Word: aarons
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...will be especially galling to those who hate and envy Gore Vidal to pick up Burr and discover that the gods of Julian the Apostate once again seem to have smiled broadly in his direction. Burr, a novel stretched tightly over the historical bones of Aaron Burr, could not have been published at a better time. There is scandal in the highest places. A constitutional storm is gathering in Washington, and interest in historical precedent is rising fast...
...Aaron Burr seems particularly pertinent. The Burr-Jefferson Electoral College tie in 1800 led to the Twelfth Amendment, which revised the process of electing the President and Vice President.* After killing Alexander Hamilton in the Weehawken duel in 1804, Burr became the first Vice President to be indicted-a precedent that has lately been dusted off by constitutional experts...
Charlie Schuyler's memoirs are considerably more omniscient than those of his obscure model. For they include Burr's own memoirs as dictated to Charlie, his would-be biographer. The Burr sections are Vidal's skillful précis of Aaron Burr's actual letters and diaries, containing intimate justifications for his adventures and intrigues. Burr, the sardonic wit, constantly sees through labels like Republican and Federalist to such common denominators as hunger for glory, power and the preservation of privilege. He talks of Washington's "eerie incompetence" as a military leader, while admiring...
...kinship of author and subject goes beyond elegant barbs at the high and mighty. Vidal seems especially appreciative of Burr's almost classical stoic outlook, a view reflected in Vidal's own works. Yet the question remains, why read a kind of digest of the life of Aaron Burr when there are sympathetic biographies and Burr's own letters and diaries available? The answer: Most of us will not take the trouble. In the interests of Burrian pragmatism, one must be grateful to Vidal for his history lesson. · R.Z. Sheppard
...called "Royal Art of Cameroon," mounted at Dartmouth College, reached Evan Schneider, a longtime Kom scholar and a member of the Peace Corps in Cameroon. There, resplendent in full color on the cover, was the lost Afo-A-Kom. It had been lent to Dartmouth by its new owner, Aaron Furman, a respected Manhattan dealer in primitive art, and it was reportedly on sale...