Burr: A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)

I finished this book slightly before midnight, December 31, 2008, making it the last book I finished in the year, as well as one of the best. The book starts slowly, but as it gets to Burr's "Memoirs" it quickly picks up steam and remains utterly fascinating until the very end.In his Narratives of Empire series Gore Vidal has provided us with a novelistic recounting of American political history from the Revolution to World War II. In each of the seven novels in the sequence -- BURR, LINCOLN, 1876, EMPIRE, HOLLYWOOD, WASHINGTON D.C., and THE GOLDEN AGE -- the fictitious Charles Schuyler or one of his descendents plays a conspicuous role, except for LINCOLN, where Schuyler appears only in cameo. This provides a moderately neutral point of view for the events in the novels.The choice of Aaron Burr as the focus for Vidal's account of both the Age of Jackson and the Revolution and early republic was inspired. Of the major figures in our nation's founding, he is both the most reviled and the least deified. The other founders have largely been reduced to statues. We tend to view Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Hamilton, Randolph, Marshall, and the others more as figures in a diorama than as historical figures who were members of factions and parties or creatures of flesh and blood. Vidal uses Burr as a way to get back to the Founders before they had become statues. Burr treats many of our most revered figures as either Buffoons or villains.If you have read a great deal of history dealing with the period, nearly everything that Burr recounts will be recognized as accurate, such as George Washington's stunning aloofness and his rather massive rear end (according to contemporaries its magnitude has been muted in the paintings made from life). I have always regarded Washington as overrated both as a president (his major achievement is that he declined to be named emperor) and a field general, so Burr's diatribes against Washington I found delightful. I also have found Jefferson to be one of if not the most perplexing figures in American history, filled with both marvelous and horrifying opinions on a host of subjects. And a paradox if ever there was one. Along with Madison, whom he inspired, Jefferson theoretically did as much for civil rights as any person in American history, yet as Vidal so ably displays, he constantly as president sought to abrogate the civil rights of others. And no president in U. S. history, not even Bush or Nixon or Lincoln (when he suspended habeas corpus), was more the enemy of the judiciary than Jefferson. Indeed, the book shows admirably the great struggle between Jefferson and Marshall, easily one of the most important fights in American history. Thankfully Marshall beat Jefferson at nearly every point, permanently establishing an independent judiciary and making it separate from both the legislative and executive branches (Jefferson sought to make it deeply subservient to both). (In this regard, let me recommend a nice book detailing the struggles between Jefferson and Marshall, John F. Simon's What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States. I honestly believe that Marshall did as much to create the United States as we know it as did Madison or Lincoln. I don't always agree with the decisions of the courts, especially the current ultra-rightwing Supreme Court, but I nonetheless delighted that the court system exists independently of political control by the president or the congress.)This novel did a better job of making the political struggles of the period come alive better than any of the history books on the period that I have read. I have read many accounts of the Age of Federalism and the emergence of the Republican party (interestingly, the Federalists later became the Whigs and after that the present Republican party, while the Republicans under Jackson and Van Buren became the Democratic party, which is why Jefferson is often considered the founder of the Democratic party), but the issues have never been made so clear to me before. Vidal is also able to bring alive the struggle between personalities. He is also able to bring home how different these men were from us today. Though Jefferson is thought of as the great defender of democracy against Adams and Hamilton, who were the defenders of a privileged elite (though Adams was terrified of economic elites and was convinced that the greatest danger to the country lay with hereditary wealth, which is why he, along with the other Founders, was strongly in favor of very large estate taxes, so that great fortunes could not be passed along from one generation to another), he believed in slavery (though he thought it evil and had vague hopes that it would end someday) and did not believe in extending the vote beyond landowners or to women. It is also very difficult to map the Founders on today's understanding of liberal and conservative. Jefferson is considered a liberal and Adams a conservative, but Adams had a wealth of political opinions that make him sound like sound like a socialist while Jefferson thought that an empowered central government, seen today by liberals as crucial to social and economic justice, was inherently evil. Hamilton, considered one of the most conservative political figures in American history, on the other hand, believed in a powerful federal government. The point is, if you are either a conservative or a liberal, you can find points of agreement or disagreement with any of the Founders. Conservatives can even find much to admire in someone as liberal as Benjamin Franklin.I do not think that reading Gore Vidal can replace the reading of history. But there is much to be said for good fictional accounts. BURR does not precisely represent Vidal's own political views. If you have read his essays or seen him interviewed on television, you probably know that he is an unrepentant liberal Democrat. But he is not doctrinaire. Most of the New Dealers were passionate fans of Andrew Jackson (largely due to Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s highly influential THE AGE OF JACKSON, in which Jackson comes across like an antebellum FDR). Vidal isn't nearly so much of a fan of Jackson. And as he points out in the novel's postscript, he like Jefferson rather more than Burr does. This is what a good novelist can do: create characters that possess opinions that are not consistent with one's own. Charles Schuyler is not a time-traveling Gore Vidal. I have read both Gore Vidal's LINCOLN and Doris Kearns Goodwin's TEAM OF RIVALS, and I must confess that I took more away from Vidal's book than from Goodwin's (they are absolutely not in historical conflict with one another, but Vidal's was written well before hers and showed brilliantly how Lincoln employed the "team of rivals" concept before she popularized the expression). Let me add here how impressive Vidal's knowledge of history is. He has clearly and obviously read deeply in American history.I have now read the first two books in the Narrative of Empire sequence, though not in chronological order. I plan on starting off the New Year by reading the other five books in the series. I hope I enjoy them as much and learn as much as I have from the first two.

I liked Gore Vocals treatment of Aaron Burr through his diaries and through Charlie Scchulyer. Burr talked place in the last years of Aaron Burr 1833- 1840. Burr dies in 1838. Burr is married in the beginning tying to get fund to settle Texas. This is a good historical novel with vivid scenery and the fact that Martin Van Burden maybe his illegitimate son. We see Jefferson, Washington and Hamilton through the eyes of Aaron Burr. We meet his some Aaron Columbus Burr. We meet his biographer. Matt Davis and Legett and hos defender. I like the part where Burr compares Jeeferson, Marshall and Randomly as mad, eccentric and crazy. This is history told from a different lens and how Burr was a founding father and competition between men can shape a country. Burr was from New York and Jefferson was from Virginia, the Virginia junto. It is about the secrecy and plotting that God behind the scenes and the resilience of being right and good friends. Burr is a quiet and reserved man and Vital does a good job of telling his stoty. It is a honest portrayal. He calls Thomas Jefferson'Massa Tom'. It is an interesting read. All historical fiction iis.

I bet you will devour this book like I did...full of history, politics and scandals of another era. Gore Vidal is of course an incredible writer. It was a good follow up to Hamilton.

The always charming Aaron Burr is much more interesting in every way than our country’s Ten Dollar Bill Guy. Let alone a much better shot. Vidal creates a pulsating political and frenzied social world with a large cast of characters that would do Dickens proud, each clearly defined, each bursting with assertive individuality. Burr himself is seen from so many different angles that readers come to believe that we, too, are living in those same rowdy, dangerous, contentious times, breathing the same air, fighting the same battles, visiting the same brothel, arguing the same crucial issues. From the American Revolution to the terrifying rise of American Democracy embodied by Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, with different classes and ethnicities bubbling all over the new melting pot nation, and with Aaron Burr living through the whole turbulent shebang. Indeed, if you want the real skinny on Thomas Jefferson, avoid the laudatory non-fiction of biographers and start with this fiction from this novelist.Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (1973):“How diabolically well-timed is the appearance of Gore Vidal's latest novel, BURR, just at this most disillusioning moment in American history when all the old verities are beginning to seem hollow, Mr. Vidal gives us an interpretation of our early history that says in effect that all the old verities were never much to begin with. And what a tour de force is the result!”The New Yorker (1973):"A novel of Stendhalian proportions. It is probably impossible to be an American and not be fascinated and impressed by Vidal’s telescoping of our early history."ANCIENT DOGGEREL:“O Burr, O Burr, what hast thou done?Thou hast shooted dead great Hamilton!"You hid behind a bunch of thistle,And shooted him dead with a great hoss pistol.”

American history (back in my day) stopped after the world turned upside down, briefly reappeared as the White House, as it later was, burned and then fell silent until the American Civil War. It is precisely in this Terra Incognita that Gore Vidal places his life of Aaron Burr, vice-president, slayer of Alexander Hamilton and supposed traitor. The long life of Burr and his many roles in the young republic make for an interesting account (made a little difficult by the jumping back and forth between decades). However, even I can spot Gore goring (appropriately) sacred cows with a vengeance. Few escape a sound thrashing, and Washington and Jefferson least of all. I cannot comment on the accuracy of these views but it is rather as if Private Eye had been involved. The topic is a fascinating one, and I greatly enjoyed it, but I do not think I will take it as a balanced account.

Great book but I so wish it was available for kindle!

I thought it was going to be bloody when I saw the word "Gore" but that was not the case. Still worth reading though/.

Great book and condition was fine

As New Condition