Washington, D.C: A Novel (Narratives of Empire).
by Gore Vidal
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gore VidalEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-08-01
ISBN: 0375708774
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Washington, D.C: A Novel (Narratives of Empire).
Book Review: An American tragedy
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
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