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Title: Julian : A Novel by Gore Vidal ISBN: 0-375-72706-X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (35 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Delightfully bitchy and irreverent as always ...
Comment: Gore Vidal is very bitchy, as always, but so much fun.
This is Vidal's chronicle of the fourth century of the Christian era. It was during this period that much of the theology and doctrine of what we now call "Christianity" emerged. Christianity is shown to be a synthesis of a number of cults that were thriving in antiquity, with some Greek philosophy thrown in, together with a measure of Roman administration and a little marketing genius from Paul of Tarsus.
The emperor Julian, known to historians as "the Apostate," is portrayed sympathetically: He is less an enemy of the new cult, than a pluralist, who neither favored religion nor attacked it, but who was drawn to classical secular civilization and philosophy -- even as he saw these things crumbling all around him. Vidal is shrewd and observant in capturing the fawning and hypocrisy of diplomats and courtiers, the men on the make, drawn to the centers of power. (These observations were no doubt informed by Vidal's own experiences in the Kennedy White House -- which he visited often, until his forcible ejection by Robert Kennedy on one memorable occasion.)
Vidal's prose is elegant and musical, he is a genuine wit, highly intelligent, polemical, merciless and entertaining. This work is a small gem, a masterpiece of historical fiction, from our greatest living essayist and one of our finest living American writers of any kind.
Rating: 1
Summary: Fiction is the Key Word
Comment: This book is nothing more than the typical postmodern and revisionist excrement coming from Vidal.
In response to the below reviewer, Vidal is no Tolkien. He created beautiful stories with an optimistic outlook on humanity. Vidal shows us a cynical world where up is down and right is wrong. There is one similarity between the two, both created worlds that never existed in reality.
Julian the Apostate might not have been the villian of Christian history, but he was not the sainted leader of Vidal. Julian did not want religious tolreance, he persecuted the Christians and refused to let them teach their religion. His pomposity and extravagance (he sacrificed thousands of animals at one time) alienated his own pagan allies. While his victory in Gaul was impressive, his invasion of Persia was a disaster because of his own incompetence. He was murdered while on retreat back to Roman territory. Most reputable historians agree it was his own soldiers who did it because he was so disliked by them.
Christianity was not responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. This discredited idea goes back at least 200 hundred years to Edward Gibbon. The Roman Empire began to collapes in the second century AD. In fact, if it weren't for Christian monks preserving the knowledge of antiquity we would have lost much more. Finally, Vidal fails to mention that the Byzantine Empire, the Roman Empire in the East, lasted another thousand years and was a fusion of Christianity and Hellenism.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant Historical Narrative
Comment: Vidal's novel is on the ascension and fall of Julian the Apostate, Constantine the Great's nephew and emperor of Rome: the last pagan emperor. A unique and powerful historical narrative depicting the clash of paganism in its decline vs. the nascent christian religion that would inevitably change the world we live in.
The triple narrative technique is brilliantly executed in allowing the expression of several historical norms and points of view that are not always in agreement. In the story, Julian's pseudo memoirs are interspersed with correspondence and commentaries by two of his acquaintances: a philosopher and a rethorician. The philosopher tends to follow Neo-platonic pagan thoughts while the sophist seems more agnostic. The ascension of Christian values are objectively accounted for but are inevitably mentioned with a strong air of cynicism. Julian is shown as a true leader who chose to stand against the hippocricy of christian thought by embracing the glorious yet fading pagan past. Nevertheless, this narrative structure gives the novel a strong sense of impartiality and legitimacy: particularly since the commentators lament and concede the fact that paganism and traditional platonic philosophy are inevitably becoming extinct modes of thought throughout the book.
Not only does the narrative allow a strong character development, the reader is also drawn and plunged into the religious turmoil of the day. With this context well established and explored by Vidal, Julian's actions and attitudes are better understood by the reader. As with "I Claudius" by Robert Graves, the book is primarily a social and political analysis of the period with strong character development as its medium. This results in the book having only summary reviews of Julian's military exploits.
Altogether a brilliant work as worthy of praise as Grave's "I Claudius." This one of Vidal's best historical novels and is worth reading. Again, for those who are primarily interested in historical novels for battles or campaigns, this may not be their cup of tea: for such readers I would recommend Stephen Pressfield's novels or other similar writers.
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Title: Creation : A Novel by Gore Vidal ISBN: 0375727051 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Lincoln: A Novel by Gore Vidal ISBN: 0375708766 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 15 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Burr : A Novel by Gore Vidal ISBN: 0375708731 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 15 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Empire : A Novel by Gore Vidal ISBN: 037570874X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta by Gore Vidal ISBN: 1560255021 Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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