Gore Vidal could spin a yarn! His research is, as always, exhaustive. You land in the court of Darius The Great who sends the protagonist, a devotee of Zoroaster, to the strange land beyond the Indus River frontier of Persia, a place we now call India. There he debates cosmology with The Buddah, later, in Cathay among the warring states we now call China he debates cosmology with Confucious. In the Center Kingdom fate affords him the opportunity to debate cosmology with Lao Tzu as well. Meanwhile the lethal games of court politics swirl around him, from the conniving women in the royal harem, the wiley princes jockeying for throne, the priests accusing each other of heresy, and the generals playing a sort of chess that spans continents. Throw in murders, curses, witches, and dragons and you get quite a story. Finally, exhausted, blind, elderly, our protagonist is sent to The Athens of Pericles as Ambassador. He tells the story of his incredible travels to Democratis, friend of Socrates. This is quite a ride!

The world was not always as small as it is today. Perhaps, in the future, when man travels beyond our planet, our world will grow again, but for now it is probably as small as it will ever be. But there was a time when journeys were measured in months or even years, when other countries were only known through myth and rumor and the people of every country beyond yours were Barbarians, and the ‘known world’ covered less than a quarter of our globe. The reality of these times becomes the fantasy of our times in Gore Vidal’s historical epic, ‘Creation’.

The world Vidal portrays stretches from Sicily in the West to China in the East, from the central Asian plains in the North to Egypt and the Gangetic Plane in the South, boundaries a year or more apart. His protagonist, Cyrus Spitama, travels from one end of this world to the other in the service of four successive Persian Emperors. The distances are invoked not so much by describing Spitama’s long and perilous journeys, but by the contrasting world views he finds in the countries he visits, and by each country’s attitude to the power of the Persian Court, which ranges from the open hostility of the Greeks to the indifference of the Chinese.

As Spitama travels across this world, he is caught up in its politics, trade and culture. Wherever he goes, he pursues an interest in the religions he encounters, and their visions of the world. Inducted into the mysteries of religion by his grandfather, the prophet Zoroaster (the book’s only significant anachronism), he admires the other teachers he meets, including Buddha and Confucius. He is at best a half-hearted evangelist, more interested in exploring other religions than proselytizing his own. Like any believer, he stays true to his own religion. He leaves it to his nephew Democritus to draw the inevitable conclusion that, if all religions insist they are the only true religion, the only reasonable conclusion is that all religions are false.

Spitama’s travels bring to mind fantasy novels where the hero wanders some mythical world on his personal odyssey. But Vidal has obviously done his homework on the history of the times and, like all good historical fiction, he integrates his fictional characters and events seamlessly with the known events and characters of the time.

The book is particularly strong on the details of the Persian court and its relationships with the Greeks. To those of us educated in the Greek version of events, it is refreshing to see the other point of view. Vidal brings realism to this side of the story by showing us that the Greece of Pericles and Socrates, the Greece of heroes and philosophers, the Greece that provided the foundation of Western society, had the same back-stabbers, manipulators, bullies, self-interest, conniving, deceit and petty squabbles as we see in our own world and our own governments.

Integrating the reality of the historical detail and the fantastical spread of Vidal's geography makes this an engrossing book.

Così parlò il nipote di Zarathustra, ambasciatore di Dario di Persia: con lui vivrai gli intrighi di corte, tra ginecei e eunuchi, per poi partire verso l'India, ascolterai la parola di Buddha e poi ancora più a est ove andrai a pesca con Confucio, discutendo dell'eccessività delle tasse. Infine ad Atene, ecco un maldestro muratore. Di nome Socrate. (Settecento pagine che vorresti fossero ancora di più).

I'm not sure I could have told you that Darius I of Persia, Confucius and Gautama Buddha all lived at the same time, but our central character, Cyrus, contrives to meet them all. Half-Persian, half-Greek, he becomes an ambassador for Darius and travels all over South and East Asia.

While meticulously researched (and presumably historically accurate enough), at the end of his life, Cyrus narrates the whole story in the gossipy Washington D.C. insider tone of the 1960s that Vidal himself was very familiar with. At 510 pages, it took all my obsessive-compulsive powers to finish.

In an effort to encompass as many historical figures as possible over a key century, Vidal stretches probability at times; among other things, Cyrus is the grandson of Zoroaster and the Greek grand-nephew to whom he tells his story is Democritus, soon to conceive of the atom as the building block of nature.

The title itself reflects Cyrus's Zoroastrian concern with the origin of things, which in the course of many conversations with Buddhists and Confucians, he is frustrated that no one else seems to devote much thought to.

One of my favourite books on Iran and history. I first read this in 1982 when I was travelling in India. I had heard of the book before I began an around the world trip in 1981-82 and picked up a dog-eared copy in New Delhi. It had a profound effect on me because most of ancient history came from the Greek side of things primarily from the "Father of History" Herodotus.

Vidal took a different tact and wrote this book from the Persian side of history and rightly so. I don't know why Old World historians and ancient Near Eastern folk always favour the Greek side of things--there are two sides to a coin after all. We don't necessarily need to read everything from the victors side of things do we? Most Old World historians view has been skewed by reading Herodotus' histories.

After travelling through the Middle East in the 1980s, I went back to university and got a BA and MA in Near Eastern Studies with a minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and also spent time studying the rich Persian history. After a few years of Near Eastern archaeology, I finally got my chance to go to Iran and did so in 1999. Naturally, I was attracted to the many Achaemenid, Sassanid and Zoroastrian sites, as well as, the many Safavid and Qajar architectural masterpieces.

Later, I went to see the movie, "300" and I was appalled at the portrayal of Xerxes the Great shamelessly wearing next to nothing and at the bronze monkey-faced "Immortals" who looked like a bunch of freaks. I had seen images of the real "Immortals" on a staircase leading up to Darius' apadana at Persepolis--they did not look like monkeys at all. Incidentally, the "Immortals" were mercenaries and they probably had Greek mercenaries within their flanks. Their portrayal in the film was a travesty of the worst kind and really a pile of BS (probably the directors had Greek script writers).

Read "Creation" it is worth it.

'Vidal has said that he wanted to read a novel in which Socrates, Buddha and Confucius all made an appearance: lacking such a book, he had to write it himself '. A. Burgess

Well, he did a good job.
Set in the 5th century B.C., "Creation" is the story of Cyrus Spitama, the imaginary grandson of Zoroaster - the prophet of Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, and hence the man who introduced the first truly monotheistic cult in the Persian empire. After the invasion of their hometown Cyrus and his Greek mother move to king Darius' court, where the boy finds himself struggling to survive the deadly wars between factions and usurpers; but he also befriends Darius' heir, Xerxes, a youth of his age whose lifelong affection will change his existence. After years of careful plotting Queen Atossa, mother of Xerxes - unforgettably portrayed by Vidal in all her glory and ugliness: due to hormonal disturbances, she must cover her face with a thick layer of enamel to hide an embarrassing beard - succeeds in her plans and Xerxes inherits the magnificent Persian empire. From the Nile to the Indus river, hundreds of cities and lands belong to Cyrus' closest friend.

Although not a Zoroastrian, Atossa is fascinated by the intelligent youth, a perfect friend and councilor for her son: Cyrus is therefore entrusted with delicate diplomatic missions during the Greek wars and starts to travel all over the empire. He gets involved in the Persian wars and the resulting crisis of Xerxes' reign; he tells us about the intrigues of exiled tyrants and plotting generals; he unravels the secret aims of ambiguous politicians; and he travels to lands so remote and mysterious that their simple existence is no more than an abstract notion for the Great King himself.
Through the eyes of the protagonist, Vidal makes a paistaking report of the events as well as a perfect depiction of the ancient world: from Persia to Greece to India to Cathay, what we see through Cyrus' eyes is the world of 2400 years ago.

Cyrus' time is a crucial era. An era of religious, philosophical, historical transition and revolution.
Being Zoroaster's grandson, the Persian-Greek youth is seen as a spiritual heir by the prophet's followers. Although he is not in the least interested in being a religious leader nor a philosopher of any sort, Cyrus is determined to find out the truth about the origins of the world and the meaning of Evil, the only questions still unsolved by all the religious and philosophical beluefs of his time. During his travels he meets the men who will shape the future of mankind's thought: founders of spiritual and philosophical systems like Buddha and Confucius, but also Socrates, Herodotus, Pericles... even though it is clearly impossible to determine with absolute precision whether any of them was alive according to our protagonist's chronology, they all lived in this age of intellectual and spiritual exploration. Vidal's true aim is to show how their paths were restlessly intertwining, twisting and turning, widening or narrowing but basically coexisting.
Cyrus is the man who is in search of an answer. He gets acquainted with any man who supposedly has found his own, just to realise that none of them is either right nor wrong. At the end of his life, Cyrus understands that the only answer possible lies in the question: it is only in the last pages that the old blind man unravels the secret. Then we are finally told the truth...

As always, Vidal is a perfect researcher as well as a great story-teller. The depiction of the main characters and settings is impeccable and there is no hindsight of any sort - the greatest flaw of much historical fiction. Vidal's characters do not speak, think, drink, eat like actors playing in a movie; they are men and women of their time, and also their portraits are as vivid and realistic as possible.
So, even though I must say that I preferred "Julian" - Vidal's historical masterpiece about the Roman emperor known as the Apostate - this book is one of the best examples of good historical fiction, written at a time (1980) in which this genre was not exactly popular. All those who are interested in ancient history will appreciate the thorough research that lead to this important achievement in Vidal's 'serious' work. On the other hand, it will be a pleasant surprise for those readers who are only acquainted with his outrageous satires, such as 'Myra Breckinridge' or 'Duluth.'

I read for a lot of reasons. From 2020 until I recently nearly all of my reads were escapist with a dash of elegance thrown in.
But I also read to learn. My curious monkey mind adores something new and the opportunity to expand. So often during this book I stopped to google - to look at maps or Wikipedia or photographs. I cannot think of the last time it took me a month to read anything - particularly if I wasn’t reading another book or two at the same time. But I read this, and only this, every night. In small doses. I rolled it over in my mind when I wasn’t reading it.
This book is breathtaking in its scope. The amount of research that went into it is unfathomable. And yet while I learned i remained engrossed in the story. I’m in awe of so much knowledge so gently presented.
I added this book to my best reads of 2022, 2023 and my favorite reads period. Magnificent.

This was my most tedious read ever. I have read several books by Gore Vidal and enjoy authors from Lee Child to Stephen Ambrose to Barbara Tuchman and everything in between. I enjoy historical fiction. This book was painful. I have been cursed with a condition in which once I start a book, I have to finish it. Even though this was a used copy ($4.78), I did finish it. Kudos to all the intellectuals who gave it 5 stars. I don't get it.
I have read a number of Vidal books and would highly recommend him as a writer. 1876, Burr, and his screenplay for "Is Paris Burning?" were beyond very good.
I am puzzled.

This novel is basically an exploration of the question "If God created the universe, then who created God?" through the device of a Persian grandee-but-not-noble that travels between Greece and China around 400 BC. The funny thing is that nowadays many people end up on their own spiritual journey, starting with their own faith tradition then learning about those of others, and come up with as few definite answers as the protagonist Cyrus Spitama does in this novel.

I greatly enjoyed the enlightening historical aspects of this book but I must admit it was one of Vidal's least-interesting novels to read. You can tell he wasn't so much trying to tell a very interesting story so much as explore the idea that one person could technically have met Zoroaster, the Buddha, Confucius and Pythagoras and Socrates in one lifetime but the effort of stringing together so many far apart places, histories and characters limits the capacity of the author to construct a compelling narrative.

In the end, I do come down more on the Eastern view of a circular spiritual path than the straight line with a beginning and ending that most monotheistic religions believe in. At the same time, believing that we all have infinite chances to be terrible human beings because there's always another incarnation down the line to make up for it does take away the impetus to improve things for everyone in the here and now. The best praise I can give this book is that is forces you to ask yourself these questions to oneself and could prove to be enlightening to someone who has never sincerely compared their faith tradition against those of others.

... къде е опцията за 10 звезди?!! С цяло същество бих й ги дал! Толкова любима... толкова моя... толкова всичко, което търся в една книга. Радвам се за себе си, че я открих, прочетох и мисля. Умишлено бавех прочита на последните страници. Кир Спитама стана верен приятел, за който ще се сещам винаги. Приключението на живота му беше вълнуващо и изпълнено с толкова смисъл, с колкото трябва да бъде изживян един живот. Няма да говоря повече. Няма да я препоръчвам! ЩЕ Я НАТРАПВАМ! :)

Por medio de las memorias de Cyrus Spitama, un embajador delegado en India, Catay (China) y Grecia durante una larga e inusual carrera al servicio del imperio persa, Creación presenta una visión panorámica de la política, la filosofía y la religión quinientos años antes de cristo.

El relato inicia cuando un Spitama anciano y ciego, apostado en Atenas al final de sus días, escucha con asombro e indignación las imprecisas y sesgadas descripciones de Herodoto sobre el conflicto persa-griego y decide ofrecer una versión mejor informada de la historia, que conoce de primera mano. Así comienza el recuento de la vida de un cortesano muy hábil con las palabras y nieto de Zoroastro, el líder de un culto religioso que influiría considerablemente sobre el judaísmo y el cristinismo.

Junto a Spitama, hombre pragmático, inteligente y perspicaz pero con ciertas preocupaciones religiosas y filosóficas, el lector inicia un largo viaje en el que conocen la majestuosa corte persa de los reyes Darío, Jerjes y Artajerjes, y viajan a la exhuberante India, a la lejana y enigmática Catay y al más cercano y menos esplendente territorio griego.

Grecia, Persia, India, Catay, 4 mundos , 4 visiones casi independientes de los asuntos del más acá y del más allá mostradas por Gore Vidal en una muy interesante novela que es, al mismo tiempo, una enorme lección de historia con énfasis en la política, en la religión y en sus pactos secretos para justificar gobernantes y someter mayorías.

A huge book. Big story. I don't think it works 100%, which breaks my heart, but those things that are good are very lovely indeed. The language is smooth and pretty, without gushing.
The best part: Vidal portrays the Ancient Greeks as the opposite of everything we've been taught.
Worst part: I really had to force myself to believe the protagonist was a devout Zoroastrian. He just never really seemed to be.
But I think I'm changing my mind on that, having read it a fourth time.