| | I joined the Chunkster Reading Challenge for 2010. The goal is to read three books of 450 or more pages. The second book I read for it is a Ballantine paperback, for 593 pages (ISBN-10: 0345340205) of Gore Vidal’s novel Creation.
Vidal draws the characters of his 1986 novel from historical sources. As in his other historical novels such as Julian and Lincoln, Gore takes as axiomatic that motivated by lust, love, loathing and loot, leaders and followers organize their societies in pursuit of the same. This narrow view – directly given through the sarcasm and cynicism of the narrator Cyrus Spitama - flattens out most of the characters, but more developed are the intellectual characters of the narrator himself, the Buddha, and Confucius.
The major theme of the novel is a comparison of the traditional monotheistic, Heaven/ Hell religions of the Middle East with the complex polytheism of Hinduism, the mysticism of Buddhism and Taoism, and the practical worldliness of Confucianism. The comparisons and contrasts are revealed and developed through dialogue among characters. Vidal blends education and entertainment for readers who are interested in issues of belief and faith, legend and myth, history and geography, and ethnology and sociology. The plethora of place names and personal names will daunt the casual reader: Anaxagoras, Bactra, Queen Atossa, Ch'in, Fan Ch'ih, Xerxes, Tzu-lu, Zoroaster, Rajagriha, Bimbisara, Histiaeus, Susa, Scylax, Lais, Mardonius, Themistocles, Elpinice, Koshala, Callias, Pasenadi. One pines for a guide telling where the word stress goes.
Not much plot beyond endless palace and court intrigue punctuated by narrator’s journeys west to what is now India and China. Vidal strings the episodes smoothly. The narrator, whether he wants to or not, gradually changes his strict monotheism but does not come to understand wondering about Creation, its causes and ends, may not be the right question.
I liked this novel as it features Vidal’s strong points: simplicity and clarity of prose style; wit and satire; consciousness of history and culture.
I’d recommend this to readers of serious historical fiction such as Vidal’s Julian, Burgess’ The Kingdom of the Wicked, or Graves' Count Belasarius.
|
| | Posted 3/11/2010 10:41 AM - 27 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
Give eProps or Post a Comment |
