Screening History - Softcover

Gore Vidal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349104778 ISBN 13: 9780349104775

Publisher: Abacus, 1993

Synopsis

Gore Vidal's mixture of autobiography, reminiscence and observations on the cinema.

About this title

Review

Vibrant...A reminiscence of Mr. Vidal's first 20 years (1925-1945), with a dual emphasis on the impact of films and of gossipy Washington politics on boy Gore...If the book belongs to a genre, it is the one that includes Eudora Welty's wonderful One Writer's Beginnings. (Michael Kammen New York Times Book Review)

Witty and sweepingly disrespectful...Written versions of history are, in Vidal's opinion, no more to be trusted than movie versions, and a lot less memorable besides being a lot less fun...He relates history on the screen to its influence on, or by, the general concept of events, his personal experience, and his acerbic view of doings in Washington. (The Atlantic)

Unadulterated Vidal and a small gem...On almost every page there is an observation worth admiring, whether it is about Hollywood and television, politics and history, or the paranoia and hypocrisy of the commercialized American dream. (Herbert Mitgang New York Times)

A delight from cover to cover...A thoroughly enjoyable memoir cum cultural and political analysis. (Dave Wood Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

From Library Journal

This volume is part of the same series as Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings ( LJ 2/15/84) and contains author Vidal's reminiscences of his childhood and early manhood. Interestingly, Vidal uses the movies of his youth as the key to an examination of his past. Young Gore's first confrontation with the reality of death occurred in his viewing of a poignant scene from The Prince and the Pauper (1937). He is aware that films and other images from the media can be used to manipulate or define an event for its audience, and he realizes that the image often becomes the reality of that event. Vidal has a facile turn of phrase and a markedly pessimistic view of the fuure of American democracy. There is more philosophical rumination here than straight biography, but this reviewer was intrigued by the character of his grandfather, a blind senator from Oklahoma. This book is literate, thoughtful, wry, slightly cynical, and very highly recommended.
- Marianne Cawley, Kingwood Branch Lib., Tex.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0349104778
• ISBN 13: 9780349104775
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 108