The City and the Pillar
(and Seven Early Stories)
by
Gore Vidal
(Random House)
review by Ron Hogan
The City and the Pillar
(and Seven Early Stories)
by
Gore Vidal
(Random House)
review by Ron Hogan
The publication of The City and the Pillar in 1948 caused a profound change in the life of its author, Gore Vidal. Still in his early twenties, with two previous novels and a growing critical reputation, Vidal was one of the hottest writers of the new post-war generation. Meanwhile, his grandfather, the former Senator T.P. Gore, was quietly arranging for Vidal to be elected to his first political office. But reaction to the novel completely derailed Vidal's potential career in politics (though he subsequently ran for office twice), and knocked his literary career off track for over a decade and a half. The critical response to the book was so merciless that for six years the New York Times had a standing policy not to review any novels by Vidal. What so infuriated the critics yet aroused public interest enough to turn the novel into a best seller? The City and the Pillar depicts a homosexual encounter between two young, all-American athletic types, and the torch that one carries for the other.Fifty years later it may seem difficult to understand the scandal this novel spawned, but Vidal challenged the sexual stereotypes of post-war America by discussing sexual attraction and activity between men without portraying it as an aberration. He spoke plainly and openly about the regularity with which such things took place in Hollywood, in New York, and in the armed forces, and that proved monumentally controversial. Contemporary readers may be bored by stilted dialogue such as:
"Why should any of us hide? What we do is natural, if not 'normal,' whatever that is."
But to suggest such ideas in 1948, not in an "art novel," but in the simple, blunt cadences of mainstream fiction, was tantamount to an assault on decency.
Vidal makes no claim for the novel as a groundbreaking event in "gay fiction." He has always been openly critical of the use of "gay" as an adjective for such terms as "community" or "sensibility," seeing that as a reductive denial of the range of sexual possibilities inherent in every individual.
Random House has reissued The City and the Pillar in hardcover, combining it with a collection of seven short stories which has been available only in sporadic, limited editions in this country since its original publication in 1956. A preface by Vidal recounts the circumstances of the novel's publication, and notes with pleasure that Thomas Mann read the autographed copy that Vidal sent to him and commented on the book favorably in his diaries.
Gore Vidal has been a prolific writer, best known for his historical novels,
and is a well respected though often unheeded essayist.
