In the February edition of Vanity Fair the British-American author and polemicist Christopher Hitchens writes a piece on his former idol Gore Vidal, titled Vidal Loco. Anybody unacquainted with Christopher Hitchens -- who has debated triumphantly in the town halls of Pennsylvania and once had an epiphany in the middle of Wisconsin (doubly remarkable) -- can read a potted biog here.
I applaud Hitchens' anti-monotheism, his call for the end of the War on Drugs and his unapologetic alcoholism ("I drink because it makes other people less boring") -- which is the last heroic impulse if you're on the Eastern Seaboard of America -- but this graceless dismantling of his former colleague is as squalid as a cut-price handbag stall in an East End market. Once described as Vidal's dauphin and natural successor, the love affair between star and understudy ended in the aftermath of 9/11 when the former expressed the view that there is no proven evidence that Osama Bin Laden was the James Bond-style villain-architect of that catastrophe, and further that the American administration itself might have been implicated. Hitchens was a committed socialist whom effectively metamorphosed into a right-wing libertarian when he U-turned in swing-support towards aggressive, interventionist US foreign policy. Personally, I always thought that a neo-con was a socialist who got mugged.
He derides Vidal in a surprisingly bovine exposé of the decline from literary Leviathan to deluded conspiracy theorist and Cassandra of the Republican Empire. Poor Gore, now an octogenarian with mobility problems, is an enemy of the Homeland who must be dispatched to Golgotha. It is a pernicious and ultimate fan letter that only a true fan can compose. Hitchens may have eventually advanced to the salon of the New York cultural elite, but Vidal has spent most of his life around the upper classes of American society and if anyone is permitted to hint that the Senate does not really govern the state, it is he. However, tellingly, his true pique is at Vidal's "very, very minor tendency to bring up the Jewish question in contexts where it didn’t quite belong". This may well be true but it does not amount necessarily to anti-Semitism. Hitchens zealously grasps at the tendril of being Jewish himself, which is understandable -- many Gentiles have coveted that claim.
While Hitchens acknowledges his mentor in some memorably dismissive quotes ("England is not a country, but an American aircraft carrier") he reaffirms his trenchant rejection of the Old Girl whom, evidently, he hopes will read this undignified execution with the words: "I have no wish to commit literary patricide, or to assassinate Vidal’s character — a character which appears, in any case, to have committed suicide."
Rather transparently, Hitchens reveals himself as Eve Harrington to Vidal's Margot Channing in All About Eve: the age-old conquest of the younger, somewhat less original ingénue who turns, viciously, against the one they cherished.
Mark Simpson interview with Gore Vidal: Gore Vidal Turns Off The Lights On The American Dream
I applaud Hitchens' anti-monotheism, his call for the end of the War on Drugs and his unapologetic alcoholism ("I drink because it makes other people less boring") -- which is the last heroic impulse if you're on the Eastern Seaboard of America -- but this graceless dismantling of his former colleague is as squalid as a cut-price handbag stall in an East End market. Once described as Vidal's dauphin and natural successor, the love affair between star and understudy ended in the aftermath of 9/11 when the former expressed the view that there is no proven evidence that Osama Bin Laden was the James Bond-style villain-architect of that catastrophe, and further that the American administration itself might have been implicated. Hitchens was a committed socialist whom effectively metamorphosed into a right-wing libertarian when he U-turned in swing-support towards aggressive, interventionist US foreign policy. Personally, I always thought that a neo-con was a socialist who got mugged.
He derides Vidal in a surprisingly bovine exposé of the decline from literary Leviathan to deluded conspiracy theorist and Cassandra of the Republican Empire. Poor Gore, now an octogenarian with mobility problems, is an enemy of the Homeland who must be dispatched to Golgotha. It is a pernicious and ultimate fan letter that only a true fan can compose. Hitchens may have eventually advanced to the salon of the New York cultural elite, but Vidal has spent most of his life around the upper classes of American society and if anyone is permitted to hint that the Senate does not really govern the state, it is he. However, tellingly, his true pique is at Vidal's "very, very minor tendency to bring up the Jewish question in contexts where it didn’t quite belong". This may well be true but it does not amount necessarily to anti-Semitism. Hitchens zealously grasps at the tendril of being Jewish himself, which is understandable -- many Gentiles have coveted that claim.
While Hitchens acknowledges his mentor in some memorably dismissive quotes ("England is not a country, but an American aircraft carrier") he reaffirms his trenchant rejection of the Old Girl whom, evidently, he hopes will read this undignified execution with the words: "I have no wish to commit literary patricide, or to assassinate Vidal’s character — a character which appears, in any case, to have committed suicide."
Rather transparently, Hitchens reveals himself as Eve Harrington to Vidal's Margot Channing in All About Eve: the age-old conquest of the younger, somewhat less original ingénue who turns, viciously, against the one they cherished.
Mark Simpson interview with Gore Vidal: Gore Vidal Turns Off The Lights On The American Dream
8 comments:
Why do some people destroy the ones they love? Control, power, to get their attention and feel connected to them?
All about Eve is one of my favourite movies. Thankfully, it still gets shown quite a lot on TV.
"You're maudlin and full of self-pity. You're magnificent!"
my favourites...
"I'll admit I may have seen better days, but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut."
Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.
and of course this beauty.....
Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.
Birdie (played by Thelma Ritter) saw right through her :)
Someone needed to slap Christina Harrington across both cheeks with their evening glove, and you did it with aplomb.
Not to mention relish.
Thank you :) I hope the quality of the glove was not (too) lacking. I don't like seeing certain municipal monuments being urinated on, less in full public view.
Thelma Ritter was a wonderful actress, I liked her in Rear Window. She has screen presence.
The cast had such fascinating lives.
George Sanders(critic) He was also in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. well, George commit suicide when he was 65, leaving the note.
"Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."
He had quite clearly had enough and left this world with dignity and wit.
I suppose Anne Baxter suited the role but I only know her from the Montgomery Clift film, I confess(he's wonderful)but to me, Bette Davis had never looked more beautiful and had as much warmth.
If I was to quote from one film, this would be number one.
"I detest cheap sentiment."
next maybe Some Like It hot, regardless of the snobbery people have towards Marilyn Monroe, I love her.
"Story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop."
I do like some modern movies but my perfect fims are, Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and The Thin Man. I could go on.......
The key to Hitchens is his pro-Israeli, or Zionist, obsession. He only becomes coherent when seen in that light. Incidentally, very nice blog here.
Gore Vidal was blacklisted on US media in the 60's. He use to be on elections panels in the '50s and '60s, CBS, NBC,( can you imagine that today? Noone with his perspective is allowed on US mainstream media, he is considered dangerous) until he started questioning the elections as a farce and that they were just for "show" to convince people that we had free elections that meant anything.
I would also like to comment on Christopher's dismissal of Gore for his conspiricy beliefs because I think it speaks to the core of what is wrong with America and why it is in the state it is. Denial. Conspiricies do exist: look at the historical record,which Americans refuse to acknowledge. Several Roman senators, did conspire behind closed doors to murder Julius Caeser on the Senate floor. They were aided and abetted by fellow Senators who were complicit in their silence. This silence is evident in America today, in a country where people are complicit in all the crimes being committed by their government and turn the other way and pretend they aren't happening..God Bless Gore Vidal.. as an American he is one of the very few men of letteres I respect..he is a true American hero for speaking truth to power.
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