of works of this sort have their narrator meet every single friggin' important person that existed in their era, a la John Jakes? But, Vidal is a good enough writer that it is possible to overlook this and enjoy this work as fiction, not as being remotely close to actual history.

A wonderful story about the "Axis Age" and one man's quest to understand the world by exploring the different ideas of the prominent people of the time. Pericles, Zoroaster, the Buddha, and Confucius - among others - figure prominently in this quest. It fit for me as a fictional equivalent of my own investigation into different philosophical and religious approaches to understanding.

Ciro Espitama, viejo y ciego, dicta sus memorias a su sobrino el joven filósofo Demócrito, para rebatir la visión que de las guerras entre griegos y persas tiene Herodoto. Nieto de Zoroastro, le fue trasnmitida la sabiduría de su abuelo; como embajador del rey Darío en la India y Catay, conoce tanto las filosofías orientales como las intrigas políticas que el gran imperio persa mantiene para afianzarse o conquistar nuevos pueblos. En el siglo V a.C., Oriente y Occidente dirimen su futuro en Maratón, Salamina o Termópilas; mientras, en Asia, se extienden las religiones de Buda y Confucio y, en Atenas, Sócrates y sus discípulos se preguntan por el origen del universo.