tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1680622593910991248.post2288930655090694855..comments2023-11-03T03:45:54.322-04:00Comments on Fox Home: "Kiss You Down South" 4Foxessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1680622593910991248.post-68873713485872506742010-07-16T16:34:00.085-04:002010-07-16T16:34:00.085-04:00Have you read Edmund Wilson on Grant?
Love, C.Have you read Edmund Wilson on Grant?<br /><br />Love, C.Foxessahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1680622593910991248.post-67419570378091768232010-07-16T16:33:26.856-04:002010-07-16T16:33:26.856-04:00From things I've heard Vidal say in interviews...From things I've heard Vidal say in interviews with Lenny Lopate his opinion of Jefferson may have become harsher in the last 20 years. But Vidal hasn't seemed really what you might characterize as passionate about the issues of slavery and the consequences. Certainly his characters aren't. One doubts he'd ever have had any interest in John Brown as a character or to write a novel about him. But he's not related to John Brown, via any branch of his hydra-headed power elite families. :)<br /><br />But as far as Jefferson goes, it's that American empire business that has continually fascinated Vidal. Like so many Americans, past and present, he is of two minds about the American Empire. Empires are much more safe when they are safely fallen a millenia ago, thus <i>Julian the Apostate</i>, perhaps. MB here, Mr. Piety Street, loves the Vidal historicals too. <i>Burr</i> is his favorite.<br /><br />As for the Gabler book, I may have read it, but quite a few years ago, so I don't recall anything useful.<br /><br />Love, CFoxessahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1680622593910991248.post-45496275120564061132010-07-15T16:12:08.483-04:002010-07-15T16:12:08.483-04:00I'll dig up the essay and give you a citation....I'll dig up the essay and give you a citation. My guess is that you're on to something when you say that Vidal may be reflecting the attitude of the times. You won't like hearing this, but I'm pretty sure that he has written that he has a higher opinion of Jefferson than one might gather from reading <i>Burr</i>.<br /><br />Vidal, in my book, deserves consideration for a Nobel Prize. He's as good as many of the Americans who have already won it. Have you read <i>Empire</i>?<br /><br />A fine nonfiction book about Hollywood is Neal Gabler's <i>An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood</i>.K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10222703055177237209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1680622593910991248.post-27706561053654059432010-07-15T15:14:54.486-04:002010-07-15T15:14:54.486-04:00Oooo, I'd like to read that. Is that Grant es...Oooo, I'd like to read that. Is that Grant essay in collected volume, perhaps, with a title?<br /><br />I haven't yet figured out whether Vidal himself is sharing the attitudes about Grant and Johnson or is merely inhabiting the time and these characters -- we're still in the Wilsonian age of the novel. People are dropping like flies from the global influenza epidemic, the Armistice has been signed and the preliminary European conferences for dividing up all these regions among the Allies at U.S. hegemonic direction, and the floating of the League of Nations is what is going on. Vidal constantly makes certain the readers understand how much D.C. politics are dominated by Southerners, first and second generation since the Appomatox surrender by their fathers and grandfathers. Further, he makes clear how much their attitudes are mirrored by the leaning 'south' such as Ohio, and then the further west.<br /><br />As I'd come to understand some years ago, Hollywood too was dominated by the same kinds of folks, though perhaps more crudely young on the national stage than the long-established D.C. political families.<br /><br />You are right -- this is a terrific work of historical fiction, connecting that time's past with their present, with then, that chronological myopia that all of us share growing up in 'our' present. At least until we've lived and studied long enough to begin making the connections between the pasts of those who were generationally ahead of us, with our own current present.<br /><br />That's what I am most awed by, with <i>Hollywood</i>, published in 1990, seeming so much like the times we've been living through for the last 4 decades.<br /><br />Vidal should be presented some kind of literary special recognition for his historical work.<br /><br />Love, C.Foxessahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1680622593910991248.post-80918535596083502752010-07-15T05:21:08.549-04:002010-07-15T05:21:08.549-04:00Heck, don't feel guilty! Enjoy every minute of...Heck, don't feel guilty! Enjoy every minute of it and let me live vicariously.<br /><br />I liked <i>Hollywood</i> maybe the best of the American history series. Probably because I found the milieu so appealing.<br /><br />Vidal wrote a good essay about Grant's <i>Memoirs</i>. There's a new one-volume bio of Lincoln out. I read all of the passages on Grant. We really do need more generals like him.K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10222703055177237209noreply@blogger.com