Thursday, December 12, 2019

Gore Vidal


Out of print for years, but now back on the cultural radar, Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge defies classification. It's a novel about Hollywood and entertainment, but it's also about sexuality, and violence, and psychoanalysis. It's a book that's serious, but silly; that's sad, but enticing.

Mostly, though, this is a book about gender, and about how our conception of masculinity, especially, is predicated on an unavoidable quest for power. Vidal is fascinated by this: by how power is accumulated, by how it grows, and by how it tends to perverts. Myra Breckinridge sets out to invert these dynamics, using her femininity, and a healthy dose of violence and manipulation, to stem the masculine drive. 

Reading about Myra Breckinridge reminded some of Sissy Hankshaw: except that, where Tom Robbins focused, a decade later, on the nature of physical attraction, Vidal focused on its emotional underpinnings. Myra Breckinridge is constantly at war with herself and others: her triumph is at much an act of violence and reordering as it is an affirmation of herself and her identity. 

I'm not sure that Myra Breckinridge is a book that was meant to be taken seriously: there's enough humor here, and enough self-deprecation, to distract. But Vidal used this as a tactic to make a more serious point: that sexuality, like gender, manifests structures of power, and that both assign roles without seeking permission. It takes a strong character -- like Myra Breckinridge, say -- to break that mold, and to subvert forces which are deeply habituated. 

This is not an excellent or lasting book, but it's certainly one that's timely, and its reprinting says as much about Myra Breckinridge as it does about our own culture and priorities today. For that reason alone, it's worth the read. 

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