Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship: Essays
by Gore Vidal
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A collection of essays and articles by Gore Vidal, ranging from book reviews and literary criticism to political history and activism. For those not interested in both politics and literature, this will be a mixed bag, but anyone with a wide scope of interests - even if not as wide as Vidal's - should enjoy this collection from cover to cover.
Being unfamiliar with most of the novels discussed in the literature-themed essays, I still found them interesting and informative. But in reading Vidal's political commentary from the fifties and sixties while firmly planted in the stark reality of Donald Trump's second term as President of the United States, I found myself overwhelmed at times by the sense of Déjà vu when confronted with the show more actions and attitudes of the Republican Party during the 29th Republican Convention's nomination of Richard Nixon as the presidential candidate. Hindsight is 20/20, but the parallels between Nixon and Trump go above and beyond the individual's and their corruption scandals. Vidal's views on the Kennedy "Holy Family" is also relevant as a refreshingly sober examination of a political dynasty that has been overly whitewashed and sanctified - some might even say deified - by time and carefully crafted historical public relations.
Another interesting aspect of Vidal's sociopolitical commentary is his repeated focus on overpopulation as one of the most pressing dangers facing mankind, repeating predictions that the current rate of population growth would result in a global famine by the late 1980s. Roughly fifty years later the doomsday predictions involve climate change, and while this does not negate the importance or severity of either concern - a failed prediction does not discredit the overall dangers - it is a learning experience to watch the evolution of activism over time.
Vidal's essays are not meant for a wide audience, but as I stated previously, if you are a student of both literature and politics, there is very little worth throwing overboard to keep this ship afloat. show less
Being unfamiliar with most of the novels discussed in the literature-themed essays, I still found them interesting and informative. But in reading Vidal's political commentary from the fifties and sixties while firmly planted in the stark reality of Donald Trump's second term as President of the United States, I found myself overwhelmed at times by the sense of Déjà vu when confronted with the show more actions and attitudes of the Republican Party during the 29th Republican Convention's nomination of Richard Nixon as the presidential candidate. Hindsight is 20/20, but the parallels between Nixon and Trump go above and beyond the individual's and their corruption scandals. Vidal's views on the Kennedy "Holy Family" is also relevant as a refreshingly sober examination of a political dynasty that has been overly whitewashed and sanctified - some might even say deified - by time and carefully crafted historical public relations.
Another interesting aspect of Vidal's sociopolitical commentary is his repeated focus on overpopulation as one of the most pressing dangers facing mankind, repeating predictions that the current rate of population growth would result in a global famine by the late 1980s. Roughly fifty years later the doomsday predictions involve climate change, and while this does not negate the importance or severity of either concern - a failed prediction does not discredit the overall dangers - it is a learning experience to watch the evolution of activism over time.
Vidal's essays are not meant for a wide audience, but as I stated previously, if you are a student of both literature and politics, there is very little worth throwing overboard to keep this ship afloat. show less
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168+ Works 31,212 Members
Gore Vidal was born Eugene Luther Gore Vidal Jr. on October 3, 1925 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. He did not go to college but attended St. Albans School in Washington and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1943. He enlisted in the Army, where he became first mate on a freight supply ship in the show more Aleutian Islands. His first novel, Williwaw, was published in 1946 when he was twenty-one years old and working as an associate editor at the publishing company E. P. Dutton. The City and the Pillar was about a handsome, athletic young Virginia man who gradually discovers that he is homosexual, which caused controversy in the publishing world. The New York Times refused to advertise the novel and gave a negative review of it and future novels. He had such trouble getting subsequent novels reviewed that he turned to writing mysteries under the pseudonym Edgar Box and then gave up novel-writing altogether for a time. Once he moved to Hollywood, he wrote television dramas, screenplays, and plays. His films included I Accuse, Suddenly Last Summer with Tennessee Williams, Is Paris Burning? with Francis Ford Coppola, and Ben-Hur. His most successful play was The Best Man, which he also adapted into a film. He started writing novels again in the 1960's including Julian, Washington, D.C., Myra Breckenridge, Burr, Myron, 1876, Lincoln, Hollywood, Live From Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal, and The Golden Age. He also published two collections of essays entitled The Second American Revolution, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1982 and United States: Essays 1952-1992. In 2009, he received the National Book Awards lifetime achievement award. He died from complications of pneumonia on July 31, 2012 at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship: Essays
- Original title
- Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship
- Original publication date
- 1969
- People/Characters
- Alain Robbe-Grillet; Nathalie Sarraute; Susan Sontag; John O'Hara; John Horne Burns; John Hersey (show all 15); E. Nesbit; Edgar Rice Burroughs; Tarzan; Henry Miller; Richard Hofstadter; Edmund Wilson; John F. Kennedy; William Manchester; Gamal Abdel Nasser
- Important places
- Egypt; Aswan, Egypt; Aswan Dam, Egypt
- Important events
- Assassination of John F. Kennedy
- Dedication
- For Barbara and Jason Epstein.
- First words
- Seven years ago when I first put together a book of essays, I titled it, somewhat vaingloriously, Rocking the Boat.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Public Self: For us it ends. But there are others.
- Blurbers
- Shrapnel, Norman; Gross, John; Barkham, John
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Statistics
- Members
- 33
- Popularity
- 858,059
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.25)
- Languages
- English, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
