Sorry, No Friday Fiction Today, But ... Into the Archives!

I had an appointment with a doctor today that took up all of my 'juice' to prepare for. I have written a little more on 'Thrand' but not enough to post. However, my neice did take me for a quick trip to the library bookstore afterwards (not too far away; but I've been wanting to go all summer). I found:

Gore Vidal (Five Early  Novels, Unabridged but with some rewrites and editing by Vidal) An Octopus/Heinemann Book 1982

These five novels, written by Vidal between the ages of 21 and 39, are Julian, Williwaw, The Judgement of Paris, Messiah, and The City and the Pillar. I've always wanted a good reading copy of Julian (Gore Vidal trying to be Robert Graves); the old paperback I inherited from Mike was too flimsy. The rest are just bonuses; a couple I had copies of before. At $5 it equals out to a dollar a novel. Hardback; lacks this cover.

Flannery O'Conn: Collected Works (The Library of America, 1988)

With this volume I now have the most of Flannery O'Connor's work (another book I got at the library bookstore had her collected short stories). Besides selected short stories, it includes essays and letters, Wise Blood, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, The Violent Bear it Away, and Everything That Rises Must Converge. So, another gaggle of novels in one volume. This one was in very good condition, a hardback for $16. But it's very nice, so worth it. And looking back, I see it was on my Wish List!

Cicero: Murder Trials (Penguin, This Edition 1990) Translated by Michael Grant.

I cannot resist a good Penguin Edition, and this was only $2. Covers Cicero's classic defense arguments from four murder trials, arguments that have been studied by lawyers and rhetoricians for centuries. Will I actually read it? We shall see. 

Today's Titles

Following the inexplicable dictates of my soul, a little after 10 AM I dressed myself against the morning chill and walked down the street a few blocks to our public library. There I spent a leg-numbing session raking through the little used bookstore on its premises, even though I have plenty of new material to read already. I left with two books for the expenditure of $4 and an extra buck going into the “Friends of the Library” jar, and was home a little before noon, my spirit at rest. This is what I bought.

“Frank Lloyd Wright was renowned during his life not only as an architectural genius but also as a subject of controversy—from his radical design innovations to his turbulent private life, including a notorious mass murder that occurred at his Wisconsin estate, Taliesin, in 1914. But the estate also gave rise to one of the most fascinating and provocative experiments in American cultural history: the Taliesin Fellowship, an extraordinary architectural colony where Wright trained hundreds of devoted apprentices and where all of his late masterpieces—Fallingwater, Johnson Wax, the Guggenheim Museum—were born.

"Drawing on hundreds of new and unpublished interviews and countless unseen documents from the Wright archives, The Fellowship is an unforgettable story of genius and ego, sex and violence, mysticism and utopianism. Epic in scope yet intimate in its detail, it is a stunning true account of how an idealistic community devolved into a kind of fiefdom where young apprentices were both inspired and manipulated, often at a staggering personal cost, by the architect and his imperious wife, Olgivanna Hinzenberg, along with her spiritual master, the legendary Greek-Armenian mystic Georgi Gurdjieff. A magisterial work of biography, it will forever change how we think about Frank Lloyd Wright and his world.” – Amazon.

I also got this new copy of Burr by Gore Vidal. It’s nice to the hand, pleasing to the eye, will save wear and tear on my old hardback, and could be useful as a lending copy. And it was only a dollar! This reminds me that I used to have an old paperback copy as well.

Items from the Wish List: Something to Think About

Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)

by Flannery O'Connor

The Complete Stories (FSG Classics) by Flannery O'Connor 

The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews by Flannery O'Connor

by Flannery O'Connor, Leo J. Zuber

The Abbess of Andalusia: Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey

by Lorraine V. Murray, Joseph Pearce

Meeting of Minds : The Complete Scripts, With Illustrations PBS-TV Series - Series I

by Steve Allen

Meeting of Minds : The Complete Scripts, With Illustrations Second Series

by Steve Allen

Meeting of Minds : The Complete Scripts, With Illustrations - Series III by Steve Allen (1989-09-01)

by Steve Allen

Meeting of Minds: The Complete Scripts, with Illustrations, Fourth Series

by Steve Allen

Buckley vs. Vidal: The Historic 1968 ABC News Debates

by William F. Buckley, Gore Vidal

Best of Enemies

Starring Gore Vidal, William F. Buckley (DVD)

The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great by Ben Shapiro

If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty

by Eric Metaxas 

Gore Vidal

 

“The Narratives of Empire series is a heptalogy of historical novels by Gore Vidal, published between 1967 and 2000, which chronicle the dawn-to-decadence history of the American Empire; the narratives interweave the personal stories of two families with the personages and events of U.S. history. Despite the publisher's preference for the politically neutral series-title "American Chronicles", Vidal preferred the series title "Narratives of Empire". The seven novels can be read in either historical or publication order without losing narrative intelligibility.” – Wikipedia. I shall take them in historical order, using summations from Wikipedia, and adding personal notes now and then.

Burr. “Set during the politically contentious era of the Jackson administration, an elderly and active Aaron Burr recounts his experiences of the Revolutionary War and America's Founding Fathers to a young law clerk secretly working for the press.” A paperback copy bought at a garage sale first introduced me to this series and to Vidal in general, though I knew of him for years; he seemed to me then a producer of historical potboilers like Herman Wouk. The Revolution and early years of America was a good cheese to draw me in. I read more of the series in the public library and got Hardback copies when I could. Had a big influence on me when I finally came to write AGODP. (1973)

Lincoln. “Members of President Abraham Lincoln's government and household help to carry out his policy of preserving the Union through a dreadful and bloody Civil War.” After he published this book he had some controversies with what he called “squirrel-scholars” who disagreed with some of his conclusions, which have since been evaluated to be more or less correct. (1984)

1876. “After forty years abroad, an American writer returns to the US during the Reconstruction Era to find New York and Washington transformed by recession, extreme wealth and political corruption, all culminating in the theft of the 1876 United States presidential election.” Continues with the narrator from ‘Burr’. (1976)

Empire. “A circle of political intellectuals and enterprising newspaper editors learn of the power they wield as they both push for and chronicle the growth of the American Empire at the turn of the 20th Century.” (1987)

Hollywood. “From the perspectives of filmmakers, news publishers and political operatives, a burgeoning and experimental motion picture industry in Los Angeles (taken over as the propaganda arm of an authoritarian presidential administration) rises to wealth and international prominence in the First World War; all resulting in a political backlash of isolationism, prohibition, censorship and a second-rate presidency.” (1990)

Washington, D. C. “This is a story of political life in Washington among congressmen, the press and the social elites during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Ironically the very first of the books written, when Vidal had little or no idea of producing a series. (1967)

The Golden Age. “The US is maneuvered into the Second World War by President Roosevelt, whose successors pursue a fatal Cold War policy of military and economic domination just as the nation has become the center of western art and culture.” The summation of the series, into which Vidal injects himself as a character at one point. Something of another take on ‘Washington, DC’, with insights gained over 30 years of writing, and ending with the death of the first character he ever introduced, thus rounding things off in a glorious circle. (2000)

Ranking: Burr, Essential; the rest, Keepers.

File Code: Historical Novels. Hardbacks.

United States: Essays 1952 -1992, by Gore Vidal.

“From the age of Eisenhower to the dawning of the Clinton era, Gore Vidal’s United States offers an incomparably rich tapestry of American intellectual and political life in a tumultuous period. It also provides the best, most sustained exposure possible to the most wide-ranging, acute, and original literary intelligence of the post—World War II years. United States is an essential book in the canon of twentieth-century American literature and an endlessly fascinating work.” – Amazon. While I never completely agree with Vidal, he always has something insightful and interesting to say, especially about literature. He has proved not to be quite as prophetic as he likes to think.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Collected Essays. Hardback.

The Last Empire: Essays 1992 - 2000, by Gore Vidal.

A follow-up to “United States: Essays 1952 -1992”. More from the gadfly pen of Vidal as he gives his acerbic point of view of the nation and its pivotal characters.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Collected Essays. Softcover.

Palimpsest: A Memoir, and Point by Point Navigation, by Gore Vidal.

“This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal’s compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author’s celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters - including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.” – Amazon, about Palimpsest. ‘Navigation’ is more of the same, sometimes the exact same, and is a little patchier, as he wanders through his past and brings things up to date since ‘Palimpsest’. Illustrated with photographs.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Autobiography. Hardbacks. 

The Shadow Library

All Over Creation

Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White. Illustrations by Garth Williams. Of course, I don’t have to say much about the book; everybody has heard of it. The Hanna/Barbera movie version came out in 1973, when I was in grade school. A Sherman Brothers song. Voices from half the TV shows we’d watched and sound effects from the cartoons. The book is poetic and moving, and a gentle slice of progressive Americana. Ranking: Essential. File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Paperback.

Stuart Little, by E. B. White. Illustrations by Garth Williams. I was more engaged with this book than I was with “Charlotte’s Web”, mainly because I always liked the fantasy of being a mouse or a tiny person myself, living with toys, driving in little vehicles, hiding from the big people … my shy, whimsical impulses were at odds with my gawky body. I wanted to avoid attention, I suppose. No wonder Hobbits appealed to me so much later. Anyway, I got this copy in grade school (Fourth Grade, I imagine), and its condition certainly shows its age. Ranking: Essential. File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Paperback.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O’Brien. Illustrated by Zena Bernstein. Mrs. Bratton read this to us in Fourth Grade, then I read it myself in middle school. Adventures among the rodents again, with their secret life, here enhanced by scientific experiment, so it’s not just whimsy, it’s SCIENCE! Again, the fantasy of building a covert world away from the powers that be, escaping their death hassles, man, and making a Utopia where we can all live in peace. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Children’s Classic. Paperback.

Barabbas; and The Sybil, by Par Lagerkvist. The author was a Nobel Prize Winner for Literature. I got these books long ago (junior year?) because they seemed to be on the fringes of my interests, historical, philosophical, religious. Haven’t brought myself to read them through yet; perhaps the time has come. Barabbas follows the man released instead of Jesus, of course (it was made into a movie with Anthony Quinn), and The Sybil is about the Wandering Jew, searching for answers. Ranking: After all this time? Probably Dispensable. File Code: Novels. Paperback.

Creation, by Gore Vidal. “A sweeping novel of politics, war, philosophy, and adventure–in a restored edition, featuring never-before-published material from Gore Vidal’s original manuscript–Creation offers a captivating grand tour of the ancient world. Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens–the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates–Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys: how the universe was created, and why evil was created with good. In revisiting the fifth century B.C.–one of the most spectacular periods in history–Gore Vidal illuminates the ideas that have shaped civilizations for millennia.” – Amazon. This used copy has a badly cracked spine. In his novels of the ancient world, I always think Vidal is trying to be Robert Graves, with the whole “lost autobiographical manuscript” thing. Still, a good read, and nicely dramatized. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Novel. Historical. Paperback.

Traditional British Ballads: A Selection, Edited by Bartlett Jere Whiting. Could this paperback actually be from 1955, the only date inside? Amazing. It is what it says on the label. Some marking inside; probably a college book. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Poetry. Folk. Paperback.

The Portable Charles Lamb: Letters and Essays, Edited by James Mason Brown. A Viking Portable Library Book. I’ve liked the whimsical Lamb since reading his essay about roast pigs in high school. He seems the gentlest and the most humorous of the writers of the Romantic era, the most decent and the least stormy – I want to be his friend. His sentimentality is loving and never smarmy, his letters are a delight, and he himself seems wise, sad, and witty. His “took up arms against a sea of troubles” and gallantly opposed them. I’ve carried this book as a vade mecum several times on trips to the doctor. Some interior marks. Ranking: Essential. File Code: Letters. Essays. English Literature.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories, by Robert Louis Stevenson. A Penguin book. Bought it at Goodwill to have a copy of the tale in its own book, as it were, and a’cause of my Penguin mania. Dead cheap, too. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Classic. Paperback. Horror? Mystery?

Extraterrestrial Visitations from Prehistoric Times to the Present, by Jacques Bergier. A purchase from the early 70’s, instigated by Mike but passed around by all us boys and much discussed. Bergier was a practiced purveyor of crackpot theories and jumped on the bandwagon of “Chariots of the Gods” and the UFO craze of the times. Our young minds feasted on the wonder and fear of it all and wove it into our lore and storytelling. I remember being afraid to go outside at night for dread of being taken by aliens, while at the same time marveling at ‘ancient mysteries’ and ‘secret histories’. My copy shows the wear and tear of 47 years and being passed around and nearly being read to rags. Ranking: Keeper. Artifact. File Code: Extraterrestrials. Crackpot Science. Paperback.

Monsters You Never Heard Of, by Daniel Cohen. Illustrated. Cryptozoology for kids. Along with Thomas G. Aylesworth and … there was a third guy, I think, but I can’t think of the name [am I thinking of Peter Haining?] … anyway, they were all purveyors of monsters and mayhem for kids and for those who were kids in critical thinking alike in the 1970’s. Anyway, it was all fun, and our way of distracting ourselves from the real horrors of life. Ranking: Keeper. File Code: Cryptozoology. Legend. Paperback.

Hostage to the Devil, by Malachi Martin. “A true, awesome account of the possession and exorcism of five living Americans – documented by a former Jesuit.” Dated from 1977, during the “Exorcist” craze. One of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read, perhaps because I’m inclined -not absolutely convinced, but sneakily inclined – to believe it’s true. I hesitate to re-read; it was so unsettling. Even if I simply scared myself because of my psychology, I don’t care to run the chance of doing it to myself again. “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” – C. S. Lewis. Cover somewhat scruffy. Ranking: Cursed object and forbidden item. File Code: Possession. Exorcism. Paperback.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Complete and Updated. I have read this aloud, all 700 or so pages, a little bit a day, for over a year. Lays out in great detail and scholarship what Catholics believe. (2 copies) Ranking: Essential File Code: Religion. Catholicism. Paperback.