Interesting characters. Short stories.

Fiction A-Z Book "V": Clouds and Eclipses by Gore Vidal

This is my first experience with Vidal, and I think I'd be interested in going on to his longer fiction. There's a coldness in regard to character in some of the stories that I found off-putting, but Vidal has a definite style that I liked overall. The stories range in tone and type, and it's interesting to see the hints toward questions of sexuality that Vidal was putting forward in the 50's.

For short stories, they didn't punch hard enough. Some of them like The Robin, A Moment of Green Laurel, they were really promising, but then pffft. One sentence, or even one paragraph too many. It spoiled the ending. The Ladies in the Library was the best of the bunch, in my opinion.

Clouds and Eclipses (2006) is the complete short fiction of Gore Vidal, written mostly in the 1940s and 1950s when he was still honing his talents as a writer. While these stories comprise his only short story attempts, they illustrate his deep capacity for character and unique situations. “Three Stratagems,” the book’s opening story, is about a young male prostitute, his interactions with potential clients, and the mishaps along the way. “The Robin” is a poignant tale about two boys whose brief thirst for violence leaves them traumatized; it is a beautiful allegory to the virtues of nonviolence. “A Moment of Green Laurel” has Vidal going into speculative fiction territory, with his lead character meeting a younger version of himself during transitional periods for each of them. Likely his best known short story, “The Zenner Trophy,” chronicles the life of an ace athlete and student kicked out of his school for having homosexual relations with another student, echoing themes from his landmark novel, The City and the Pillar. Vidal veers into horror territory with “Erlinda and Mr. Coffin”, a story about a young girl who is secretly a middle-aged woman who wreaks havoc on a small town. “Pages from An Abandoned Journal” recounts the story of a man in Paris whose glory and reputation have nosedived as a result of debauchery. “The Ladies in the Library,” some lighter fare in this collection, shares a story of older women caretaking for younger men, and the interpersonal conflict therein. Finally, “Clouds and Eclipses,” a story Vidal forgot about until it was discovered by researchers in his papers at Harvard, tells a fictionalized account of the early life of playwright Tennessee Williams, a good friend of Vidal’s.

In all, these stories show a writer figuring out his strengths— light on plot but rich in character, scene, and unique structure. I personally liked “The Zenner Trophy” and “A Moment of Green Laurel” the best, as they showcased Vidal’s ability to tackle the complexity of sexuality and the incompleteness of human memory, respectively. While not essential reading, this collection is a pleasurable snapshot of Gore Vidal’s development as a storyteller.

As someone with two degrees in English, you'd have thought, somewhere along that eight year journey of education, that I would have read/studied something by Gore Vidal. I'd heard his name before, but never knew much about him. The other day I watched the documentary "Best of Enemies" detailing his legendary debates with William Buckley, and their snappy banter had me rolling. The documentary also highlighted Vidal's successful writing career, and so I was intrigued enough to finally seek out his work. But where to start?

With most writers, a safe beginning comes in the form of any possible short story collections they might have compiled. My local library had a decent amount of Vidal's works, including the collection "Clouds and Eclipses." And I have to say, if Mr. Vidal's novels are anything like his short stories, I am in for a very good time and have found a good (new to me) author to catch up on.

"Clouds and Eclipses" consists of eight stories:

Three Stratagems: a story about an older gentleman and the new companion he becomes acquainted with on vacation. Bit odd.

The Robin: out of the collection, this story reads/seems like the one most likely to be published in an anthology for college. It's a bit haunting and sad.

A Moment of Green Laurel: for me, this story felt a bit Edgar Allan Poe-ish. It's not too hard to figure out the twist at the end.

The Zenner Trophy: given how the documentary I saw depicted Vidal's opinions on homosexuality, this story was interesting to read as a result. Some good food for thought.

Erlinda and Mr. Coffin: definitely the most colorful story in the collection. The ending is a rush of revelations, but still entertaining.

Pages from an Abandoned Journal: this story felt disjointed, which was probably the whole point.

The Ladies in the Library: I'm still not entirely sure if I 'got' the ending of this one right.

Clouds and Eclipses: previously unpublished, this story was based on a true anecdote from Tennessee Williams' early life.

This collection is an easy read; I read the whole thing in one day. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for some decent short fiction.

Loved it! Gore Vidal is such an amazing writer. My favorite was the Ladies in the Library. The only downside--I wanted more! I wanted a full novel on each story. But alas, that's the short story blues.

I think it was amazing.

All in all, a decent collection. The stories are of uneven quality, some, such as "Zenner Trophy" are of good quality while "Three Strategems" and "Erlinda and Mr. Coffin" leave something to be desired. That being said, the quality of the writing throughout is superior, and it is clear while Vidal is revered for his prose.

I picked up this book of short stories to get a taste of Gore Vidal's writing. This being said, I do think I will enjoy his historical fiction novels. As for his short stories, most of them are moments rather than stories and while I had a minor frustration about his choice to not provide the whole story, I actually came to appreciate it. I felt like I was walking into a scenario already in progress, without complete knowledge as to what happened to cause the moment...or how it ends.

Intriguing. 3.5 stars.

My favorite of the short stories is Pages From An Abandoned Journal.

Vidal in his younger years. Short stories to flex on.

n general I tend to avoid collected stories from celebrated or beloved authors under the following circumstances: 1) they aren’t really known for short stories; 2) the stories are almost exclusively from when they were very young. Some obvious exceptions occur. Philip Roth’s stories in Goodbye Columbus are all very good, two being some of the best writing he ever did. But Gore Vidal is known primarily for two things: novels and essays. He did some other things too, sometimes very well like write engaging, but not very literary plays. But no, he’s not known for short stories. In fact, he was published so young, and for a novel, that unless he really devoted himself to the craft of short stories, it doesn’t really make much sense to publish or read his collected stories except in a kind of completionist way. What I mean about the first point is that he established himself young as a novelist, and he wasn’t out there scrapping, both because he grew up rich and in a famous family, but also because of the early success. The same goes for Norman Mailer, who didn’t grow up rich, but did hit it big with novels early, and his short fiction is sometimes fine, but never great.

Anyway, this collection is about what you would guess from a collected stories that is 150 pages, and only covers about 5 years of a 60 year writing career. It’s interesting; there’s promise; and none of the stories are very much good.

Seven of these stories were originally published in 1956 under the title A Thirsty Evil. The title story was written at about the same time, but at the request of his friend, Tennessee Williams, it was withheld from publication at that time. Vidal was reminded of this story by a Harvard archivist in 2005, and the collection was republished with its inclusion. These eight stories are a marvelous collection and I feel lucky to have found it by accident at the Friends of the Library book sale last fall.

Although I have his Myra Breckinridge on my wish list, I have not read anything else by Gore Vidal. Even so, I was looking forward to this and was not disappointed. His prose is wonderful. By that I mean that it is interesting, varied sentence structure, which moves along smoothly without having to study it but without its seeming simple and "dumbed down."

Vidal was a young man when these were penned. The stories themselves are varied but seem to reflect his life experience of his early life on the east coast and his opportunity to have traveled in Europe. They have little plot, as is typical with short stories, and focus instead on glimpses of a character in life situations. They are not life situations that I have experienced, but they were very believable.

I have so many books I want to read, but I hope not too much time passes before I find time for a Vidal novel, or even perhaps, one of his non-fiction offerings.