Burr: A Novel (Gore Vidal)

Gore Vidal is kind of a ham-fisted writer, but this historical novel surprised me. Vidal's got a very unorthodox take on the Founding Fathers, and maybe that's where he's at his best. One of the most superficial but funny themes is the shapeliness of George Washington's feminine-looking ass. More seriously, Vidal focuses attention on what Michael Drexler punningly calls the "traumatic colonel" of American history, an adventurer who most certainly hung with the Founding Fathers but also was the overtly cynical politician that some of those Founders were too hypocritical to admit they were.

This is my first Gore Vidal novel and I'm glad I finally got around to reading his work. This novel, as well as several others in a series (Lincoln, 1876 to name a couple) can best be described as historical fiction, somewhat disguised as biography. In selecting Burr as a subject, Vidal made an excellent choice, both from the standpoint of originality and due to the fact that Burr was a fascinating character. Known primarily for his dual with bitter political rival Alexander Hamilton, many are not aware that Burr was a Revolutionary War hero and came within a hair's breadth of becoming the third President, tying Thomas Jefferson in the Electoral College and throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Settling for the Vice-Presidency, Burr went West after his duel with Hamilton and sought to invade and conquer Mexico, leading to a politically motivated trial for treason in which he was exonerated by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Quite a life. Told f... Read more

I first read Burr as a teenager in the early 1970s, and loved the scathing evaluations of the founding fathers, as seen through Vice President Aaron Burr's eyes. The book is written as the reminiscences of an old man recalling his long career as a Revolutionary War officer, New York politician, Jefferson's first Vice President, and defendant in a treason trial conducted by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. As a teenager, I recall being particularly impressed with Vidal's presentations of Burr's (and others') rather randy sex lives. I read Burr again recently as a 50 something year old adult, and still like it a lot. This time I appreciated more how Vidal evaluates adult issues of ambition, careerism and power-seeking among the founding fathers Burr knew, ranging form George Washington to Martin Van Buren. Jefferson comes in for an especially aggressive skewering because, indeed, that is how Burr as his Vice President saw things. As for Alexander Hamilton... Read more

I finished this book slightly before midnight, December 31, 2008, making it the last book I finished in the year, as well as one of the best. The book starts slowly, but as it gets to Burr's "Memoirs" it quickly picks up steam and remains utterly fascinating until the very end. In his Narratives of Empire series Gore Vidal has provided us with a novelistic recounting of American political history from the Revolution to World War II. In each of the seven novels in the sequence -- BURR, LINCOLN, 1876, EMPIRE, HOLLYWOOD, WASHINGTON D.C., and THE GOLDEN AGE -- the fictitious Charles Schuyler or one of his descendents plays a conspicuous role, except for LINCOLN, where Schuyler appears only in cameo. This provides a moderately neutral point of view for the events in the novels. The choice of Aaron Burr as the focus for Vidal's account of both the Age of Jackson and the Revolution and early republic was inspired. Of the major figures in our nation's founding, he is both the most re... Read more

This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal's' output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value). Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don't generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930's, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible. That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occ... Read more

This is the second book I have read in this series after 'Empire' and I enjoyed it even more. Vidal has a great take on American history, a take I wish more people would appreciate, or at least be aware of. I am about to read the next book in the series 'Lincoln' I'm told it's the best and am very excited.