NPR, LOS ANGELES TIMES, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE NATION, ABC NEWS (USA)
Gore Vidal, American author and essayist whose prolific career spanned six decades, died Tuesday at age 86, reports NPR. He died at home from complications of pneumonia.
"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies." RIP Gore Vidal, a great intellectual of our time. No-one did acerbic better
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) August 1, 2012
Ünlü romancı, oyun yazarı, eleştirmen ve siyasetçi Gore Vidal, 86 yaşında hayata veda etti.
">twitter.com/eDDebiyat/stat…— EdebiyatKültürSanat (@eDDebiyat) August 1, 2012Ünlü romancı, oyun yazarı, eleştirmen ve siyasetçi Gore Vidal, 86 yaşında hayata veda etti. http://t.co/xOeFWRrk— Türk Edebiyatı (@Türk Edebiyatı) 1343812723
Translation: Famous novelist, playwright, critic, and politician, Gore Vidal, has died aged 86.
The reading public will remember him as a literary juggernaut who wrote 25 novels — from the historical "Lincoln" to the satirical "Myra Breckinridge" — and volumes of essays critics consider among the most elegant in the English language, writes the Los Angeles Times. He also brought shrewd intelligence to writing Broadway hits, Hollywood screenplays and television dramas says the Los Angeles daily.
"A writer must always tell the truth. Unless he's a journalist." Gore Vidal
— Martha Plimpton (@MarthaPlimpton) August 1, 2012
Along with contemporaries such as Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, the Chicago Sun-Times remembers, Vidal was part of the last generation of literary writers who were also genuine celebrities — fixtures on talk shows and in gossip columns, personalities of such size and appeal that even those who hadn't read their books knew who they were.
The Chicago newspaper adds that Vidal was widely admired as an independent thinker — in the tradition of Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken — about literature, culture, politics and, as he liked to call it, "the birds and the bees." He picked apart politicians, living and dead; mocked religion and prudery; opposed wars from Vietnam to Iraq and insulted his peers like no other.
Norman Mailer punched Gore Vidal at a party after a bad review. Still on the floor, Vidal declared: "Once again, words fail Norman Mailer."
— Nicholas Pegg (@NicholasPegg) August 1, 2012
Vidal was a great man of letters, an author, playwright and groundbreaking essayist on American literature and the world, writes political blogger and Vidal friend John Nichols in The Nation. He was also a bold and unrelenting challenger of Puritanism, which he regarded as the ugliest of American tendencies.
Nichols remembers his friend as a political champion who ran campains for Congress and who demanded that presidents of both parties be held to account for high crimes and misdemeanors.
VIDAL "Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues & with interchangeable candidates'
— GarySlapper (@garyslapper) August 1, 2012"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half." Gore Vidal
— martha lane fox (@Marthalanefox) August 1, 2012
The grandson of Democratic Sen. Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, Gore Vidal was in 1960, the Democratic candidate for Congress in an upstate New York district writes ABC News. In 1982, Vidal came in second in the California Democratic senatorial primary, losing to incumbent Governor Jerry Brown.
Vidal never shied away from giving his opinion on subjects, especially politics, relates ABC News. In 1968, Vidal squared off with conservative William F. Buckley prior to the 1968 election, accusing Buckley of being a "crypto-Nazi." Buckley threatened to slap Vidal in the face.
I imagine Gore Vidal will get to heaven and find it terribly bland. I hope he somehow sends us back a review
— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) August 1, 2012
