 "Mid-century self-loathing" | 2009-08-01 |
| - Reviewed By disco75 |
This slim novel was undoubtedly trailblazing as a 1948 pulpy attempt at serious fiction examining, from an insider's perspective, the post-War gay oppression in the US. The attempt is awkward-- the writing is simplistic, the characters are thin-to-cardboard, the settings are, by now, hoary. The protagonist is a kind of gay Forrest Gump as he moves through all the relevant sociological locations as they are checked off, including small-town alienation, high-seas departure from home, Hollywood queerdom, WWII servicemen and their off-duty haunts, post-War Greenwich Village, etc. The protagonist is surprisingly untouched by all these events unfolding as he is in the right place to allow the author to make the right observations: he receives no parental rejection, he is not gay-bashed in his misguided overtures, he faces no combat during his enlistment, etc. His dilemmas are as much existential as they are products of his time (can I ever find someone to love rather than use?).
Despite Vidal's erudite later remarks in the press about not viewing sexuality in categories, at this early stage he barters in virtually every gay stereotype such as trade, queens, hags, married closet cases, studio-arranged marriages, and most importantly, not a single longterm gay relationship. The one break with mid-century cliche is the disturbing ending. This ending recasts everything that went before into a sociopathic delusion and leaves a sour taste. Turns out he was less Forrest Gump and more Lovelace. Definitely not up to Vidal's later writing standards. For a more skillful tale of these events, try Mordden's "How Long Has This Been Going On." |
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 "Prescient Look Back" | 2008-12-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3OHUOVRICSDGK |
| Vidal was 20 when he wrote this coming-of-age novel, set in a post-war America when the word homosexual conjured netherworlds of perversion and depravity. The feat here isn't the author's frankness or even the skill he uses to convey the character's self-lacerating observations(and what a bunch!). Maybe déjà vu is the word for it: Vidal's hero grows in increments until what emerges is a clear-eyed, honest look at one man coming to terms, a coming out whose hills and valleys remains emotionally indistinguishable from the lives of gay men today. |
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| "Be careful what you wish for" | 2008-07-25 |
| - Reviewed By cellenc |
Reading Gore Vidal can be challenging. Over the years I've read his LINCOLN and also 1876. But I read both books, fortunately, with a fair amount of knowledge of the subject matter. Currently I'm reading BURR and once again I'm going in with a fair amount of knowledge of the subject and enjoying it. Vidal's almost snob appeal that his readers has knowledge of the subject has caused me to shy away from most of his works. Lacking some background the reader ends up confused and wondering if the book is worth the effort.
In reading a biographical note on Vidal I noted this early work THE CITY AND THE PILLAR and its success and controversy in the late 1940's. Noting the short length of the book and availability in the public library I decided to give it a try and I'm very glad that I did. Unlike his later works it is straight forward and easy to read.
In reading the book I got the same sense that I have when watching a movie from the 1940's. It's seeing life during an earlier people of American history.
As one of the critics noted the book is not BROKE BACK MOUNTAIN - but it would be a very interesting project for someone to read the two books and two a contrast and comparison. In my opinion Vidal handles the subject matter with class and sophistication. When you consider the book in the context of the late 1940's its pretty amazing.
Lots of things have been said about THE CITY AND THE PILLAR by other reviewers. But there are a couple of universal themes that comes across in the book that have nothing to do with the fact that the central character is gay. One of the themes is happiness and finding it within yourself. Jim, Shaw, Maria, Sullivan all seem to seek happiness in a relationship before they find happiness within them selves and there in lies the tradegy of their lives.
As to Jim, he's the tragic figure who searches for love in one person and when he finally reunites with Bob, he is rejected. In a sense its the old adadge "be careful what you wish for." In retrospect if Jim had enjoyed the moment with Bob and accepted the fact that it was a passing interlude and moved on, his life would have been entirely different.
Perhaps the message all these years later is found in the comments of one of the minor characters, Bob's wife, who says to the shock of her contemporaries that she would rather have a husband who has had several affairs and essentially knew what he wanted out of life, before he settles down. In essence she is saying marry someone who knows what he or she wants out of life - a message that was clearly lost on Jim's mother who spent a life time with a man that she did not love. The irony is that while she is willing to concede that part of Bob's character, she seems unwilling to let him follow his dream and remain at sea.
We don't know what happens to the tragic Jim at the close of the novel? Will he go back to New York and continue in his same life style. Will be become like the aged gay men that the young Jim meets in bars and salons? Did Bob go back to sea, his dream, or settle down to sell insurance like his wife's family wants him to do? These are only questions for speculation. One can only hope that the characters would find happiness.
This would be a great book for a book club. The discussions and the universal theme could create hours of dicussion. For me it was well worth the read. |
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 "Both historically, and at face value," | 2007-12-01 |
| - Reviewed By rvognar012 |
I found this to be a fine book. The prose is spare, lean, direct--much like Jim, its protagonist. It does not have the eloquence or depth of Vidal's later work, but it doesn't TRY to--it stays within itself. The official amazon.com reviwer has said not to read it for the sex, and this is of course true. The only sex scene actually described is described metaphorically, but so beautifully as to inspire Thomas Mann to call it (in the word of one translator) "glorious." Vidal himself uses a more modest word in translating Mann's diary entry, though he's very proud that Mann credited this book with inspiring him to take up "Felix Krull" again.
The book is NOTHING like "Brokeback Miountain," either the movie or the short story. Although Jim resists for a time thinking of himself as gay, and spends the years between 17 and 22 on a quest for the lost love with whom he spent most of a weekend having sex near an abandoned slave cabin close to their homes in a small Virginia town, this quest is interrupted by fairly long-term relatioships with other men, whom he meets after 'going to sea," following in the foosteps of that lost love. The Hollywood actor and the sweet but not very successful writer, in Hollywood, New Orleans and further south--and then again in New York City, where he meets both again, provide an interesting and very realistic sounding mileau for a young gay man on the loose in 1946 and shortly thereafter. He never has sex with a woman, and quits trying after one attempt with a woman he's very fond of.
The end of his quest--and I read the revised, less "black" version--made me scream "Oh no!" But after thinking about it a while, I shouldn't have been surprised.
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| "The Beginning" | 2007-04-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3Q1GB17EH17UD |
Vidal, Gore. "The City and the Pillar". Vintage, 1948, re-released 1965, 1995.
The Beginning
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Looking back at my gay life I must say that there were three books that influenced me deeply, "Dancer from the Dance" by Andrew Holleran, "Faggots" by Larry Kramer and "The City and the Pillar" by Gore Vidal. Having finally met Andrew, I only have two more to go now and hopefully that will happen soon. "The City and the Pillar" written in 1945 was the first mainstream novel to look at homosexuality in a way that did not make us look like we did not belong. Vidal has long been a man of letters and his name alone gives credence to what he writes and what he says. He is the author of twenty-four novels, seven plays and screenplays, over two hundred essays and two memoirs as well as winning several major awards. He has been a voice that America has listened to and has succeeded despite his sexuality. We are proud to have him among us.
When "The City and the Pillar" was first published, it shocked the literary establishment as well as Vidal's family and friends. Looking back at it now, it seems so tame but we can examine the reaction of sixty years ago. If you just stop to think how far we have come in the last few years, you can imagine how scandalous the homosexual novel was in 1945. Yet even today the words that were written six decades ago are relevant, meaningful, important and sexy even by standards of the twenty-first century. Vidal has never been one to compromise and this book was definitely a harbinger of that fact. What are so astounding about "The City and the Pillar" are the realism and the intelligence. Once you read it, you will definitely not see things in the same way. The book is so realistically familiar that one who "comes-out" as gay today in a society that is far less repressive than the one in the book will be able to identify with it. It is not an epic story but it is large and is in the tradition of Forester and Wilde. The conception is artistic and the prose is in a class all its own.
The book can be read in two ways--either as a look back at the way things were as a look at the way things are. Remembering that gay life before the late 80's was clandestine; it is amazing that Vidal wrote about it all. He is even quoted as saying that his gay friends would not only be shocked but would abandon him for what he did was to put the actions of gay men out in the open. The book was way ahead of its time as it explores the relations between men--both gay and straight. It was not only the age of "don't ask, don't tell" but it was the age of "don't even consider it".
As serious as it is in subject matter, the book still entertains. Dealing with an extremely serious subject, it still manages to amuse.
Even at its age, it is still one of the best novels dealing with the subject. Even if it were not still important, it is a compelling read. It is restrained and highly effective. Some think that this is the book that heralded the modern sexual revolution and that America was never the same after its publication. "The City" shocks and penetrates and it moves the reader to his very being. The writing is crystalline and lyrical and the detail is profound. It is outrageous and unsentimental and a very brave expose of the way we lived. I think every gay person and every straight person owes it to himself to read this brilliantly beautiful book.
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| "Restrained, but Powerful" | 2007-03-11 |
| - Reviewed By greg130 |
Certainly, as other reviews have pointed out, 'The City and the Pillar' is notable because of its social significance; it was published in 1948 -- a time when homosexuality was still relegated to the fringes of society, so the last place you would expect to see it is in a novel. Gore Vidal put homosexual life out there for everyone to see, and if the picture that he paints isn't a pretty one consider that life for a gay man in that time period wasn't exactly peaches and cream. To start with, Vidal's portrayal of his protagonist, Jim Willard, is mightily restrained. There is a distance between Jim and the reader that at first seems cold, but is somewhat fitting when one considers that there is a distance between Jim's wants and needs that he is completely unable to reconcile. He's not warm and cuddly because he just doesn't understand who he is, and while he delves into the gay society of the time he can't help but mock it because he doesn't want to think of himself as part of it. Jim is constantly trying to rationalize his sexual behavior so that he won't have to believe that he is like the other gay men he meets. If he could bring himself to have a straight relationship he would -- as evinced by his continued friendship with Maria Verlaine. But Jim isn't straight, and putting on airs only makes him dislike himself even more. One could wish that Vidal had put a more humanized, relatable character at the forefront of his novel, but it just wouldn't have been so honest -- which Vidal undoubtedly understood, being a gay man living at the time.
Vidal, in addition to putting homosexuality into mainstream consciousness, acknowledged the stereotypes that have been attributed to gay men whilst taking a sledge-hammer to them at the same time. There was a pervading sense in Jim's time (and there still is today) that to be a gay man is to be feminine. Sure enough, there are feminine gay men populating Vidal's novel, but there are numerous masculine men that you wouldn't expect to be gay -- Jim included. Jim is an ace tennis player whose sculpted body and masculine features attract girls in droves, which for a long time helps feed Jim's denial of who he is. He didn't think he could possibly be gay because he wasn't 'girly', but by the end of the novel he has realized that, just like every other type of person, gay people come in all shapes and sizes. "Obviously the world was not what it seemed. Anything might be true of anybody," he notes at one point. This is also reflected in Jim's ventures into Hollywood and New York's high society. In Hollywood he has a relationship with Ronald Shaw, a mega-watt movie star who must hide his homosexual dalliances from the public in order to keep getting parts. At parties in New York Jim meets countless gay intellectuals who casually pretend not to know him when they run into each other in restaurants and such -- 'straight' locations where it would be too dangerous for them to reveal their link to each other. There is a lot of mask-wearing that goes into gay life in Jim's time, and he is no exception.
Through it all Jim is waiting to reconnect with his childhood friend, Bob Ford -- with whom Jim had his first homosexual experience in one surprising moment after Bob's graduation from high school. The moment has become hopelessly idealized in Jim's mind, and in his desperation to not see himself as part of gay society he continues to place what happened between them on higher, and more precarious, pedestals. He is convinced that when they meet up again (Bob went to sea after graduation, and the two lost touch) they will instantly resume their relationship; it never occurs to him that Bob might not feel the same way.
Which leads us to the ultimate tragedy in 'The City and the Pillar': that to be gay in society was to be doomed to a life on the margins, to be misunderstood, to have to hide who you really are from your family, to live a life of unhappiness because of your unfulfilled dreams, and to hate yourself for not conforming to the "normal" life you were assigned at birth. It may be bleak, but the triumph of Vidal's masterpiece is that he successfully humanizes this tragedy to the reader. No one who reads it can deny that Jim is a real, valuable human being who deserves a life of his own, and that is what makes 'The City and the Pillar' a classic along the lines of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and in my opinion just as culturally significant.
For another perspective on this subject, albeit an inferior one, I would recommend checking out Carson McCullers' violent 1941 novella Reflections in a Golden Eye.
Grade: A- |
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