Slacks for Ella Funt

This was another book picked by my book group. It seems like we have better discussions when we read books that aren’t contemporary. More to talk about than just whether we liked it or didn’t like it. For Burr, we talked about Burr’s version of events versus Vidal’s views versus what actually happened in history. I didn’t really remember much about the standard history book version of Burr other than the duel with Alexander Hamilton. Vidal celarly knew a lot more than that—his research is impressive in its scope and detail. The historical detail sometimes makes reading Burr feel more like reading a history than a novel. Interesting as Burr was, I did find myself getting bogged down in the history at times, particularly in the political machinations. Sometimes it was hard to remember which character was which, only helped by the fact that many of the names were familiar.
What Vidal adds to the history and what keeps the book interesting are the characters’ opinions and motivations. After all of the worshipful books about the Founding Fathers over the last few years, it was fun to read Vidal cutting them down to size. From Washington’s fat arse to Davy Crockett’s drunken ranting, no one makes it through unscathed.

By describing the beginning of America’s democracy and early presidents establishing and pushing the boundaries of presidential power, Vidal is commenting on the risks of an imperial presidency. Burr was written in th 1970s, so he was probably talking about Nixon, but reading it now, it could just as easily be about Bush.