These were not productive months for reading. I read and enjoyed the fifth Jackson Brodie novel, Big Sky — the scenes descibring a human trafficking ring and its workings were particularly impactful. I also started — but did not finish — a number of others, including “Diários da Presidência, Vol. 4” and “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas”.
The month’s great achievement, however, was Gore Vidal’s novel Burr. Having watched (and been absolutely bowled over by) Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton”, I decided to read this, one of Vidal’s many works of historical fiction.
I found it a captivating delight. Told from the perspective of a young New York lawyer interviewing the elderly Aaron Burr with a view to writing his biography (and, on the side, a political pamplet linking Burr to Vice-President Martin Van Buren to try and derail the latter’s candidacy for present) it is a vivid, enjoyable piece of literature.
I would say the book has two principal charms. The first is Burr’s dry, sarcastic, wicked sense of humour, obviously reminiscent of Gore’s own. The disdain with which he describes the other Founding Fathers — in particular Washington and Jefferson — is at the same time cruelly comical and makes them into much more human characters than the usual hagiography does.
The second charm is the adventurous pace of the narrative. This is not a story of how Burr killed Hamilton — it describes the wide sweep of Burr’s life, which included a plot to become King of an independent Mexico and a number of illegitimate children who ascended to important position in American politics. There are duels, trials, jailings, battles — all carefully reasearched.
This is a long book, but such a delight to read. I am reminded of how much I enjoy reading Vidal’s historical novels (although the only ones I have read so far, to be honest, are “Julian” — about the Roman emperor — and “Lincoln”). If you are interested in Vidal, the biography “Empire of the Mind”, by Jay Parini, is very good, and the documentary “Best of Enemies” (available on Netflix) is fantastically done, a look at the debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley and the Democratic and Republican National Conventions of 1960.
