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Gore Vidal

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Washington, D.C. Hardcover – Import, January 1, 1967

by Gore Vidal (Author)

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History is gossip,' says a protagonist in Washington, D.C., 'but the trick is determining which gossip is history.' It is a trick that Gore Vidal has mastered in his ongoing chronicle of that circus of opportunism and hypocrisy called American politics and which he plays with renewed vigour in this expose of the nation's capital.Young Clay Overbury, Senator Burden Day's assistant, has both a modest background and immense ambitions. Extremely handsome, oozing charm and seemingly dedicated to the Senator's cause, he is also duplicitous, conniving, and disloyal. But Enid Canford doesn't think so: she marries him, so providing the Sanford newspaper dynasty with a direct line to the Senator. Her father Blaise, at first loathing his son-in-law, later learns to love him - for all the wrong reasons. So begins this tale of lust and ambition set in the Republic's high noon. From the late 1930s to Jo McCarthy's reign of terror, Gore Vidal charts the seamy, sleazy side of Washington. Mixing sober history with nakedly Gothic melodrama, he provides an intoxicating cocktail of blackmail, betrayal, sexual ambivalence, lunacy and conspiracy - or, in a word, politics.

Print length

377 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Little Brown
Publication date

January 1, 1967
ISBN-10

0434829544
ISBN-13

978-0434829545
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little Brown; 1st edition (January 1, 1967)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 377 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0434829544
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0434829545
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds

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Gore Vidal

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Gore Vidal has received the National Book Award, written numerous novels, short stories, plays and essays. He has been a political activist and as Democratic candidate for Congress from upstate New York, he received the most votes of any Democrat in a half-century.

Photo by David Shankbone (Photographer's blog post about the photo and event) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Okla Elliott

History, Politics, and Literature at Their Finest

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2002

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Gore Vidal is one of America's most erudite and imaginative historical and political thinkers. He also happens to be one the most intelligent, witty, and capable literary craftsmen this country has ever produced.
In Washington, D. C., Vidal has created a novel that is simultaneously informative and entertaining. The story takes place between the 1930s (FDR era) and WWII. For anyone interested in that historical period, this book will be a fascinating read. The amazing thing is, however, that even if you're not interested in that historical period, you'll enjoy the satirical nuances of the book. Also, Vidal draws his characters with such authenticity that you'll get lost in the interpersonal relationships and forget the historical backdrop.
A vague outline of the novel is as follows: Senator Day twarts FDR's attempt to pack the Supreme Court; he then gets involved in an attempt to be elected president; while all this is happening his daughter's ex-fiance Clay Overbury (who is also Senator Day's aide) marries another woman whose father is extremely rich; and the political intrigue and madness ensue.
This, and all of Vidal's American Chronicle series, should be required reading for every American citizen.

19 people found this helpful

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Kerry Walters

An American tragedy

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2008

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I've long been a great admirer of Gore Vidal's political and historical essays. But except for his novels Julian (which I read in my youth and greatly liked), Live from Golgotha (which I loathed and could never get through), and Lincoln (which I thought was only so-so), I haven't explored his fiction. Given that this is a presidential election year, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to dip into Washington, DC, the penultimate volume in Vidal's American Chronicle series.

The novel is a very good tale indeed--indeed, a kind of modern American tragedy. The two protagonists, Senator Burden Day (aptly named) and his assistant and eventual nemesis Clay Overbury, represent two styles of politics. Day, a son of the old school, still thinks that honor and integrity should be important in politics (although he's by no means a naive idealist). Overbury belongs to the political generation that came of age during WWII: media-savvy, focused almost exclusively on appearance and relatively unburdened with the sort of conscience that the older generation carries around with it, and which ultimately destroys Day.

It might be argued that Vidal sentimentalizes Burden Day's generation--although he goes out of his way, it seems to me, to create a complex story rather than one which is morally simplistic. Day, for example, certainly has his human weaknesses and ambitions. But there's definitely a line that Day refuses to cross--a line that the novel's rising generation of "new" politicians don't even recognize--and his own guilt when he wavers at that line is the beginning of his decline. It does seem to me that Day's story captures the tragedy of American politics: the gradual fall of a decent man whose ambitions, even if only on one occasion, get the better of him.

A poignant reminder of the razor's edge of political ambition in this election year.

12 people found this helpful

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John Fraiser

Gore Vidal is the best with Historical fiction

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2016

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Vidal continues his mastery of the genre in his American Empire series, showing how Rome...ear, America, went from republic to empire, and we're all the worse for it. Excellent history reads like riveting fiction.

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One Guy's Opinion

Plot - 3, Characters - 3, Theme - 2, Voice - 4, Setting - 3, Overall - 3

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2013

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1) Plot (3 stars) - In manipulative, superficial Washington DC of the 1940s, one man strives to rise up the political system while those around him react to his wake. I wrote react because that's really what this book is about - a bunch of reactions, not actions. It's intriguing, and at times insightful, but there's not a lot of action that pushes the narrative forward.

2) Characters (3 stars) - There's Clay, the ambitious lead who wants to climb the political ladder and eventually gets pulled up through the powers of mass marketing. There's the sultry and bitchy wife, Enid. There's the brother-in-law, Peter, who without morals of his own, just watches others for things to copy. And there are some older politicians trying to hold on to the past. All in all, not a bad cast. But not a particularly riveting one. What saved them was Vidal's keen insight about human psychology when these characters interacted.

3) Theme (2 stars) - I suppose the message here is that Washington politicians are shallow, self-interested, hypocrites. Maybe this was news in the 60s when this book was published (though I doubt it), but I've certainly heard this message before. It would have been nice if this exploration was a bit more balanced.

4) Voice (4 stars) - Vidal is obviously intelligent, and it shines through in the diction, references, and psychological insights of his prose. But some sections felt gossipy, and I wondered why he lowered his intelligent gaze so frequently to these hollow topics.

5) Setting (3 stars) - Washington DC during its transition from village to the capital of an empire before and after the Second World War. There were some interesting descriptions of Washington back when it was still just a large village, but, despite the title, setting didn't really seem to be the point of this book.

6) Overall (3 stars) - Vidal is smart and he can write, but the struggles he writes about here felt more petty than noble. Now, pettiness is fine; in fact, characters without pettiness are hard to believe. But characters that are all pettiness, with no sense of the good or beautiful, just seem childish. Maybe that's how the people of DC were, but it made it hard for this reader to care about these leads.

7 people found this helpful

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Diana of the Hunt

The World of Washington as It Always Was and Will Be

Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2014

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If you like Gore Vidal...which I do....this is such a timely book in spite of its age. He is superb at illuminating the crassness, vulgarity and humanity of everyone he describes and every event that he illuminates.

3 people found this helpful

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Scottnflorida

Nice Read. American History continue to repeat itself

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2019

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Read this on second to last in the series. Grew tired of the French phrases but the story followed american history from Vidal’s point of view. Somewhat prescient in today’s political climate. I did learn that everything happening today was happening just the same 100 years ago.

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Martin E.

This was a book my wife had to have.

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2018

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She loved the book and off she went to the sub-library that contains books as such.

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Gerhard Mersmann

Die profane Geburt einer Weltmacht

Reviewed in Germany on August 9, 2013

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Literatur, die sich daran wagt, einer bestimmten Epoche ihre Signatur zu verleihen, lebt immer gefährlich. Denn nichts ist vergänglicher als der Geist ihrer Epoche und nichts unterliegt dem gleichen Wandel wie der Geist, in dem sie interpretiert wird. Wagt sich ein Romancier gar an die Verarbeitung ganzer Jahrhunderte, dann unterliegt er in der Regel einem extremen Sendungsbewusstsein oder er ist einfach ein Spieler und Enfant terrible, das die Vergänglichkeit nicht fürchtet. Umso dankbarer muss die Nachwelt sein, wenn es derartige Charaktere gibt. Denn die mit dem Sendungsbewusstsein sind zumeist Produzenten schlechter Literatur. Nur die mit der Spielermentalität haben das Potenzial, sich nicht um die Wirkung auf die Nachwelt zu scheren und vermitteln eine Authentizität, die in der Lage ist, zu berauschen.

Der 1925 in West Point geborene Gore Vidal hat durch sein gesamtes Schaffen wie seine Biographie bewiesen, wie gleichgültig ihm das Denken der Nachwelt sein wird. Mit unverhohlener Schadenfreude hat er sich der Entzauberung der amerikanischen Welt verschrieben, ohne in die billigen Sphären der Trivialität abgeglitten zu sein. Mit seinen Narratives Of Empire ist er der epische Chronist der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika geworden. Mi insgesamt sieben Romanen hat er die Geschichte der USA von ihren Gründungsmythen bis zur Dominanz der Weltmacht in Folge des ii. Weltkrieges beschrieben und dabei nicht nur entzaubert, sondern auch erklärt und mit klandestiner Empathie humanisiert.

Der vorliegende Roman, Washington D.C., zwischen 1962 und 1966 geschrieben und 1967 zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht, ist der vorletzte Band der Narratives Of Empire und bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum zwischen 1937 und die frühen fünfziger Jahre. Beschrieben wird die Hauptstadt der USA, die mehr einem Relikt der beschaulichen und provinziellen Südstaaten-Grandezza ähnelt als einer Metropole. Die politischen Figuren sind von Machthunger und Ehrgeiz getrieben und ihre Vorgehensweise, vor allem in der Konkurrenz zueinander, ähnelt einem Schachspiel mit unerlaubten Mitteln. Zwar spielen die tatsächlich historischen Figuren wie die Präsidenten Roosevelt und später Truman eine Rolle und auch an den konkreten historischen Ereignissen wie dem Desaster von Pearl Harbour, der Bombardierung deutscher Großstädte und dem Korea Krieg mangelt es nicht. Aber die Handlung, die sich hinter der historischen Faktizität vollzieht, die aber die Entscheidungsprozesse beeinflusst, die das machen, was Geschichte genannt wird, diese Handlung ist eher banal und provinziell.

Gore Vidal gelingt es, gleich einem bürgerlichen Bildungsroman ein Arrangement von Figuren zu entwerfen, die das Spiel der menschlichen Gesellschaft in ihrer Individualität, mit allen Stärken, Fehlern und Brüchen glaubhaft und verständlich machen. Vom Vollblutpolitiker bis zum Medienzar, von der reichen Tochter, die an Wohlstandsverwahrlosung leidet bis zum homosexuellen Journalisten, vom loyalen schwarzen Chauffeur bis zum Kriegsversehrten, der zu Kommunisten mutierte, von den Damen der Partygesellschaft bis zu korrupten Unternehmern sind alle Elemente versammelt, die den Gärungsprozess von Politik ausmachen.

Die Handlungsstränge, die Vidal in der Erzählung gekonnt miteinander verknüpft erzeugen den Wunsch, von diesen Geschichten nicht mehr loszulassen und vermitteln die Erkenntnis, dass die große Geschichte ohne diese nichtigen kleinen nicht gedacht werden kann. Umso erschreckender ist es zu erkennen, dass sich hinter dieser menschlichen Tragödie, die sich hinter allen Geschichten verbirgt das Scheitern aller die einzige Gemeinsamkeit der Protagonisten zu sein scheint. Und das vor dem Hintergrund, dass die USA genau zu dieser Zeit und von dieser Stadt Washington aus zu der bedeutenden Weltmacht des XX. Jahrhunderts wurde. einer der Protagonisten bringt es auf den Punkt: Aus dem Blickwinkel der Oberschicht ist Politik nichts anderes als Improvisation von Individuen, während man unten glaube, Politik folge elaborierten Konzepten. Das ist große Literatur!

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