![]() ![]() These three eiders form a kind of Greek chorus whose sage observations periodically punctuate the narrative, providing moral counterweight to the heady world of money and power into which Caroline-and Vidal-plunge. As the novel begins over a silver-service dinner in London, well-born Caroline shyly trades ripostes with expatriate author Henry James, US Ambassador to Britain John Hay, and Henry Adams of the Adamses. A brood of real-lifers tromp around heroine Caroline Sanford in this snob's epic, linking her charmed life with that of the nation at large. ![]() With this fourth and most effervescent entry into his American Chronicle (Burr, 1876, Lincoln), Vidal has concocted a fine champagne of historical fiction that plucks a lush heroine off the Krantz/Sheldon/Steel vine-a brainy beauty who angles her way to the pinnacle of newspaperdom-and bottles her in the glittering world of imperial America, vintage 1900. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |