Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Emma Brockes interview: Gore Vidal at 80
Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Emma Brockes interview: Gore Vidal at 80
It has always been hard to work out how much of Vidal's aloofness is genuine. He plays up to his image as the foremost American aristocrat, slow in speech, noble in gesture, with a confidence in his own opinion that derives as much from background - his grandfather was a senator, his father a founder of the airline TWA and he had a stepfather in common with Jackie Kennedy - as from expertise. If he has ever reserved judgment on a subject, it has not been recorded, which is why, while he talks like an intellectual, he has the output of a hack: more than 35 novels, 20 non-fiction titles, scores of screenplays (most notably Suddenly, Last Summer) and opinions at the ready every time a world event requires lofty interpretation.
¶ 9:15 AM 
It has always been hard to work out how much of Vidal's aloofness is genuine. He plays up to his image as the foremost American aristocrat, slow in speech, noble in gesture, with a confidence in his own opinion that derives as much from background - his grandfather was a senator, his father a founder of the airline TWA and he had a stepfather in common with Jackie Kennedy - as from expertise. If he has ever reserved judgment on a subject, it has not been recorded, which is why, while he talks like an intellectual, he has the output of a hack: more than 35 novels, 20 non-fiction titles, scores of screenplays (most notably Suddenly, Last Summer) and opinions at the ready every time a world event requires lofty interpretation.
¶ 9:15 AM
