Click on title to link to Gore Vidal note on Abraham Lincoln
BOOK REVIEW
Lincoln: A Novel, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1984
This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal’s’ output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, unlike many such efforts in this genre when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value).
Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible. That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the old bourgeois historical novelist, Norman Mailer nemesis and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics are somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.
Vidal, as is his format in this series of expositions on the American experience, combines fictional characters and situations with the makings and doings of real characters and events in American history, here the hard Civil War days of decision of the Lincoln administration. Here the narrator is actually a real character from that history, John Hay, one of Lincoln’s two personal secretaries who later became Secretary of State in the Republican McKinley administration near the turn of the 19th century (and who appears in a the later Vidal novel Empire in that very different role). The virtue of this selection of Hays as the narrator is that one is given a bird’s eye view of the daily goings on (fictional or not) at the Lincoln White House and a very chose vantage point to observe the kind of things that weighted heavily on Lincoln’s mind and on his agenda for preserving the Union.
Interestingly, although the Lincoln persona has been viewed from every possible perspective and from every possible political view by now Vidal has contributes a very fast moving rendition of the story with his little twist. His central premise, one shared by the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her fairly recent book on Lincoln and his Cabinet "Team Of Rivals", is that only a sage and driven personality like Lincoln’s could have held all the diverse and generally antagonistic personalities on the coalition that he put together among pro-Unionist forces in order to save the Republic. His feigns and thrusts in all directions, seemingly after much agonizing reflection keeps one on one’s toes as one turns the pages every though the outcome is known. Certainly the main alternate contenders for power (that 1864 republican nomination was always lurking in the background) Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase evidently did not have that capacity and in the end seemingly reconciled themselves to that secondary role (Chase got bought off by the Supreme Court Chief Justiceship).
Vidal wrote this novel in the early 1980’s at a time that I was reading Carl Sandburg’s volumes of biography on Lincoln. If I am not mistaken Vidal owns some debt of gratitude to the Chicago poet for the musical sense of his novel. Many of the little scenarios, such as the incessant clamor for jobs from every Tom, Dick and Harry that might have voted for Lincoln in 1860 that filled the time of Hay (and Nicolay, the other Lincoln secretary) and that make this novel so compelling I remember in reading Sandburg’s Lincoln biography. Also the treatment of Lincoln’s homespun humor and proverbial storytelling powers (always with some political point on the edge of the blade). As well as Lincoln’s reactions to his household tragedies and the massive tragedies unfolding on the battlefields.
Finally, for those who like their history in capsule form, with a sweetener if you will, this is a very good place to begin your Lincoln or Civil War studies. In quick succession you will learn about the tribulations of physically getting Lincoln inaugurated, the first reactions from the South to that fact by the various acts of secession, the South Carolina incidents, the fact of two states existing where one had been previously as far as foreign recognition was concerned, the military problems on the union beginning with Manassas and the question of competent leadership, Lincoln’s frustrations with a series of military commanders, the stalemate on the battlefield, the struggle to determine the nature of the conflict- solely for the preservation of the Union or that and the abolition of slavery, the decisive battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg and the change in concept to “total war” with the accession of Grand and McClellan to military leadership, military victory and then assassination of Lincoln. And along the way enough political intrigue, maneuvering, cowardice and heroics by some well-known historical characters to write many novels. But that is for another day.
BOOK REVIEW
Lincoln: A Novel, Gore Vidal, Random House, New York, 1984
This first paragraph below has been used previously to introduce author Gore Vidal’s’ output of other interesting historical novels (that, however, unlike many such efforts in this genre when necessary hew pretty close to the historical record- hence their value).
Listen up! As a general proposition I like my history straight up- facts, footnotes and all. There is enough work just keeping up with that work so that historical novels don’t generally get a lot of my attention. In this space I have reviewed some works of the old American Stalinist Howard Fast around the American Revolution and the ex-Communist International official and Trotsky biographer Victor Serge about Stalinist times in Russia of the 1930’s, but not much else. However, one of the purposes of this space is to acquaint the new generation with a sense of history and an ability to draw some lessons from that history, if possible. That is particularly true for American history- the main arena that we have to glean some progressive ideas from. Thus, an occasional foray, using the historical novel in order to get a sense of the times, is warranted. Frankly, there are few better at this craft that the old bourgeois historical novelist, Norman Mailer nemesis and social commentator Gore Vidal. Although his politics are somewhere back in the Camelot/FDR period he has a very good ear for the foibles of the American experience- read him with that caveat in mind.
Vidal, as is his format in this series of expositions on the American experience, combines fictional characters and situations with the makings and doings of real characters and events in American history, here the hard Civil War days of decision of the Lincoln administration. Here the narrator is actually a real character from that history, John Hay, one of Lincoln’s two personal secretaries who later became Secretary of State in the Republican McKinley administration near the turn of the 19th century (and who appears in a the later Vidal novel Empire in that very different role). The virtue of this selection of Hays as the narrator is that one is given a bird’s eye view of the daily goings on (fictional or not) at the Lincoln White House and a very chose vantage point to observe the kind of things that weighted heavily on Lincoln’s mind and on his agenda for preserving the Union.
Interestingly, although the Lincoln persona has been viewed from every possible perspective and from every possible political view by now Vidal has contributes a very fast moving rendition of the story with his little twist. His central premise, one shared by the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her fairly recent book on Lincoln and his Cabinet "Team Of Rivals", is that only a sage and driven personality like Lincoln’s could have held all the diverse and generally antagonistic personalities on the coalition that he put together among pro-Unionist forces in order to save the Republic. His feigns and thrusts in all directions, seemingly after much agonizing reflection keeps one on one’s toes as one turns the pages every though the outcome is known. Certainly the main alternate contenders for power (that 1864 republican nomination was always lurking in the background) Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase evidently did not have that capacity and in the end seemingly reconciled themselves to that secondary role (Chase got bought off by the Supreme Court Chief Justiceship).
Vidal wrote this novel in the early 1980’s at a time that I was reading Carl Sandburg’s volumes of biography on Lincoln. If I am not mistaken Vidal owns some debt of gratitude to the Chicago poet for the musical sense of his novel. Many of the little scenarios, such as the incessant clamor for jobs from every Tom, Dick and Harry that might have voted for Lincoln in 1860 that filled the time of Hay (and Nicolay, the other Lincoln secretary) and that make this novel so compelling I remember in reading Sandburg’s Lincoln biography. Also the treatment of Lincoln’s homespun humor and proverbial storytelling powers (always with some political point on the edge of the blade). As well as Lincoln’s reactions to his household tragedies and the massive tragedies unfolding on the battlefields.
Finally, for those who like their history in capsule form, with a sweetener if you will, this is a very good place to begin your Lincoln or Civil War studies. In quick succession you will learn about the tribulations of physically getting Lincoln inaugurated, the first reactions from the South to that fact by the various acts of secession, the South Carolina incidents, the fact of two states existing where one had been previously as far as foreign recognition was concerned, the military problems on the union beginning with Manassas and the question of competent leadership, Lincoln’s frustrations with a series of military commanders, the stalemate on the battlefield, the struggle to determine the nature of the conflict- solely for the preservation of the Union or that and the abolition of slavery, the decisive battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg and the change in concept to “total war” with the accession of Grand and McClellan to military leadership, military victory and then assassination of Lincoln. And along the way enough political intrigue, maneuvering, cowardice and heroics by some well-known historical characters to write many novels. But that is for another day.
