Volume 24, Number 9 · May 26, 1977
How to Say Serious Things
By V.S. Pritchett
Matters of Fact and of Fiction: Essays 1973-1976
by Gore Vidal
Random House, 285 pp., $10.00
The title of Gore Vidal's latest collection of lively essays written for magazines and reviews mainly between 1973 and 1976 has a dark inner meaning. Half of the pieces deal with the shrinking hopes of our novelists, half with American political history; but the politics and politicians have become fictions and the novelists have been either taken over or driven out by the public appetite—natural under the circumstances—for fact. The politicians have grabbed even love—in the form of self-love—from the novelists, as one sees in the wildly funny short piece on one of England's most visible treasures, the Earl of Longford, toiling toward canonization via publicity on television. The piece ends with the lines 'Pray for us, Saint Frank. Intercede for us, and teach us to love ourselves as you loved you.'
Review, 1474 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |