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POLITICA >>Vidal | ||||
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Vidal, G. 1998. Virgin Islands - Essays 1992-1997. Abacus (Little, Brown and Company), London, UK. Rating: JJJ About the
Author: Gore Vidal is a well-known American
novelist.
Books by
the same author:
Williwaw; The City and the Pillar; The Judgement of Paris;
Messiah; Julian; Burr; Lincoln; 1876; Empire; Hollywood; Washington
D.C.; The Smithsonian Institution; United States: Essays 1952-1992. |
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Review Most people will know Vidal
as a novelist, yet it is perhaps not so surprising to discover
that his talent as a fiction writer is matched by his skill as
an essayist. With a great deal of wit, sarcasm and detail, he
exposes his sometimes scathing views on modern America. In his
eyes, America is an Empire on the Decline, and although it may
be difficult to agree with this thesis, his insights are instructive.
Aside from exposing contradictions in American foreign policy,
he remarks that nobody bothered to turn off America's war economy
since 1945, so that the country is spending inordinate amounts
of money building weapons that nobody needs. He predicts that
this unnecessary military spending will eventually ruin the economy.
More controversially, he predicts that the American economy is
effectively bankrupt already, and cannot, in the long term, compete
with those of Western Europe and Japan. He then expresses his
dislike of the concept of "nation state", to which he
opposes his vision of loose confederations of autonomous regions,
associated for the common good. Britain gets scolded for adopting
too many of America's scourges, such as a "single party with
two right wings", and for entertaining illusions of grandeur
based on the myth of the "special relationship" with
the USA. Vidal strongly suggests that Britain should choose where
its loyalties lie: " You are an offshore island. But off
whose shore? Europe's or ours? As a solution to all of the
woes of the West, he ironically (or perhaps seriously...with Vidal
it is difficult to know for sure) suggests a confederacy englobing
Russia, Canada, Europe and the USA. A surrealist solution for
a surrealist country. |
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