At the ripe old age of 24 Vidal used up the material of his life -"Williwaw" was war service, "City and the Pillar" was teen love, and this one pretty much covers the interesting stuff of his life: we get are-hash of teen love with the baseball player, but the main thrust of this one is a boy's relationship with his manipulative mother, thinly veiled portrait of Nina Vidal; there's also the politician grandfather (not blind, though) and his wife, a like able but a bit distant father,growing up in Washington, boarding school, and armed service.
I think it's Vidal's strongest book til that date - the handling is sure, it's well written, the characters are (understandably) well evoked. But surely after this he'd exhausted his own life and had to think up other things to write about. There is something stopping it from reaching greatness, though, and I think I know what it is - Vidal's writing always hovers just above the action, he never seems really to plunge into the emotional waters. When talking about the big moods - love, lust, happiness, sadness - there is always this element of distance. I wonder if this comes from Vidal's upbringing - because his mother was so draining, he had to cut himself off from life a little, to set himself apart. This gave him the discipline to have a long and productive career, but means that his wor k(in most of the stuff I've read to date) is a bit emotionally remote. He cuts a vein but doesn't really splash it.
Compare to Tennessee Williams,who let it flowed all over the page - but got hooked on drugs, etc. So when Vidal's surrogate, Billy, talks about how his mother has this hold on him and makes him happy/sad, we don't really feel it.
No comments:
Post a Comment