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Burr: A novel by Gore Vidal (1973; 2000 ed.) 430 pages.
Good grief! Slow, tedious, and boring! I had no idea who “Burr” was when I started on this novel. Aaron Burr, while serving as the 3rd Vice-President of the United States (1801-1805), shot and killed the first Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Hamilton, in a duel. Three years after that, President Thomas Jefferson charged Burr with treasonous actions against the United States. Burr was later acquitted of those charges but found guilty of proposing an invasion of Spanish territory in order to make himself emperor of Mexico.
I would suggest you first read some true historical accounts on the Founding Fathers of America before diving into this book, and for sure read the “Afterwards” first. Vidal Gore does tell you that the events are real, but he took liberties with the conversations between individuals. He even rearranged some of the character’s lives, presenting them as living, even though they had already been dead, when certain events occurred because he needed them. Remember, this is JUST A NOVEL! It is not all historically correct, although Gore does claim to have made it as historically correct as possible.
I will admit that I don’t know that much about the Founding Fathers myself, so I cannot personally refute the claims made in this novel. I did look up a few events of interest to see if they had actually occurred, and the events were real. But, the descriptions and conversations, and how things truly went down between the Founding Fathers…I’m not so sure about.
The Founding Fathers were not perfect. I get it. I’m sure they spewed out lies about each other, vying for top positions in the new Republic, much like they do today. I’m sure there was a good amount of corruption, but the good outcome of it all, while working out the details, definitely outweighed the bad. Why else do we see the “world” entering our open southern border…and not fleeing it?
The one problem I did have while reading this was the total character assassination of all the Founding Fathers and degradation of the Constitution of the United States, as if it was a fault of some “brainless, fat waddling drunks” (words of the author) who got together and wrote up something that only benefited themselves. This is exactly how the author presented the Founding Fathers in this novel. He claims this was written from Aaron Burrs perspective of things…but, I don’t know if I believe that at all. I personally believe this comes from the authors own heart.
My notes here are long. That’s just so I will remember some of the things written in this novel. Next year, I’ll be reading up a little on the Founding Fathers from true historians, hopefully learning the good and the bad and will be able to compare.
The below comments are about individuals in this novel, provided courtesy of the author:
Benedict Arnold was a fat scared weasel.
Andrew Jackson drooled at the corners of his mouth like a mad-dog and was incoherent when he became excited.
Regarding George Washington, “ ultimately, I think, he must be judged as an excellent politician, who had no gift for warfare. History, as usual, has got it all backward.” He was “slow-witted” as if he didn’t have a brain. He was “a perjurer, a robber and a traitor”.
Regarding Washington’s Delaware River Crossing (that infamous painting): “I found irritating the slowness of his mind; not to mention his awesome gift for failure in the field. In three years, he had lost every engagement with the enemy, except for a small victory at Trenton, and that had been an accident: the Hessians had not posted guards the night of his attack...Quite naturally, many officers wanted Washington replaced.”
Speaking of the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson, “ I confess, to not having listened to a word of the declaration of independence. At the time, I barely knew the name of the author of the sublime document. I do remember hearing someone comment that, since Mr. Jefferson had seen fit to pledge so eloquently our lives to the cause of independence, he might at least join us in the army. But why is Tom preferred the safety of Virginia in the excitement of local politics to the discomfort and dangers of war.”
Regarding Valley Forge while on Pennsylvania hill-side during winter 1877-78: “ We felt abandoned. We were abandoned. Elsewhere, let it be noted, the nations founders spent a comfortable winter, particularly Jefferson at Monticello aware, in perfect comfort and serenity, he was able amongst his books together with his ever-so-fine wool.”
Hamilton was for taxation to the hilt, sending in the militia to collect overdue taxes from farmers throughout Pennsylvania, which now he had a right to collect because “collecting taxes” is now in the Constitution. He was Secretary of Treasury when he was charged for stealing money. Hamilton had an affair with a married woman and they black mailed him out of hundreds of dollars to keep it quiet. But, it came out in a public pamphlet put out by Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton thought it was put out by Monroe, who was running for President, and challenged him to a duel, which did not occur, in which Monroe asked Burr to be his second in the duel. Hamilton then claimed Burr had incest relations with his own daughter, Theodosia, and called Burr a “more despicable” man, resulting in the duel that killed Hamilton.
Davy Crockett was nothing but a drunken fathead who’s writing style was nothing but tall stories.
In my opinion, this author appears to be completely “woke”. ( )
A fun ride through Revolutionary America with Mr Burr and Mr Schuyler as companions. Made me want to reread it, as I as a lot a thought was is a little different from what actually happened. ( )
This is Gore Vidal’s masterpiece, written decades before the musical Hamilton enchanted Broadway. In the novel, Burr is an old man, having outlived the other Founding Fathers. Burr now lives some where between infamy and obscurity. With the infamous Burr as his grey protagonist, Vidal has the literary freedom to regale the readers with stories of the founding fathers actual humanity. Some true, others exaggerated. It makes for wonderful reading. One of my all time favorites. ( )
A stunning novel, in which Vidal uses the cannily chosen Aaron Burr as a hatchet to take apart the founding fathers and our various myths about them and show how all their human frailties are embedded in the nation and its direction. Burr, and his Boswell, Charles Schuyler, are an impeccably drawn pair of unreliable narrators who take us down the river of the creation of the United States and show us nooks and crannies in it we never even suspected. ( )
Burr is about the Founding Father who has been airbrushed out of history. Aaron Burr very nearly became America's third president in 1800, when he narrowly lost to Thomas Jefferson. He ended up as Jefferson's Vice-President and, four years later, while still in office, he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, which killed his own political career.
History has painted Burr as a chancer and a rogue. Vidal takes Burr's side to show that he was much better than that: a chancer, for sure, but self-aware enough to know that's what he was, which makes him intensely likable. In this novel, the usual pantheon of American heroes – Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton – come across as various stripes of pompous hypocrite. Burr is the one you want to win.
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
For my nephews Ivan, Hugh and Burr
Ensimmäiset sanat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
A Special Despatch to the New York Evening Post: Shortly before midnight, July 1, 1833, Colonel Aaron Burr, aged seventy-seven, married Eliza Jumel, born Bowen fifty-eight years ago (more likely sixty-five but remember: she is prone to litigation!).
Sitaatit
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
We do not want the old to be sharper than we. It’s bad enough that they were there first, and got the best things.
Eventually all things are known. And few matter.
As a lawyer he was—is—meticulous. Yet he has a certain contempt for the whole business. “The law,” he likes to say, “is simply whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.”
Elizabeth was uncommonly handsome as a girl, if too square-jawed. I have been told that Hamilton used to discuss his infidelities with her. If he did, they must have had a good deal to talk about.
But the Colonel was not listening. The past is now more vivid for him than the present. He is, finally, old.
I was more pleased than not by the loose confederation of states that existed between 1783 and 1787. All in all, New York was agreeably governed by the Clinton faction. If certain of the other states were less well-governed, that was their affair; to be set right by them and not be a group of clever lawyers in Philadelphia. Yes, I was equivocal. A degree of anarchy is no bad thing.
The Colonel laughed suddenly, and recalled “the time Hamilton made an election speech to a group of mechanics. Unfortunately Hamilton always addressed his inferiors as if they were his inferiors. This is never charming, and I fear the crowd made fun of him. Furious, exasperated, he shouted, ‘You are your own worst enemy!’ What would he think now when ‘the beast,’ as he used to call the generality, governs, or at least we flatter it into thinking that it governs.”
That season, by the way, was a splendid one for the ladies; or perhaps I should say for their admirers. The so-called Empire fashion had swept America and even the most respectable of maidens (and, alas, the most mature of matrons) wore high bodices two-thirds bare. It is a moot point which issue most concerned the republic in the summer of 1807: my alleged treason or the brazen and ubiquitous baring of breasts that called forth from every pulpit warnings of the wrath of Jehovah. The lascivious press was in an ecstasy: teats and treason—could any other combination be more popular?
Viimeiset sanat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
But there was no wish that I could make that I have not already been granted by my father Aaron Burr.
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Google Books — Ladataan...
1
Burr: A novel by Gore Vidal (1973; 2000 ed.) 430 pages.
Good grief! Slow, tedious, and boring! I had no idea who “Burr” was when I started on this novel. Aaron Burr, while serving as the 3rd Vice-President of the United States (1801-1805), shot and killed the first Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Hamilton, in a duel. Three years after that, President Thomas Jefferson charged Burr with treasonous actions against the United States. Burr was later acquitted of those charges but found guilty of proposing an invasion of Spanish territory in order to make himself emperor of Mexico.
I would suggest you first read some true historical accounts on the Founding Fathers of America before diving into this book, and for sure read the “Afterwards” first. Vidal Gore does tell you that the events are real, but he took liberties with the conversations between individuals. He even rearranged some of the character’s lives, presenting them as living, even though they had already been dead, when certain events occurred because he needed them. Remember, this is JUST A NOVEL! It is not all historically correct, although Gore does claim to have made it as historically correct as possible.
I will admit that I don’t know that much about the Founding Fathers myself, so I cannot personally refute the claims made in this novel. I did look up a few events of interest to see if they had actually occurred, and the events were real. But, the descriptions and conversations, and how things truly went down between the Founding Fathers…I’m not so sure about.
The Founding Fathers were not perfect. I get it. I’m sure they spewed out lies about each other, vying for top positions in the new Republic, much like they do today. I’m sure there was a good amount of corruption, but the good outcome of it all, while working out the details, definitely outweighed the bad. Why else do we see the “world” entering our open southern border…and not fleeing it?
The one problem I did have while reading this was the total character assassination of all the Founding Fathers and degradation of the Constitution of the United States, as if it was a fault of some “brainless, fat waddling drunks” (words of the author) who got together and wrote up something that only benefited themselves. This is exactly how the author presented the Founding Fathers in this novel. He claims this was written from Aaron Burrs perspective of things…but, I don’t know if I believe that at all. I personally believe this comes from the authors own heart.
My notes here are long. That’s just so I will remember some of the things written in this novel. Next year, I’ll be reading up a little on the Founding Fathers from true historians, hopefully learning the good and the bad and will be able to compare.
The below comments are about individuals in this novel, provided courtesy of the author:
Benedict Arnold was a fat scared weasel.
Andrew Jackson drooled at the corners of his mouth like a mad-dog and was incoherent when he became excited.
Regarding George Washington, “ ultimately, I think, he must be judged as an excellent politician, who had no gift for warfare. History, as usual, has got it all backward.” He was “slow-witted” as if he didn’t have a brain. He was “a perjurer, a robber and a traitor”.
Regarding Washington’s Delaware River Crossing (that infamous painting): “I found irritating the slowness of his mind; not to mention his awesome gift for failure in the field. In three years, he had lost every engagement with the enemy, except for a small victory at Trenton, and that had been an accident: the Hessians had not posted guards the night of his attack...Quite naturally, many officers wanted Washington replaced.”
Speaking of the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson, “ I confess, to not having listened to a word of the declaration of independence. At the time, I barely knew the name of the author of the sublime document. I do remember hearing someone comment that, since Mr. Jefferson had seen fit to pledge so eloquently our lives to the cause of independence, he might at least join us in the army. But why is Tom preferred the safety of Virginia in the excitement of local politics to the discomfort and dangers of war.”
Regarding Valley Forge while on Pennsylvania hill-side during winter 1877-78: “ We felt abandoned. We were abandoned. Elsewhere, let it be noted, the nations founders spent a comfortable winter, particularly Jefferson at Monticello aware, in perfect comfort and serenity, he was able amongst his books together with his ever-so-fine wool.”
Hamilton was for taxation to the hilt, sending in the militia to collect overdue taxes from farmers throughout Pennsylvania, which now he had a right to collect because “collecting taxes” is now in the Constitution. He was Secretary of Treasury when he was charged for stealing money. Hamilton had an affair with a married woman and they black mailed him out of hundreds of dollars to keep it quiet. But, it came out in a public pamphlet put out by Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton thought it was put out by Monroe, who was running for President, and challenged him to a duel, which did not occur, in which Monroe asked Burr to be his second in the duel. Hamilton then claimed Burr had incest relations with his own daughter, Theodosia, and called Burr a “more despicable” man, resulting in the duel that killed Hamilton.
Davy Crockett was nothing but a drunken fathead who’s writing style was nothing but tall stories.
In my opinion, this author appears to be completely “woke”. (