Digressive, like an old man's reveries

This memoir is not nearly as good as Vidal's 'Palimpsest,' which was a masterpiece of autobiography as well as witty social history. There were bits of exaggeration and maybe outright lies in the earlier book, but the ego is allowed poetic license.

In this volume the memories are running thin and they threaten to get maudlin. The lingering illness and death of Vidal's life-partner Howard Auster is a poignant tale, told with excellent reserve and no soppiness, but it does leave a big black cloud over the whole book.

On the other hand, we've got Gore Vidal himself reading the thing in his Mandarin drawl, and that blots out a multitude of sins. Gore revisits some of the favorites from the earlier memoir--Jack and Jackie, Tennessee Williams, his parents, Amelia Earhart--and brings them to life like Dickens giving a final-tour reading.

15 people found this helpful

Point to Point Navigation

Gore Vidal is a master of the memoir. His book is so entertaining and informative, I find myself going back again and again to listen. And you need not listen in order - you can just drop in at any point and it feels like you are listening to Gore recount memories directly to you over tea. Fascinating! Highly recommended.

12 people found this helpful

As the light dims...

Hearing this final memoir by Gore Vidal is like listening to a witty raconteur after a big dinner, someone who tells one surprising tale after another, but whose stories gradually become less compelling as the night wears on and everyone gets sleepy. There are some wonderful moments. His interactions with legends like Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Greta Garbo and Tennessee Williams are unpredictable and insightful. His farewell to his life partner, dying of cancer, is understated and moving. His relations with his family, especially his senator grandfather and airline executive father, are warm and moving. But as the book nears its end, the stories become predictable in their efforts to shock and in their settling of scores. The ending comments about the Kennedy assassination seem an afterthought, a weak attempt to end with something sensational. But overall, the book was fun, with many nice moments.

Vidal reads well, with the clarity and expression you would expect from a sometime actor, television commentator and politician.

11 people found this helpful

splendid

gore vidal still has it!
acerbic, witty, informative, unabashedly honest....
a delight to listen to.

6 people found this helpful

An intellectual

Listening to this memoir by Gore Vidal, I had the feeling I was spending the afternoon with an elderly man listening to his stories. A few years ago I had read a biography of General Robert Olds who in 1942 married Nina Gore Auchincloss. Gore Vidal’s famous actress mother. I like it when information in one book I read shows up in another book I am reading. Vidal came from a famous family. His father was a military pilot who in civilian life started three airlines, TWA, Eastern and Northwestern. His mother was an actress whose father was a long time Senator from Oklahoma. Gore tells about reading to his grandfather who was blind and going into the U.S. Senate to read whatever was needed to him. The book is a bit rambling but just as it would be if you were sitting having a conversation with him. His life ranged from a playwright on Broadway to a Hollywood screen writer to essayist and novelist. In the book he discusses the various famous people he knew in all types of professions. From Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy (his step sister was Jackie Auchincloss Kennedy). He also discussed Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Saul Bellows, and Marlene Dietrich, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Two people he had nothing nice to say about were Truman Capote and Richard Nixon. A few of his witty aphorism were present also. He wrote this just after the death of Howard Austen his partner for 53 years. I noticed some of the reviews of this book were negative but I enjoyed listening to Gore Vidal. He gave me a glimpse into the life of a famous writer and intellectual from the 1930 through 2005. I remember reading some of his books such as Lincoln, Burr and the novel Myra Breckinridge. Gore Vidal narrated the book himself.

11 people found this helpful

Vidal is brilliant

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

And weird, but also touching and heartfelt. His biting, ironic self is there - but also a really vulnerable one that I didn't know existed, and that I think you could only access listening to this book. There's a lot of names dropped, but it's not gossipy at all. It's a lot of fun to listen to. It's personal, and political, and totally believable. It's this great kind of epitaph for a 19th century man who somehow made it all the way to the 21st century. I got the sense he could have lived his life as just another miserable prep school to Harvard to Law School to Alcohol and death nobody from the class of '43, but somehow he struck out on his own to become this immortal. The thing is - Vidal isn't even a liberal or democrat or whatever. He's just the last of what was the Republican party, and perhaps the last small-r republican. Anyway. The audiobook is fun. I enjoyed it. It was worth my time.

What did you like best about this story?

Gore's narration is brilliant and funny and lyrical. It's a pity Americans don't talk like that anymore.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

His description of his partner's death. It was really moving - and I got the sense that there was a hidden sadness there that he wasn't quite revealing.

3 people found this helpful

Depression made manifest

This is a very sad book by a wonderful writer who knows all about disillusionment, loss, betrayal, and bitterness. It made me very sad myself to hear it in his eighty-year old voice, sometimes hard to understand. Not a book for most readers, I would suspect, even those who admired and respected Vidal.

1 person found this helpful

Classic Gore Vidal

This book has many chapters. Most are interesting vignettes or essays. He covers politics, celebrity, royal family, other authors of his era etc. it is a joy to hear Gore’s droll and wonderful timing as he reads. Some chapters were not that interesting, but overall some insight to politics and history that the average person may not know. He himself came from a political background so has some nice inside. Overall I did enjoy reading it.

Interesting Stories From A Treasure Author

The world is a lesser without Mr. Gore Vidal. Love him or not but there are truly interesting personal stories here.

Know your past and those who walked before us. I doubt you will regret it!

A Brisk Summing Up of One's Life

Vidal records his interactions with people and his memories of his younger days with wit, charm, and eloquence. He lived a full and eventful life. He seemingly knew everybody. The tone is surprisingly light, considering he is nearing the end. And for a man who once said, "it's not enough for me to succeed, others must fail," there is an absence of mean-spiritedness and the need to get even.

This is a quick, easy listen. Still, it is a little disappointing. For me, I know Vidal best from his contretemps with William F. Buckley and Norman Mailer. None of that is covered here. And it ends not with his thoughts on life's meaning, but his views on the Kennedy assassination.