GORE VIDAL AND PALIMPSEST

GORE VIDAL AND PALIMPSEST

Gore Vidal frequently stated that he was gay

but said, that it was in his own way:

"homoerotic but not heterosexual"

whatever that means

in the world of gay divas and queens.

And except when he was in his teens,

to paraphrase another  ex-politician,

he "never had sex with that man", 

Which is why, he further stated,

that he and his lover, Howard,  rarely separated

and were thus able ,over five decades, to  remain mated,

while both could  remain at ease,

never having caught some dreaded disease. 

This is all repeated at length  in his memoir Palimpsest,

where, exploiting  that word** with his usual literary zest 

(**it means scraping an old manuscript

and then writing a new text over it),

 Vidal   partially erases and retells his  life until it comes out best

even though, as in a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta,

 "hardly ever" rather than "never",  often suited the  truth better.

hzl

5/20/15

Palimpsest by Gore Vidal — Reviews, Discussion ...

www.goodreads.com/book/show/8715.Palimpsest

Goodreads

 Rating: 4 - ‎1,201 votes

Palimpsest has 1201 ratings and 79 reviews. MJ said: This memoir covers the first forty years of the Vidal saga, alighting on his blind senator Grandpa,...

Palimpsest - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/.../vidal-palimpsest.html

The New York Times

Oct 5, 1995 - PALIMPSEST A Memoir By Gore Vidal Illustrated. 400 pages. Random House. $27.50. In one of the typically biting stories that Gore Vidal tells  ...

H.M.S. Pinafore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.M.S._Pinafore



Wikipedia
H.M.S. Pinafore was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and ... Sir Joseph similarly sings: "When the breezes blow / I generally go below". .... the favour bynever ("well, hardly ever") using bad language, such as "a big, big D".

Gore Vidal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal

Wikipedia

As Gore Vidal, he was a Democratic Party politician who twice sought ... He later said that, although the surname “Gore” was added to his names at the time of the ... to Hugh D. Auchincloss, and also had “a long off-and-on affair” with the actor Clark ...... The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization Oxford University Press.

Howard Austen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Austen

Wikipedia

Howard Austen (born Howard Auster; 1929 – September 22, 2003) was the long-time companion of American writer Gore Vidal for 53 years until Austen's death.

Gore Vidal, Elegant Writer, Dies at 86 - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com/.../gore-vidal-elegant-writer-dies...

The New York Times

Aug 1, 2012 - For 53 years, he had a live-in companion, Howard Austen, a former ....Even Jason Epstein, Mr. Vidal's longtime editor at Random House, once  ...

Gore Vidal's New York Times Obituary Has Some of the Best ...

gawker.com/.../gore-vidals-new-york-times-obituary-has-some-o...

Gawker

The lengthy obituary of literary titan Gore Vidal that ran in Wednesday's New York ...And Mr. Vidal's relationship with his longtime live-in companion, Howard  .