Mr. Vidal allows himself a serious measure of venom as he weaves a tale of reading a film script dealing with an obscure incident in post Alexander Anatolia. While he’s doing that he recalls a period when he was having an affair with a woman while really lusting after her brother. The prose isn’t very sprightly, and the whole production is less than sterling Vidal. Only read this one for completeness of bibliography. Finished, January 15, 1971. ( )

מסיבה כלשהי הספר של וידל שהשאיר עלי הכי הרבה רושם ( )

This is one of Gore Vidal's odder books. It is not one thing, it is several things at once: a memoir (it is said), a novel, a screenplay. Quite pomo, eh? And yet it is not a product of the unvirsity, of the U Novel, as Vidal called it; “American Plastic.” It is a clever juxtaposition of forms and intents — yet completely readable.

It sports a typically brilliant Vidal opening: “Despite my protests, Marietta revealed her breasts.” Though he seems to be writing about sex memoirist Anais Nin, he mentions her on the first page (cover your bets!) as a flawless writer of “handsome prose.” On page 4 is the money quote, for me . . . he is talking books with the breast-bearing lady, and then reflects:

‘[I]n the back of my mind, the perfect analogy to Nabokov had suddenly surfaced. James Branch Cabell. I began to compose a blurb: “Not since Cabell's ‘Jurgen’ has there been a novel so certain to delight the truly refined reader as Nabokov’s ‘Ada.’”’

A droll book, quite good. Not like other fiction, unless of it can be said that NOT SINCE NABOKOV'S ‘ADA’ HAS THERE BEEN A NOVEL SO CERTAIN TO DELIGHT THE TRULY REFINED READER. ( )