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!)

If I were to do a detailed review of Creation, I would have to include quite a number of critical exemptions, caveats and clarifications. With that in mind, I’ll keep my views brief and uncluttered! I did really enjoy the novel and was hugely impressed with its scope and scholarship. One aspect of the book I didn’t enjoy was the style of the first hand narration which veered a little towards the didactic in my view. Vidal was an enormously learned and eminent academic and that is apparent throughout, in ways that are occasionally detrimental, at least to me. There were moments when the story almost resembled a University lecture and the breadth and ambition of the book made it a little claustrophobic and overwhelming at times. Nevertheless, it was a great read with much to admire and reflect on.

Socrates, Pythagoras, Sophocles, Pericles, Darius the Great, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, and Confucius all lived in the Fifth Century BCE, and the ideas conceived at that time continue to shape the cultures of this day. Gore Vidal imagined a man, Cyrus Spitama, a direct of relative of Zarathustra, who managed to visit and learn from these great thinkers.

On one level, the book is a study of comparative religions. Cyrus believed the only important issue was how and why the world was created. He felt most of the Greeks were ‘hair splitters’ arguing about the words used. Pythagoras, like the Jains, believed in transmigration of souls. Cyrus met with Jain monks who believed the right path was not to harm any living creature and self-denial. Buddha questioned the very concept of existence and argued against the Hindu and Jain beliefs in transmigration of souls. Confucius believed in right behavior and appeared to be an atheist. In Zoroastrian, because it introduces the concept of monotheism, as well as heaven and hell, Vidal brought in basic belief system of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Another clear message was cultural relativism. Cyrus accepted the somewhat negative Persian view of the Greeks and each of the religions was convinced they were correct. Buddha in particular pointed out that most religious questions were unknowable, so how could anyone be right or wrong.

I am not normally fan of historical fiction and could not finish Banville’s Doctor Copernicus, Stone’s Lust for Life, or even Yourcenar’s Memoir of Hadrian. I felt some of the dialogue – since it was made up - distracted from the actual history. However, in this case, Gore’s obvious research, his use of Cyrus a jaded, witty and sympathetic narrator, in addition to his clear writing style made the 500+ pages a highly enjoyable read.

An historical novel of truly epic proportions
20 October 2012

tI didn't realise that Gore Vidal was what is called a revisionist when it came to his historical novels, but it only makes me want to pick up more of his books because revisionists tend to give us an alternate view of history that differs from the history that is written by the winners. This book is one of those examples: not so much a retelling of Herodotus but rather a version of Herodotus written from the view of a Persian.

tFor those who are not familiar with Ancient Greek literature, Herodotus is known as the Father of History, but he is also known as the Father of Lies, most likely because of his portrayal of the Persians (who were the enemies of the Greeks). However, Herodotus' Histories is not strictly a history text but rather an anthropological text in which he describes a number of cultures that existed around the Eastern Mediterranean during his time. A large section of his book deals with the Egyptians in which we learn a lot about Egyptian culture (such as the fact that they practised circumcision) that we may not have otherwise known. However, in the end, it appears that Herodotus' purpose is to demonstrate that the greatest of the civilisations is that of the Greeks.

tVidal tries to overturn that belief by writing from the point of view of a Persian diplomat, Cyrus Spitama. The novel begins near the end of Spitama's life, when he is posted to Greece as a diplomat. Here is spends his time discussing politics and philosophy with Anaximander, which is interesting because when most of us think of Greek philosophers, we think of Plato (who had not been born at this time) and Socrates (who makes an appearance in the story, but is described as a pest with a big nose). In a way Spitama, who was raised a Zoroastrian and believes in a dualistic world, namely a world in which equal but opposite powers are forever struggling for control, on a search for truth and meaning in life. His travels, as he tells them to his Greek friends, have taken him to India, where he met with the Buddha, and as far abroad as China, where he met with Confucius.

tThere is little to no discussion of Greek religion in this book, namely because it is generally accepted that Greek religion was fairly primitive at the time. Instead we have discussions on philosophy with one of the pre-Socratic philosophers, as well as an exploration of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. It should be noted that, with the exception of Zoroastrianism, all of these religions are not strictly religions, but rather philosophies. It should also be noted that there is an acceptance that the old polytheistic religions (such as the one that Zoroastrianism superseded in Persia) were considered primitive, and that a movement forward involved moving away from a world of conflicting deities, to a world with either one, or no, deities.

tZoroastrianism has been considered to be the foundation religion from which the major monotheistic religions of today arose, however I tend to disagree. It is noted by some commentators that there is a problem with Spitama being Zarathustra's grandson in that it is now suspected that he lived a lot earlier than he did in this book. I tend to fall into the position that Zoroastrianism had probably been around in Persia for a while (and in fact it was probably introduced to Persia when the empire expanded to the northeast), but became popular after the fall of Babylon and the freeing of the Jews.

tVidal seems to consider that the 4th century BC was a period in which there was a lot of expansion in human knowledge. It was during this time that Buddhism developed in India, moving away from the pantheistic Hindu religion, Zoroastrianism superseded the older Persian polytheism, as well as seeing the collapse of the Neo-Babylonian empire. Greece was also developing a democratic political system as well as a system of philosophy, ethics, and rudimentary scientific ideas. I believe we even have encounters with the Jews in this book, but it has been quite a while since I read it that I am not able to say for sure (though it is on my list of books to read again). If this is the case, then it is another break from Herodotus, who for some reason, seems to completely ignore this rather important people who would end up having an even greater impact upon our culture (though I explore the reasoning behind this in my commentary on Herodotus).

tI wish to finish off with another comment on Zoroastrianism, and that is how many of us do not realise the significant impact that it has had on our culture. As well as enhancing the popularity of monotheistic religions (in that there is only one god that mattered because the other god as out to destroy us), it also introduced the concept of dualism, and that is the eternal struggle between good and evil. It was not the idea that existed beforehand, and is not the actual Christian (or Jewish position). Previously, evil was present, but weak, and this has taken hold to some extent with Christians who actually understand the bible, not so much that God is more powerful, but rather that love extinguishes evil much more than evil extinguishes love. Yet, despite all this we are still a dualistic society, and the modern church preaches not only on a Platonic background of heaven and hell, but on a dualistic notion of good and evil. Satan is everywhere, and if we don't watch out he will ensnare us and destroy us, despite the Bible telling us that love will always triumph over evil. While the bible warns us about indulging in evil, the concept of love, and of evil as being selfish, has become blurred to the extent that we end up living in fear of the real world, or we align ourselves with those who seek to destroy the freedoms that we have fought so hard to obtain.

This is not one of my favorite books of all time, but I am giving it five stars anyway because it truly is amazing. Vidal's grasp of history never fails to impress me. Creation is a long rambling journey across the fourth century B.C as viewed by Cyrus Spitama, a Persian diplomat and the grandson of Zoroaster. Vidal breaks several of the cardinal rules of fiction, and the book can seem a little exhausting at times; the lengthy conversations about ancient Greek politics would have been more interesting if I had a more in-depth understanding of Grecian history. That said, Gore is at his gossipy best when he delves into harem politics, and his vivid descriptions of Cathay, India, and Persia give life to an era too often blandly summarized.