Decline and Fall

On Ted Kennedy's physique: "200 pounds of condemned veal." On Henry Kissinger, surveying some sculpture or monument of Dante's inferno: "Oh look, he's apartment hunting."

One can't help but admire Gore Vidal for these and many other reasons. He's a walking (though these days, mostly sitting) testament to the failed marriage between celebrity and talent, more a caricature of the elder statesman from what he used to half-affectionately like to call the "republic of letters." Though mostly thought of these days, when thought of at all, as a grand old liberal queen, Vidal's conventionality in style (studiedly Vespasian) and prose (Arnoldian) are much appreciated by those with a fondness for the past. Is it any wonder he's earned a devoted fan base for re-imagining it in series of brilliant historical novels about the United States? Newt Gingrich, who wants badly to be rechristened a fictionalist of the Civil War era, is quite the fan of Vidal'sextraordinary Lincoln.

Someone might some day write a monograph entitled "Patriotic Gore." He's that in the old-school sense of the adjective; a relic of the kind of 20th century radical flag-flapping that made it acceptable for men like like I.F. Stone to support Dwight Eisenhower's presidency in 1950. (Vidal, as weary of the Truman Doctrine as he would be of every other, was an early speechwriter for Ike.)

Indeed, a shuddering opposition to the project of American empire and the runaway expansion of the military-industrial complex actually confirm Vidal's core conservatism, still a shade darker than the limousines most of his contemporary liberal chums travel in. He's long expressed his admiration for the proto-fascist Charles Lindburgh and for the "America Firster" school of isolationism, which, had it gained a stronger domestic foothold in the thirties, would have not only kept the U.S. out of World War II but have smiled graciously on the prospect of National Socialism reigning triumphant throughout Europe. (The greatest missed opportunitysince the millennium in the realm of literary criticism was Vidal's failure to review Philip Roth's The Plot Against America.) If such allegiances make the old boy a look a hypocritical fool talking about George Bush and Dick Cheney in tones reminiscent of the Popular Front, then it's good of him to have reclined back into his overstuffed easy chair of whispered celebrity gossip for what may just be his final book:

Garbo was very peasanty, very literal, very earthy and very funny. I would bump into her in Klosters every morning while out shopping. I once inquired what she bought and she said she bought pullovers. What, every day? Yes, yes, she said, only pullovers. But how many do you have? I asked. And with a note of pride in her voice she told me, ''I have every pullover the Swiss make." '

Are there other riches to mine here? There are:

As Vidal heads towards what he calls, 'The door marked Exit', so too does the species he represents: the famous writer. Nowadays, writers simply aren't famous any more – or rather 'to speak of a famous writer is like speaking of a famous speedboat designer. The adjective is inappropriate to the noun.' The reasons for this are twofold, Vidal believes.

	Portraits of Jaqueline Kennedy and Greta Garbo in Vidal's Italian villa

'The French auteur theory of the 1950s had a lot to do with it. People who might have written books started trying to make movies instead. I remember all these terrible hacks in Hollywood coming up and telling me, ''I'm an auteur, you know." And I would say, ''I always knew you were by the way you parted your hair."

'Also, the GI Bill of Rights after the War meant that milllions of people who had never been educated before went to university. The trouble was they liked it so much they decided to stay there and become academics. And if you want to meet someone who really hates literature, then just talk to an academic.'

Kind of sad to see photos of this patriarch in autumn. T.S. Eliot once said of someone that he "looked like he was poured into his clothes and forget to say 'when.'" That's about right for Vidal, too. Not that he gives a damn.