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[skygiants]

I just finished Gore Vidal's Burr: A Novel, which will be the last round of Aaron Burr-blogging for a while, I swear!

Burr is essentially the fictionalized Memoirs Of Aaron Burr, as collected by Charlie Schuyler (no relation), a young man in Burr's law office who has been paid to write a defamatory pamphlet claiming that Aaron Burr is MARTIN VAN BUREN'S SECRET DAD, VAN BUREN'S NEVER GONNA BE PRESIDENT NOW!

I did some internet digging to see if this was a real rumor and found a reference to it in the e-book of Lyndon Orr's "Famous Affinities of History," published 1912, so it appears to have been a real thing or at least a thing that Gore Vidal did not just pluck out of nowhere! AND IT'S HILARIOUS. Maybe all of our presidents are secret descendants of Aaron Burr. (My other favorite historical facts learned from this book that turns out to be true: Aaron Burr totally hooked awkward turtle James Madison up with Dolley Madison; Davy Crockett hated Martin Van Buren so much that he wrote an angry smear campaign book about him.)

Anyway, the book is basically Burr's written-out sections of memoir interspersed with the Adventures of Charlie, theoretically the actual protagonist. I have absolutely no affection for Charlie as a character. His whole storyline consists of a.) waffling with himself about whether he's going to betray Burr, whom he likes, by abusing his trust in order to publish this defamatory pamphlet, and continuing to take people's money for it anyway; and, b.) fantasizing about a prostitute named Helen Jewett who reluctantly accepts his offer to have him set her up in an apartment but who would clearly much rather be doing anything else, with anyone else. (Helen Jewett is an actual historical personage, but don't click if for whatever reason you don't want spoilers.) There is also a lot of period-appropriate but nonetheless extremely grating casual racism. The only thing that I found really worthwhile about the whole Charlie frame story was the -- genuinely really interesting and well-done -- examination of the continuity and contrast between the America of the eighteenth century, which Charlie is only experiencing through Burr's memoir, and the almost completely different nation that exists in the 1830s. But this could I think have been conveyed through a protagonist who's a little bit less of a tool.

The 'Burr's-memoirs' bits of the book, on the other hand, are enjoyable, witty, interesting, and historically extremely well-researched. They are also, in some ways, extremely well characterized. Possibly my favorite part is how Burr spends hundreds of pages describing his attempts at gaining power without ever actually saying why he wants power or what he plans to do with it, which is perfectly in line with both Miranda's Burr and the sense that one gets of Burr as a historical figure.

(I feel it is also worth nothing that as much as Burr trash-talks Hamilton in the book -- and boy howdy, does he -- he also never mentions him without going on and on about how good-looking he is. He also describes Hamilton as playing Jonathan to Washington's David, and Patroclus to his own Achilles. I'M JUST SAYING. The subtext in Vidal's fanfic ain't subtle. And Vidal himself was extremely queer, so it's not like he didn't know what he was doing.)

However, I am not entirely convinced by Vidal's Burr. For one thing, Vidal's Burr does not just trash-talk Hamilton, he's mean about pretty much everybody he meets. This is funny and frequently satisfying -- I really deeply appreciate seeing Jefferson called out for his hypocrisy in a book from 1974 -- but stands in rather stark contrast to the Burr of Burr's diaries, who really does seem to like pretty much everybody he meets. I think the point where this officially tipped over into 'wildly OOC' for me was when Burr starts being sarcastic about Jeremy Bentham. Excuse you, Gore Vidal, I know for a primary-source fact that Burr loved Jeremy Bentham so much that he wrote Theodosia and basically told her that Jeremy Bentham was going to be her new second dad.

Also -- this is really less a complaint about characterization and more a complaint about the whole book -- Burr just does not talk enough about women. I don't mean this in the sexy sense. Vidal gives some lip service to Burr's identity as a prominent early feminist, but I feel very strongly that if you're going to write a book about Aaron Burr, Famously Interested in Women's Brains, you have not just the opportunity but the responsibility to -- as Lin-Manuel Miranda would put it -- put some women back in the narrative. And Vidal doesn't, not really. Women do appear, some affectionately portrayed, but they rarely do much moving or shaking even from behind the scenes. Theodosias 1 and 2 each get, if I remember correctly, one scene with dialogue apiece in the entire book. One scene each! The more I think about this the more frustrated I get, especially considering that the book also hints strongly at an incestuous relationship -- Vidal's decided that 'he's banging his daughter' is the thing that Hamilton said about Burr that was so unforgivable, and our good friend Charlie, hearing this, is like, "eh, you know, I can see it" and goes on his merry non-judgmental way, like, THANKS, CHARLIE?? And then no more is said about it???!

Which -- even aside from the fact that I personally feel it's extremely unnecessary to devote page-space to retroactively transforming one of history's cutest father-daughter relationships into one that is abusive and gross -- angers me because it reduces Theodosia even more to a Tragic Object and Motivator, rather than the forceful and formidable person that she was in her own right.

Comments

[gogollescent]

SAMESIES. No, uh, +1 to all the characterization enjoyment and also the characterization complaints. Burr's feminist credentials are largely overrated, but his interest in women isn't, going off his own dumb exposés--and more importantly, you know, it's nothing new but the complete invisibility of women in this kind of historical mock-up as anything but personal touchstones is SO irritating. Women must have been a serious part of Burr's private and public life because he existed and had a brain! ...that was not my most coherent rebuttal.

But yeah also I resent Vidal vaguely for, I feel, building up fanon Burr so much after the fact. There are nice, slightly bumbling, eager-to-please murderers! It's erasure!

[skygiants]

RIGHT, YES, like there should ALWAYS be women in your narrative because they are FIFTY PERCENT OF HUMANS, but if you DO have a hard time figuring out where to put your women in a narrative, Burr's life represents the absolute lowest-hanging possible fruit! it is basically training wheels for remembering to put in women?? so if you can't do that ...???

(Perhaps the weirdest thing to me is that the woman who arguably has the most historical impact in Burr's narrative is ... Peggy Shippen Arnold? I mean, sure, but why does Peggy Shippen Arnold get her Hilary Mantel-esque moment of being wittily unsympathetic and proactive, and nobody else?)

lolol it really is such fanon Burr though

[sovay]

Which -- even aside from the fact that I personally feel it's extremely unnecessary to devote page-space to retroactively transforming one of history's cutest father-daughter relationships into one that is abusive and gross -- angers me because it reduces Theodosia even more to a Tragic Object and Motivator, rather than the forceful and formidable person that she was in her own right.

BAD FORM, GORE VIDAL.

[gogollescent]

"it is basically training wheels" is. Yeah. Yes. Don't want to read his Lincoln fic.

I'm now reflecting on the fact that my last comment to you was a paragraph-long defense of Miranda's suave Burr Zabini headcanons. Well, um... anyway.....

[allchildren]

Do not know if you have read Chernow, but he seems quite tickled by the story that, during Benedict Arnold's initial betrayal, Peggy Shippen Arnold distracted Washington and Hamilton by pretending to go into hysterics whilst Benedict sent a letter exonerating her from being in on his treachery (which she totally was). She hoodwinked them into letting her go, whereupon she went to Theodosia 1, who was still Married to a British Officer, and LOLed about how fucking stupid Washington et al were. So... Peggy the Evil Genius + good buds with Theodosia (and probably Burr) is definitely a thing, and that thing is: Male Historian Catnip.

This book sounds, uh.

[skygiants]

I have not yet read Chernow, but lol, yeah, that exact story, including the LOLing is basically what Vidal recounts. Except with the addition of Peggy Shippen Arnold also attempting to get it on with Burr, because practically every woman in the book attempts to get it on with Burr. YOU'RE SHOCKED.

[skygiants]

IT WOULD'VE BEEN SO EASY NOT TO DO. Just have Charlie ask around about Theodosia and get actual interesting answers! ... instead of what he does, which is listen to all the Old Guard talk about how in love with Theodosia they were and sit there thinking 'ugh, I bet she wasn't ALL that.'

[plinythemammaler]

Gore Vidal, why!!! and why would you just...drop that in there...and then ignore it.....

on the other hand the martin van buren, I am your father NO IT CAN'T BE TRUE plotline did provide me hours upon hours of amusement!!

[skygiants]

RIGHT? WHY WOULD YOU.

I mean, I was also vastly entertained by the fact that it turns out Burr really is basically just the father of every character in the book. Aaron Burr: the Mark Hamill of history.

[evewithanapple]

I have been deeply unimpressed with all things Gore Vidal ever since I came out of Best of Enemies with the impression that William F. "Father Of The Modern Republican Party" Buckley was the more tolerable person to spend time with. So this book sounds about in line with what I know about the guy.

(I am peeved that he felt the need to namecheck Helen Jewett. Come on, hasn't the poor woman suffered enough?)

[rachelmanija]

I think this book reads way better if you read it before actual!Burr's diaries, though I did appreciate that despite the lack of page-time given to women, Burr does at least generally seem to like them as people while Charlie is a flat-out Nice Guy misogynist.

This is probably even more squicky, but I got the impression that the incest, if it actually existed, was intended to read more as obsessive love gone waaaay overboard than abuse; that is, that if it happened, it was in some sense consensual/mutual.

What I liked most about the book is its prose. The sentences are just beautiful. Also every scene with Jefferson's ridiculous inventions. (The bed was my favorite.)

Possibly this book primed me for Hamilton/Burr. Because, yeah, barely even subtext. Burr didn't like Hamilton, but he could not stop going on about how hot he was, and he made a point of how unattractive most of the other Founding Fathers were.

[skygiants]

Poor Helen Jewett! I have no idea if he MEANT her to come off as approximately 100x more sympathetic than his actual protagonist, and have a sneaking suspicion he did not, but dang.

[skygiants]

I mean, it's for sure hella squicky either way, but in general I'm not entirely sure it's possible for parent/child incest to be actually consensual, at least when the child is raised by the parent....but who knows how Vidal meant it, since the only pagetime it's given is about five super weird sidelong references. WHY, VIDAL.

The prose was definitely fantastic, though! And it was a very funny book. (The bed was HILARIOUS. Also, the pen-copier-machine!)

I still can't get over 'AND THERE WAS HAMILTON PLAYING PATROCLUS TO MY ACHILLES.' "And Hamilton came and buttered me up like we were history's greatest gay lovers, and I fell for it!'

[rachelmanija]

To be clear: RL parent-child incest: never consensual, by definition. However, I think in the story, Vidal seemed to be thinking of it more like the "love gone wrong" consensual obsession of the siblingcest in 'Tis Pity She's A Whore than abuse. But it was very vague! I do give him props for coming up with an explanation for why thirty years of disagreements hit PISTOLS AT DAWN right then, when they'd previously spent their entire lives only verbally going at it, which explained 1) why, 2) really would be beyond the pale, 3) why no one recorded it or spread it around (too shocking), 4) doesn't contradict history. (Hamilton, of course, had a very psychologically plausible turning point that was completely non-historical - way out of actual chronology.) Contemporary accounts do seem confused about the issue of "why then?"

Everything about Jefferson's inventions was so funny! The pen machine that made copying letters MORE work! (The work-saving device that is actually more work than before is a RL issue that is never not hilarious to me. Except when it gets inflicted on me via my office. My agency has a maddening (hilarious if you don't have to deal with it) habit of changing the filing system about once every month to make it "simpler." Every iteration is worse than the last, and you always discover it unexpectedly by running to get a file that you need immediately and discovering that you now cannot find any of your files.

All the Burr/Hamilton was totes intentional. 1) Vidal was queer. 2) Burr went out of his way to explain exactly how physically unattractive and non-charismatic every other Founding Father was, EXCEPT HAMILTON. And the POV was very carefully done (like, the book obviously had Vidal's issues with women, but it was also very noticeable that Burr basically liked women and described them flatteringly, while Charlie was SUCH an awful Nice Guy who could not see how misogynist he was and why women ran from him), so if Burr describes ONE man the same way he describes nearly all women… he has a thing for that man.

[rachelmanija]

I thought that was definitely intentional. There's so much stuff that seems really intentional involving unreliable narrators, and the unreliability of narration/history is an explicit theme, that I think the reader is meant to constantly be questioning the reliability of both narrators - maybe their accounts of the facts are correct, but what are they leaving out? How are their opinions affecting their views of others? What are they not getting?

Like, the consumptive abolitionist journalist is clearly going to be incredibly sympathetic to any modern reader who's not a giant racist, but Charlie doesn't like him and doesn't care at all about the rights of black people. And that's a POV thing, because Burr does care. Not in a modern way, but he's sincerely appalled at Jefferson and feels bad for his slaves. I don't think Charlie would have had that reaction.

I thought the reader was supposed to see that Helen was absolutely right, and though Charlie could not even comprehend why women consistently did not want to be around him, it's pretty clear from his actions (and what women say to him) why they all eventually basically just want him out of their lives. His one relationship that seems to work out, we barely see so it's hard to say if he learned something or if there's any actual love involved or what.

[skygiants]

I think the part that made me go @___@ the most was when Burr says something like "Theodosia 1 was almost perfect, except of course for not being my daughter." Burr ...?? VIDAL ...????????

(The work-saving device that is actually more work is such a CONSTANT, and even more of a constant in government bureaucracy, so it is 100% apropos to have Jefferson basically invent it.)

Yeah, it was definitely intentional. Gore Vidal: perhaps the world's very first Hamilton/Burr shipper? Which I guess is something you can put on your resume!

[skygiants]

I thought it was intentional at first too, and then I went on Wikipedia and it turns out that Charlie is the hero of at least one future book in the series and the Dynastic Father of various series protagonists, and then suddenly I doubted everything and began to wonder if Vidal really did respect and identify with Charlie and EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW WAS WRONG.

(Perhaps it would have been less in line with Vidal's Grand Design, but I would so much rather have been following the consumptive abolitionist journalist!)

[rachelmanija]

I guess I'd have to read the books to find out, which minus Burr does not sound that interesting. (I might read Lincoln, though.) But main character/dynastic father doesn't necessarily mean that Vidal likes and respects him - depiction is not necessarily endorsement.

I was also more interested in the journalist, but I thought a big part of the point of the journalist was to make readers not automatically identify with Charlie and to point him out as unreliable to some degree - he dislikes the most clearly likable character in the entire book, and his reason for disliking him is that he's an abolitionist - one of the few political stances from that time that modern readers are almost universally going to see as unquestionably the right one. Charlie thinks abolitionists are chumps, Charlie gets a little side-eye from readers. One hopes.