Lincoln: A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 2)

Very good addition to my collection.

first and foremost, vidal was an engaging writer with a dry sense of humor and a charming, nearly pious love of american history. though his fiction is not as riotously and savagely funny as his essays, the novel is peppered with wry observations about the nature of power, many coming straight from lincoln's mouth.vidal clearly both admires and pities lincoln for getting everything he ever wanted--and some of the grave and terrible decisions he had to make to play out his hand. he's also wonderfully sympathetic toward mary todd (vidal always had a weakness for sharp tongued aristocratic american women) and paints a charming, complicated portrait of seward, the man who nearly was (and desperately wanted to be) in lincoln's position as america's first truly imperial president. showing his rare gift for taking history personally, and developing strongly antagonistic relations with long-dead figures, vidal is delightfully hard on pious blowhard salmon p chase who, despite being on the right side of the slavery issue comes off as a fustian buffoon.while clearly in awe of lincoln, and despite being sympathetic to the pressures that forced lincoln to govern as a dictator, vidal is also scrupulous in painting an accurate picture of lincoln's well meaning but ultimately regressive racial views. in a crucial scene, lincoln meets with a group of intelligent, propserous, free black men and is befuddled when they are not enthusiastic about his plan to deport all freed slaves "somewhere warm" with free black men like themselves going along to rule over the newly freed slaves.the book is part of vidal's "narratives of empire" series so i'm closing this review with the following comment: the decision to call it part of "the american chronicle series" in amazon's description is limp, milquetoast nonsense. gore vidal specifically fought with his publishers to make sure they did *not* call the series "the american chronicle" and his own specific and emphatic choice was "narratives of empire." lincoln is, first and foremost, a tale of the construction and maintenance (in the face of the real threat of dissolution) of the American Empire.

If you're a newbie to Lincoln and his administration this book is not for you. This was written for folks who have a minimal understanding/background of the main events of the Civil War and the main players in Lincoln's cabinet. I would not have been able to enjoy this book or finish it without first having read "Team of Rivals." Instead of being a literary novel, I think of Vidal's book as a jumbled screenplay - a collection of hand-picked scenes where we actually get to be a fly in the wall and see how Lincoln interacted with his peers. The book is well-written, but Vidal's writing style can be often be very frustrating - instead of finishing a chapter at the end of a conversation he often makes abrupt transitions to another event that happens days or even weeks later - all within one paragraph. It's as if you're watching a movie at home and someone accidentally presses the next chapter button on the DVD player when you were enjoying watching the scene at hand.All that being said, I did enjoy the insights this book provided. I never quite understood how lucky Lincoln was to have events turn his way right before his second election. It was very likely he was going to lose being re-elected. And... I never quite understood the extent of Mary Todd's spending sprees (and what a public relations nightmare that could have been) until I read this book. What a mess.Vidal also does an incredible job turning these historical figures into true characters. Good writers find the key personality traits to create striking caricatures that still embody the spirit of a person, and Vidal appropriately boiled down the essence of these historical people with titles such as "The Premier" (Seward), "The Ancient" (Lincoln), "The Hellcat/Madam" (Mary Todd). Little things like Chase's constant prayer mutterings and Sprague's blunt conversations really added depth to people that, before, were merely historical figures. Hmm... what else? Oh - one of my favorite parts was the climactic scene between Kate and Chase (where Kate throws up).Overall, a fun book - if you have some prior context with Lincoln's administration.

My understanding of President Lincoln has been made known to me in a way never done before. This book truly enlightened me to my favorite President

a fascinating read

What a joy it was to re-read this novel twenty years after my first time.Gore Vidal’s a fine writer, and he could hardly have chosen a better subject. Lincoln appears near the top of most people’s lists of best-ever US presidents, and absolutely at the top of mine. Among his many admirable features, one that strikes me most is that, as the Union was beginning to fall apart, with the South quickly towards war, he travelled into hostile territory: he went to Washington DC, sandwiched between Maryland and Virginia.He did that because he’d been elected President, leading the Federal government, and that government had its seat in Washington, just as the President had his residence there. He therefore had to be there or fail in his duty. And yet, already on his trip in to the city, he faced an assassination threat.So Vidal starts the novel with Lincoln being sneaked in, unannounced and in disguise, an excellent opening to a story that will pit this strange, perhaps even uncouth, and yet somehow heroic figure against an array of forces that had to be greater than anything he could withstand and would eventually crush him (I’m sorry if that’s a spoiler: to anyone who wasn’t aware that Lincoln’s story did not have a happy ending, I can only say that the novel’s worth reading anyway).Lincoln stayed in the city throughout the Civil War. He secured his rear by ensuring that Maryland stayed in the Union (along with three other slave states: Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri), often resorting to measures of dubious constitutionality to achieve his aim. Vidal traces the conflicts through which he had to fight to achieve his goals, often with members of his own cabinet. Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the novel is the way it vividly recounts the battles he had with two leading members of his cabinet: first, his major rival William Seward, who’d been expected to win the Republican Presidential nomination until he saw it stolen from him by Lincoln, and went on to become his secretary of state and quickly his most loyal supporter; and second, another rival, Salmon Chase, his Treasury secretary and the architect of the greenback, a man forever devoured by his ambition for the presidency, an ambition shared by his captivating daughter Kate.The ups and downs of these conflicts aren’t simply a history lesson, but a powerful story made all the more intense by the changing narrative viewpoints: much of the story is seen through the eyes of Chase, for instance, or of Lincoln’s secretary John Hay, and strikingly through those of David Herold – this a great case of a bit part, one Shakespeare might have called merely the “second murderer”, since Herold was an obscure accomplice of John Wilkes Booth’s in Lincoln’s assassination (whoops, sorry: there’s that spoiler again).Beyond all these local adversaries, in Washington or even in his cabinet, Lincoln naturally faces the powerful enemy of the secessionist armies. And between him and them there stand his generals in the East, each as inept as the one before, failing to find the wherewithal or the courage to take on and defeat the armies of General Lee. Right up to the appointment of Grant.Meanwhile, on the domestic front, Lincoln had a wife bordering on insanity who was unable to control her own spending, often drifting across the borderline into downright criminality to feed her addiction. He also lost a young child during his White House years, so there was little to console him at home for the tensions of his public life.All these threads Vidal weaves into a pacy, gripping and inspiring novel that I enjoyed as much second time through as first. It really is a model of how to write a historical novel: closely researched and respecting the facts, but blending in finely honed fiction, with enough skill in storytelling to make sure it fascinates and engages the reader.

Empecé a leerlo con cierta prevención, pues tenia entendido qque Gore Vidal era un escritor algo inclinado a "epater le bourgeois",pero, ahora, he de reconocer que este libro suyo (el único que he leido, por ahora) está muy bien escrito y da una visión muy humana de Lincoln

En Anglais, très bonne biographie d'Abraham Lincoln. Plus facile à lire pour un non-anglophone du fait que l'ouvrage sous forme romancée, mais fidèle à la vérité. Je l'ai choisie plutôt qu'un ouvrage d'historien en anglais pour cette approche plus facile de la vie du grand homme. Ceci après avoir vu le film de Spilberg "Lincoln". Je le recommande vivement.

史料に基づき、Lincoln と家族、Cabinet メンバーの動きを再現した著。　Lincoln　が中心だが、Licoln　も一人称ではなく、他の登場人物同様、三人称で語られています。　会話が中心で、史実に対する注釈じみた記述は一切なく、南北戦争当時のアメリカの歴史と、Lincoln、Salmon Chase（財務大臣）、William Seward（Secretary of State）等、主要な登場人物についての知識が前提とされているので、予め、歴史書とか、インターネットで予習してから読み始めることをお勧めします。妻の　Mary　に浪費癖があり、公私混同、政府の金を使い込んでしまってスキャンダルになりそうになったり、Salmon Chase が1864年の大統領戦で大統領になることばかり考えていたり、任命する将軍が次から次へと出来そこないだったり、正に四面楚歌の中、政治家として、自分の思うところを通すには、まず政争に勝ち抜かなくてはならず、それに相当のエネルギーを注ぎ込む　Lincoln　の姿が描かれています。印象としては、Cabinet　内での政争の記述が多く、やや　Lincoln　の姿が矮小化されているきらいがありますが、実際そうだったのかもしれません。　こうして南北戦争は戦争開始時の予想に反して長引き、南北とも、多くの若者戦場で死んでいきました。　Lincoln　夫妻　の戦場視察の場面があり、戦争が、まだ兵隊同士の戦いに限定されていたことがわかります。　これが、戦争末期、Shaerman将軍の有名な焦土作戦により、一般市民も巻き込んだものとなり、歴史上、戦争の実態は、急速に悲惨なものとなっていきます。　こういった「戦争の歴史」も垣間見ることができます。会話の場面が多く、当時の一流人がウイットを効かせますので、英語は結構難しいです。　しかし、筋は簡単なので、少々わからずとも、読み飛ばせばOK