Word: sanfords
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...himself. That is why his sympathy in his political novels goes out to history's losers, starting with Burr--betrayed, in Vidal's retelling, by the coldly ambitious Thomas Jefferson--all the way up to Adlai Stevenson, who twice played Hamlet to Dwight D. Eisenhower's Henry V. "Yes," Sanford notes in The Golden Age, "he couldn't make up his mind but at least he had one to make...
Near the conclusion of Gore Vidal's Washington, D.C. (1967), a political thriller spanning the years 1937-52, the novel's hero, Peter Sanford, expresses irritable despair at the human condition as he has observed it in his treacherous hometown: "There was never a golden age. There will never be a golden age and it is sheer romance to think we can ever be other than what we are now." Now, 33 years later, Sanford pops up again as the protagonist of another Vidal novel, set in the same place and roughly the same time, and readers familiar with...
...Irony is unAmerican," a character in The Golden Age (Doubleday; 467 pages; $27.50) warns Sanford, and that comment is, of course, intended ironically as well. But the novel completes a very American literary project that, for all its various humors, Vidal takes seriously indeed: a fictional history of the U.S. as portrayed through the conduct, mostly bad, of its elected leaders. This best-selling saga started with Washington, D.C. and continued with Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), Lincoln (1984), Empire (1987) and Hollywood (1990). The Golden Age wraps up the long story and includes a flash-forward to earlier this year...
...second Roosevelt in the White House receives similar treatment in "The Golden Age." As the novel opens in 1940, FDR is shown secretly maneuvering the country toward a war in Europe that the people would, if consulted, totally reject. Sanford's Aunt Caroline, a major character in "Empire" and "Hollywood," is a friend of the Roosevelts and a frequent guest at the White House. She is charmed by the President but also chilled by what she sees as his inexhaustible deviousness. "There is a curse on power," she blurts out to the First Lady. Mrs. Roosevelt replies, "Not when used...
...after World War II coats its ethical inquiries with plenty of narrative sweeteners: the sweep of history, celebrity walk-ons, conspiracy theories and reams of conversation, much of it witty, some lumbering. But the issue of power and who should hold it is never far from the surface. Sanford confronts the scheming and ambitious Congressman Clay Overbury, who also appeared in "Washington, D.C.," and asks, "Why must you be President?" To Overbury, the answer is obvious: "Some people are meant to be. Some are not. Obviously you're not." A similar moment occurs in "The Best Man," when...