Creation

Creation is my most favourite novel on the subject of an ancient history, and not because it had opened my eyes to some antediluvian clandestine truths but because of its freewheeling stylishness.

I am blind. But I am not deaf. Because of the incompleteness of my misfortune, I was obliged yesterday to listen for nearly six hours to a self-styled historian whose account of what the Athenians like to call ‘the Persian Wars’ was nonsense of a sort that were I less old and more privileged, I would have risen in my seat at the Odeon and scandalized all Athens by answering him.

That is the beginning and from here on in there’s no stop…
History isn’t a textbook… History will teach us nothing.

Гор Видал праща лична покана на историята. И тя благосклонно приема - от името на Дарий, Ксеркс, Конфуций, Буда, Демокрит, Перикъл, Темистокъл и куп други антични знаменитости.

Всяка среща на внука на сенатора...пардон, на пророка Зороастър...Гор Видал...пардон, Кир Спитама...е всъщност зададен въпрос защо и откъде сме се появили и поели по своя път. Получените отговори варират от нула до безкрайност: средният път, заветите на предците и изграждането на идеалното общество, неизменимодтта на съдбатата и следователно безсмислието на въпросите. Всеки може да си избере от пъстрия букет отговора, който най-много му допада. В зависимост дали той идва страна на жреците на Ахура Мазда, цар Дарий, джайнистите, самия Буда, лично от Конфуций, или се е заплел нейде из сложните словесни и логически конструкции на гръцките философи. Всички те имат какво да споделят с Кир Спитама. През неговите дълбоко недраматични, стоически, скептични и човечни очи се преливат Персийската империя в зенита на Ахеменидите от V в. пр. н. е., Вавилон с неговите висящи градини, Средното царство и (въз)раждащият се Път на коприната, царствата от поречието на Ганг и древният Варанаси, Атина във времето, когато е все още страшно неугледно градче. Животът във всяко от тези места се усеща в куп цветни, мънички детайли, с аромата на източни подправки, звъна на персийско злато и оръжие, шумните философски дебати на изискан йонийски диалект (дорийският е за диваци), шумоленето на китайска коприна и шепотът на листата на дървото бодхи.

Романът е красив пътепис във времето, поднесен с щипка хумор и много мъдрост. Пиршество за любителите на историята. Хареса ми Гор Видал...пардон, Кир Спитама.

***
"Физическото разнообразие на човешкия род е точно толкова удивително, колкото и еднообрaзието на човешката природа."

"Искам да стигна до края на света. Или до Китай. Което от двете е по-близко."

Možda ne baš najbolji roman postavljen u antiku (na brzinu mi na pamet padaju barem dva bolja, takođe Vidalov Julian i The Last of the Wine), ali svakako najambiciozniji.

Celovito putovanje kroz istoriju 5. veka p.n.e., u kom izaslanik kralja Darija, pa kasnije Kserksa, obilazi Persiju, Evropu, ali i Indiju i Kinu, a na svojim putovanjima se druži sa Sokratom, Budom, Konfučijem, Periklom, i naravno persijskim kraljevima. Možda zvuči nategnuto, ali je Vidal to dobro uklopio - Sokrat je, na primer, 18-godišnji zidar koji radi kod njega u Atini na popravljanju kuće (i nema pojma o svom zanatu), a ostale sreće kao izaslanik. Malo mi jeste bilo čudno što su ljudi toliko putovali u to doba, ali valjda je postojala i tada razmena ideja, ne samo od Puta svile dalje - oduvek su mi se stoicizam i budizam činili prilično usklađeni u mnogo svojih pravila kako živeti.

"I have never visited any city in the world where I was not told that I just missed the golden age. I seem never to be on time."

Ima ovde mnogo istorije, prepričavanje (i ispravljanje) Herodota je interesantno pošto je ispričano s "varvarske" strane, ali ima mnogo i antičke religije (narator je unuk Zaratustre), filozofije, političkih odnosa u najrazličitijim političkim društvima. Nisam mnogo čitao o Indiji iz tog vremena, iako mi je bilo jasno da je to bila vrhunska antička civilizacija, sa ogromnim gradovima (i sa loše organizovanom vojskom).

“No man ever knows when he is happy; he can only know when he was happy.”

I give up. I expected to love this book, but Gore Vidal somehow managed to take an amazing concept for a story and turn it into one of the dullest books i've ever tried to slog through. The narrator has little depth, despite his unnecessary verbosity, and neither do most of the people he encounters, despite their being some of the most influential people in world history. It is obvious that Vidal did an extensive amount of research for the book and attempted to include every sliver of information he learned. I give him credit for his learning, but the result here is a book that is not story-driven enough to be a good novel, nor deep or informative enough to work well as a work of nonfiction.

Apologies to anyone who enjoyed it.

Persian history at the peak of the Achaemenid Empire (5th century BCE) is pretty neatly summed up in a few lines from our high school world history courses, largely in connection with Greek history. We hear a few snippets about the Persian rulers, Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes; a big paragraph about Pheidippides, the runner who sprinted from Marathon to warn the Spartans (which was pointless, since they refused to march at the time) of the Persian attack (which was comeuppance for supporting a revolt in Persia and burning the city of Sardis), and ever after served as the namesake for future long-distance running contests; the battle at Thermopylae in which a handful of Spartans embarrassed an overwhelming Persian force under the Persian king, Xerxes, immortalized and buried under a mountain of hyperbole in cinema, and how Greeks won freedom from a terrible oppressor, launching democracy, serving as a basis for civilization and western world, blah blah blah.


Hyperbole. And partial nudity. And epic nose chains.

Essentially, most of what we know about Persia has been related through the lens of Greek history. The Persians amassed an enormous army and had an equally enormous empire, making them the perfect foil in the Star Wars parable that we've made Greek v. Persia history out to be.


Look, sir! Greeks!

It's a suitable mentality to have even in the current age, as the Persian empire stretched across the middle east, a land that is, and has been, largely unfriendly to the Western world for centuries, mostly for religious reasons (on both sides) that didn't exist during the Achaemenid empire.


Say, isn't this this pretty much the same empire Alexander ruled and was considered so awesome for creating, but promptly fell apart when he died?

The question that must come to mind to anyone reading this myopic history is: How did this empire come to be so massive and rich? Surely it could not have been all bad. Vidal's Creation answers this question and carefully explores what most folk of the Western hemisphere have deliberately ignored as a relic of the backwards and dangerous middle east: the Persian perspective.

What Vidal provides in Creation, from the viewpoint of the fictional diplomat and spiritual inheritor of Zoroastrianism, Cyrus Spitama, the grandson of none other than Zoroaster and childhood friend of Xerxes, is the story of a lush and powerful civilization, rife with power struggles and an abundance of history, just like the Greeks, and with ample justification for the contempt that Persians in power felt for the Greeks. And not without cause, as they're depicted as self-serving, filthy, shifty, and hardly trustworthy. Reading Creation, you're liable to share the Persian contempt. In many ways, and without stretching the truth, Spitama compares and contrasts Greek and Persian civilization, and it's difficult, in the end, to see how Greece receives the historical accolades while Persia is ignored. There's certainly a sense of foreboding and bitterness in Spitama as an old man recounting his journeys throughout the Persian empire, Greece, India, and China, who seems to know the wheels of fate have turned inexplicably in favor of Greek culture.

While much of Spitama's angst is directed at the Greeks, having metastasized from previous Persian rulers who had to deal with them, he also serves as a diplomat to the East as well. He visits and marries in India, is captured in China, and meets figures of extraordinary historical significance.

It's important to note that Vidal has selected a singularly remarkable time period and location to explore, in which the likes of significant eastern historical figures, such as Siddhartha Guatama (the Buddha), Master K'ung Fu-tzu (Confucius), Lao Tse (creator of the Tao Te Ching), were mucking about in the East at the same time prominent Greeks and Persians were mucking about in the "West". Not only do we meet these philosophical titans, we get to listen to their followers interact and deride one another, which is an unparalleled treat.

Much of the greatness I attribute to this story has little to do with Vidal's writing ability, which itself is slick as wet glass in the reader's mind, and more to do with Vidal's selection of time period. Volumes and volumes and volumes of books have been written on each of the characters in this work, on the empires explored (including those lesser-known in India), on the political machinations of those in power (including Zoroaster himself, which provided Spitama with an important political role where he otherwise might have been No One). But to combine this confluence of activity and personality seamlessly into a single novel is all at once an obvious choice, a fascinating exploration of that which most overlook, and ultimately nothing short of sublime.

This and Julian may be my favorite novels by Vidal, not that I've read them all yet.

Creation postulates, within the realm of plausibility, a character who, in the course of his lifetime, travels from Persia to India to China to Greece and meets such luminaries as Zoroaster, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius and Herodotus. It is done amusingly, but seriously enough that a reader unfamiliar with the period might be inspired to pursue a more serious study.

"I am blind. But I am not deaf. Because of the incompleteness of my misfortune, I was obliged yesterday to listen for nearly six hours to a self-styled historian whose account of what the Athenians like to call the "Persian Wars" was nonsense of a sort that were I less old and more privileged, I would have risen in my seat at the Odeon and scandalized all of Athens by answering him.
But then, I know the origin of the GREEK wars. He does not. How could he? How could any Greek? I spent most of my life at the court of Persia and even now, in my seventy-fifth year, I still serve the Great King as I did his father-my beloved friend Xerxes-and his father before him, a hero known even to the Greeks as Darius the Great....."

So begins the story of Cyrus Spitama, a fictionalized character, the grandson of Zoroaster, and a Persian Diplomat from the Court of the Great King. Gore Vidal's brilliant novel exploring the time period of the 6th-5th century BCE world, through the vehicle of Cyrus Spitama as he travels the known world comparing the political and religious beliefs of various empires, kingdoms, and republics of the time. All of it is immaculately researched and the conversations with a variety of brilliant minds such as Zoroaster, Socrates, Anaxagoras, the Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tsu, and Confucius, are brilliant.

It is also a great view into the world of Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese (Cathay) politics, religion, and beliefs. Thus the title of the book "Creation". Spitama's quest to find the answer to the existence of evil, the creation of the universe, and man's purpose in the world and the afterlife will lead him to explore a variety of religions from Jainism to Buddhism. It is superbly done and never boring.

The writing is superb and the story is enthralling. The sheer scope of the tale and the depth of the story, not only as historical fiction of the best quality, but also as a deep exploration of a myriad of different faiths and beliefs. A truly brilliant novel and well worth the time of anyone interested in this time period, philosophy, religion, or just wish to read a superbly written novel.

A few things that readers might notice- yes Zoroastrianism is the basis for much of the Abrahamic religious lore. That fusion of the Second Temple Jews moving into the region with the beliefs of a Wise Lord (Ahura Mazda) and his evil duality of Ahriman, ultimate judgment, final days, etc all fused with the Jewish religion and eventually heavily influenced Christianity and Islam.

Also while Cyrus Spitama's claims about the actual ramifications of the Greek wars on the Persian Empire were not, at the time, nearly as dramatic as the Greek would have you believe is accurate to a certain extent, neither can the long term consequences (bankrupt armies, death of good commanders, Persian politics, etc) that would lead to the decline of the Great House of the Achaemenid be brushed away. In fact, Artaxerxes I, the final Great King served by Spitama ended his reign in 424 BC. By 334 BC this empire would be conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedonia.

A great look at history and religion. It is also a wonderful travelogue of the Greek, Persia, Indian, and Cathayan Empires of the time. Brilliant book. A pleasure to read and one that I am glad to add to my collection.

This is a magnificent novel by Gore Vidal. I had read a translation of it many years ago. However a few weeks ago Vidal was in Toronto and that was how I began looking at the novel again. For those Iranians who were angry at the movie 300, this book works as a relief. The narrator is an imaginary Cyrus Spitama, who Vidal describes as the grandson of Zoroaster (Zarathushtra). I have to add that Zoroaster lived somewhere between 4000 to 7000 years ago. Recent studies are in favour of 7000, including Mary Setegast’s marvelous research (When Zarathushtra Spoke). So in a way Vidal’s Cyrus Spitama cannot be the prophet’s grandson, since the author is talking about events of the Achemenide king Xerxes. And by this time even the language of Gathas, Zoroaster’s divine songs, was a dead language. But the good thing of this historical novel is that it reveals the lies of Herodotus, the well known Greek historian whose lies were often used against Iranian civilization. Cyrus Spitama’s narration as an ambassador of the King Xerxes in Athens is witty and philosophical at the same time. It is interesting to note that Cyrus Spitama is of a mixed marriage between an Iranian father and a Greek mother, something that was very common in those days. I recommend reading of this novel to all my Iranian friends and non-Iranians who are not satisfied with western cliché attitude against the barbarians (i.e. Iranians!)