An engaging memoir, perhaps a little fragmented, but Vidal led a fascinating life among other fascinating people and there is much to recommend 'Point to Point Navigation'. But I am not sure what to make of his example of irony that he used to conclude the book. Truth or vindication, I don't know. Maybe both.

I find Gore Vidal to be a fascinating personality. He is intelligent and outspoken and has a biting ironic humor. He has written an amazing number of books. He has also been a movie maker. I listen to this book in the Audible format. It was read by the author himself. Audible book readers are very often very talented so a reading by the author may not necessarily be an asset. However Vidal does have a voice and presentations girl that is special. I was so intrigued listening to this that I added to my future listening library several additional books by Vidal. I am running about two years behind between purchase and listening these days with dozens and dozens of audible books awaiting me in the cloud.

The author is an inveterate name dropper. He has a lifetime of experiences with famous people and stories regarding most of them. His accuracy and validity is undoubtedly sometimes questionable but if you lean a little left politically, you Will find most of what he says fascinating and enjoyable. He is well known for his belief in the CIA/mafia conspiracy resulting in the assassination of JFK.

The title of this second volume of GV's memoirs refers to the practice of navigating a ship without a compass, which could refer to many things. Over the course of this late-life memoir, which was written just 12 years or so after the first one, he says it was originally to have been called 'Between the obituaries', which gives a clue as to the core themes.

While 'Palimpsest' was quite well structured, as well as vibrant, gossipy and often very funny, this volume is quite downbeat and flits around in time randomly, moving back and forth to the pre-1964 era (that of his 10-year literary ‘blackout’ after his first big success) and the post-1964 era, which is the one this book was due to cover in principle (being the era of his novel-writing renaissance, after a period of writing for films). The book also repeats some of the key stories about his childhood and some of the best anecdotes from the first volume, e.g. the one about Grace Kelly’s retirement at her peak from Hollywood and his landing a plane designed by his father at aged 10. This seems to indicate a lack of editing - and he does say that in the book that he does not like much intervention from publishers - and/or a failing memory on his part.

Generally, it is all a little listless and meandering - possibly due to his grieving for his long-term partner Howard, whose death is discussed quite early on in the book (and who was buried in the same cemetery as his first-love Jimmie Trimble, whose presence dominated the first volume); he himself is also getting old and ailing slightly and would die within 7 years of the book's appearance.

He is clearly struggling with the grief but still finds the energy to aim some darts at his biographer Fred Kaplan, and some others (Capote still comes out badly). He also continues to critique the American empire, and makes some prescient remarks about how the 2000 election farrago and Iraq war had softened up the people's resistance to lying by politicians (‘more than ever, the great whopping lie is seriously in vogue’). More presciently still, he notes near the end of the book, when storms put out his electricity in Italy, that climate change is the ‘principal fact of our lives’ (this in 2005, before Donald Trump had even thought about denying climate change perhaps).

Just before the end of the book, there is a strange chapter about irony and the JFK assassination, wherein he claims, with little evidence (other than another book), that the Kennedys had planned to use the mafia to assassinate Castro (whom they hated), but they then used the secrecy of this plan to take out the president himself. Not sure why this is relevant to his memoir, but it does in a way symbolise the random and dream-like quality of this second volume of freely-associated memoirs, which shows a writer at the end of his life, struggling with grief and mortality.

Disappointerissimo. This memoir is meant to cover Gore’s life from 1968-2006, but unlike its predecessor Palimpsest, fails to offer an entertaining and comprehensive account of the Great Wit’s activities during these four pregnant decades. First off, the chapters are unpardonably bitesize—lacking in detail and conversational digressionism familiar to Gorehounds—and second off, Gore discusses his childhood at length (heard it!) and, seemingly, whatever interests him at the moment of writing. The non-linear sprawl that worked so well in Palimpsest here is simply unfocused and far too casually anecdotal. The bitesize approach leaves many chapters feeling like responses to questions posed by interviewers, as Gore freestyles long or short answers depending on what pops up in the memory hole, and although we itch ourselves impatiently for facts-presented-chronologically, we lap it up like the snivelling Gorehounds we is. R.I.P.

I became interested in Gore Vidal when Barry and I stayed at Hotel Palumbo in Ravello and I saw Vidal's villa perched on a cliff overlooking the gulf of Amalfi.
I am amazed at how much I have in common with an 83 year old gay man from a prominent southern political family. I obviously don't agree with everything Gore believes but I love the way he has lived his life.
His writing is full of references to great writers and philosophers from history, many of who he has known.
His vocabulary is extensive and I appreciate learning new words. He shares how Faulkner went to his grave believing that coeval meant evil(!).
He shares so candidly about his life yet sets boundaries around things that are sacred to him, like his 50 year partner relationship with a Jewish writer, Howard Austen.

Great book for those interested in popular culture from the 40's to today.

Probably would've enjoyed it even more thoroughly if I picked up all of his intellectual, political, historical, pop cultural, literary, and hollywood references. Still, Vidal's writing is always an absolute delight to me.

A sprawling and gossipy tour of Vidal's life, through literature, show business, and politics. (Hint: they are less different than one might expect.) Sometimes rambling, sometimes repetitive, sometimes incisive, sometimes heartbreaking.

Two things the audiobook gave me that I would not have had from the text version: Vidal's mimicry of the voices of his friends, from Tennessee Williams to Eleanor Roosevelt, and the utter pathos of listening to a man describe the slow death from cancer of his partner of more than 50 years. I can't imagine writing about it; reading it aloud must have been like eating knives.

Vidal jumps all over the place and just when he starts to get into something interesting he moves on to something else. It was a quick read but disappointing nonetheless.

Definitely an interesting man and a thought provoking well written memoir. He is more than a little annoying and I am sure his arrogance and need for attention would be tiresome in person. But well worth the time. It might have come across better to me if I hadn't read it immediately after the much better memoir West with the Night. But few memoirs could stand up well to that comparison.

As with Palimpsest, I read this one by scanning the index for names of interest, like Johnny Carson or Truman Capote, and then read the accompanying pages. Nice but I was hoping for a more comprehensive view of the his post 1964 career than this offered.

'Gore Vidal is an American original. No, make that an original American. He despises cant, hypocrisy, foreign wars, and martial intellectuals on the make. He cherishes the old American Republic. I laugh aloud reading him. I take heart that he is still out there, an improbable—but, when you think about it, perfectly and delightfully meet—blend of Edmund Wilson and Huey Long, T.P. Gore and Henry Adams.'

Read the full review, "The Populist Patriotism of Gore Vidal," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

Only for the hardcore Gore Vidal fan. (me) Half of the book is his trying to get even with his critics - and that part gets old fast. If you're reading the book, your already on his side. The other half is the story of the death of his life partner which I thought was beautifully written.