The City and the Pillar

by Gore Videl

A literary cause célèbre when first published more than fifty years ago, Gore Vidal's now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience.Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in "awful kid stuff", the experience forms Jim's ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. Along the way he struggles with what he feels is his unique bond with Bob and with his persistent attraction to other men. Upon finally encountering Bob years later, the force of his hopes for a life together leads to a devastating climax. The first novel of its kind to appear on the American literary landscape, The City and the Pillar remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of sexual relationships between men.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Classics, Gay, Historical Fiction, Novels

Paperback

First published January 10, 1948

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

gay misery porn. the writing is polished and sophisticated, no surprise given that it is by the massively talented Gore Vidal. also, why aren't more people named "Gore"? this was absorbing despite also being boring and depressing, if that even makes sense. sometimes, strong writing can carry me through a maudlin experience. and it is interesting as a historical document. I had heard that the ending was dark but I didn't realize it would be that kind of dark. yikes! well, at least no suicide. sorry if that's a spoiler for you and you wanted the kind of tension in a book that is all about whether or not a depressed closet case will kill himself.

synopsis: handsome straight-acting gay guy can't find love and can barely accept himself and maybe those two things are linked, you know?

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

So few of my GR friends have read this and other Gore Vidal classics, I have to pose the question: where does Vidal stand in the American pantheon? Do his historical novels about the Republic turn readers off for their political content and supposedly dry writing? Does his late career as polemicist and hired mouthpiece present him as a dusty old eminence, far too close to the rich and famous to have any worth as an artist of substance? Can someone born into a wealthy political family, close to JFK and Al Gore, win admiration as a novelist? Answers please. More people should read his eccentric novels—clearly Gore takes more risks than many of his American contemporaries, coming from a refreshingly bisexual perspective, not the rampantly hetero angle of Mailer and Updike. This novel is an excellent early shocker about a teenager’s nascent homosexuality, and probably still provides solace to readers today, despite its 1940s barcode. The writing is concise, unshowy and closely renders the experience in a believable, painful way. I love Vidal for his completely unpretentious, direct, anarchic, sublimely erudite books! Why don’t Americans?

[Carol Storm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Be warned: Goodreads will "recommend" this book to you automatically if you've read OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS by Truman Capote.

Gore Vidal and Truman Capote were both gay men, and both Southerners. Both became literary sensations right after World War II by writing about homosexuality with frankness at a time when it was still absolutely forbidden to discuss the subject in public.

Granting all that, however, the two of them really have nothing in common. Not in terms of temperment, talent, disposition, artistic abilities or even basic goals. It's like comparing Jimi Hendrix to Spike Lee!

Truman Capote wrote dreamy, romantic prose full of emotion and atmosphere that focuses entirely on the deepest feelings of his characters. Gore Vidal wrote hard, flat, angry prose that used characters merely as stick figures to make whatever political or social points he was trying to get across. Capote loved to charm. Vidal loved to outrage. Capote was more interested in feelings than in ideas. Vidal was more interested in ideas than feelings.

THE CITY AND THE PILLAR is a gay coming of age story, much like OTEHR VOICES, OTHER ROOMS. Except that in this story the hero comes to despise his first love, and all the men who come after that, and the human race in general, and himself most of all. All the descriptions are ugly, flat, and lifeless, and the characters are barely recognizable as human beings with feelings and regrets. This book is ugly and unpleasant and has very little appeal to a sensitive reader. It's not even a strident rallying cry for gay rights -- more of a strident exclamation of disgust at life in general.

Which continued to be Vidal's theme for the next fifty years. But it felt like much, much longer.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

I'm pretty sure I read this a long, long time ago, but the memory is rather vague. As the first in a planned year-long look back at some of the seminal works of gay literature, this was de rigueur for a revisit. First off, it is fairly amazing that a book so upfront and forthright about its subject ever got published in 1948. It's not particularly shocking now, but 70 years ago, especially as the work of someone barely 20, the shock waves were deserved.

But that's part of the problem - the book is definitely the work of a very young, very inexperienced writer, even though it was the third of Vidal's novels, and the version I read is the revised one from 1965, which tried to mitigate against what Vidal reveals in the Intro was a purposely flat prose style. It's STILL rather flat, although the story moves along, and the themes are clear. The ending, however, was changed significantly, and I got a copy of the original so I could compare the two different endings. For my money, the original ending is both more powerful, and just works better. Vidal also truncated Jim's encounter with the stranger in the bar in the final chapter, and it now feels rushed.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time had stopped.

Head down to the visitor's attractions of earth open wishes. What were you dreaming when it hit. Asteroid eyes rove the green eyed monsters monumentally frozen into mountainsides. You get what you paid and sold. The secret smile cried into cold dead hands. Hold the palm shut to make stick in after life. Jim in the dark wonders that everyone doesn't know. What the bulges in trousers must have invited. They dance by tables in whirls of what to wear or does it always look that way. Everyone is good looking in the kind that says walking away. Behind the cut hands they. I can never tell which because they don't live long enough to touch the soul. They know, everyone knows. Oh, you know that movie star. He's that way. Jim doesn't live long enough to touch as he passes through speeches from lights, camera, action. He's a kept man and a sigh escapes to condemn his fate. Where are you going, where have you been. Who were you with eyes ask over backs. Now a not-so-good (it is implied in how no one can ever love him enough) author borrows the young tennis player into his bed. It is only stealing. People look away and the world turns without it. What does the world care if you get warm and hard with a man? If you could walk the hole in your heart to China (that Cyndi Lauper song, yeah) with your hands tied behind your back. I'm not, not that way. The not knowing the lyrics kind of hum. I'm sure Lauper had a song like that in the '80s and people got dressed up in dyes to make a statement. I don't know what it was supposed to say, if it said anything. Then, or now. If it didn't vibrate to the moon what was any of it good for. The parties and the bars, the couples and you must have a girl somewhere. What were they wearing and who were they with. No where to go. Once upon a time Jim adored unadorned Bob. Don't call it love for this is something else, not that way. Before there were girls you must have stashed away somewhere (where are all of these loose girls coming from? If they were this fast I still cannot imagine the slut coughing circa WWII was good for them any more than queer jokes were for the men)-- There was never such thing. You weren't looking. Get off me, don't touch me and it repeats and lathers everywhere, asshole glitter. A colonel with a girl back home. Same old story announced for all of his quiet loves. The smile falls when it is said out loud in parties of queers. The grain of the earth falls away to the wood and the distilled oblivion. I'm not sure what kind of a genius Gore Vidal is. My line was electrified from the start of this man falling. The blurring around the eyes, the don't look. I guess people didn't like this book when it came out for saying that homosexual men were everywhere. How dare he write such a thing. I don't feel in my guts any way that it had to be. If society weren't such a hard place to be would the Bob of his dreams be his perfect twin? Probably not, no. The distance pulled me along and kept me away. I can see the perfect statute of the teenager without his shirt on in their special cabin. On dreams of I'm going to run away and leave you. He lets him touch him. And then he doesn't. The dream dies like that around him and I want to touch the insides of the living carcass instead of the outline of the headstones. Where did it come from? And this black 'scapes world is corner of the eyes and feeds on nothing. They share space and bide time. I liked this book a lot but I didn't love it when I didn't break my heart too and leave me a message. I don't live in secret smiles of what no one knows because it isn't true. It doesn't matter what anyone knows if you won't listen. You can't have Bob, and they can't have you. My heart breaks somewhere else than the lies of dream color dressing. Somewhere there is a statue of Bob's pillow tears when he's helpless to Jim who no longer wants to just ask. Somewhere before Jim didn't know what it meant to only be a kept man. Something. I don't know. Somewhere where the guts are still churning something to throw up. They don't know already what you don't know and they don't know you (they don't). I will definitely read more of Gore Vidal's fiction. The man sure can write the blazes off the sun and stick it where it doesn't shine. It was almost enough to go with the back breaking... To die on if not to feed. I can see Jim without guile because he has everything to hide from himself. He opens his mouth and the dark covers the trail. And then he stops. It felt cruel and it felt already dead, in this one secret that maybe shouldn't have been louder than it all. From house to party to bed and fleeing questions. If the exterior suggests the tragic he wins. If I'm lost with nothing on the inside then I am losing. I don't know what happens in bedrooms and cold hands and tomorrow might be long but there's more to stir than what people might be saying. You know, like that. (I can't believe I'm doing this again. I felt let down not even trying to describe Alfred Chester's crackling humor and I'm not even going to try again. How do I describe the pit fall in your stomach as you laugh? Oh but I love it. I can't set it off into the world to live with me but I say now that I love it. It is in another land than cruel. The twist at the lips says if you aren't going to admit it I will and once it is said it is alive in the world.)

He did not believe in heaven or hell. He thought it most unlikely that there was a special place where good people went, particularly when no one was certain just what a good person was, much less what the final repository was like. What did happen? The idea of nothing frightened him, and death was probably nothing: no earth, no people, no light, no time, no thing. Jim looked at his hand. It was tanned and square, and covered with fine gold hairs. He imagined the hand as it would be when he was dead: limp, pale, turning to earth. He stared for a long time at the hand which was certain to be earth one day. Decay and nothing, yes, that was the future. He was chilled by a cold animal fear. There must be some way to cheat the earth, which like an inexorable magnet drew men back to it. But despite the struggle of ten thousand generations, the magnet was triumphant, and sooner or later his own particular memories would be spilled upon the ground. Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Nothing is 'right.' Only denial of instinct is wrong."

There is a great and epic, operatically tragic story of gay desire in The City and the Pillar and it is this:
Jim Willard is uncertain and confused in his adolescent sexuality. One perfect summer night by the moonlight, he and his best friend Bob Ford, are romping about in the nude by the lake, splashing and shouting and reveling in their youthfulness. They begin to wrestle and suddenly the urge takes hold and they make out and make love. For Jim, it is the perfect and defining moment of his life, and he wants more of it. But, of course, the two boys live in a world where what they have just done is simply not done, or discussed. They chalk up what they had just done as "kid stuff." But, that doesn't seem to square with Jim's true feelings. Unfortunately, it is the waning days of summer, and life has different plans for the two and they are forced to go their separate ways.

For the rest of the novel, Jim loses complete touch with Bob Ford for all those intervening years and obsesses over him during hopeless travels of the world in search of him -- an epic journey that takes him to various ports of call as a civilian seaman, and then across the US and Mexico as a Hollywood tennis instructor, a private in the air force in World War II and more. During this time, he meets a succession of male lovers who for him can never match the ideal of his first love and that first encounter, and thus all of these relationships are empty for him, reminding him of what he doesn't have and so desperately wants.

And then, finally -- courting heartbreak or ecstasy -- he meets Bob again.

I don't consider any of this description to be a "spoiler" because I've only provided a plot outline, not details and resolutions. But what I have described is the main story arc of the book, and it's a tremendous and promising story. It's not an "uplifting" story, and the apparently one-sided nature of the desire is poignant. There is a vast chasm between its initial lovely moment of ecstasy and its potentially promising renewal. The key is how it gets there, and in the getting there whether it is interesting and emotionally valid.

Unfortunately, I'm saying no. In my opinion, Vidal fails to realize the heart-wrenching potential of this material, and the book, by and large, is bland and boring.

Even Vidal himself, in his later years, while immodestly heralding his book as a heroic effort in publishing and in the world in general in 1948 (which he was correct about), also admitted that the book suffered from its penny plain Hemingway-esque blocks of grey prose, a literary style popular among young writers at the time -- which he was also correct about.

But before I cite specific justifications for my judgment, there is an overarching issue about the book that concerns me, and that has to do with the existence of two versions of it. Not quite satisfied by the stark and brutal ending of the original 1948 version and other aspects of the narrative, Vidal revised the book in 1965, completely changing and softening the ending. I'm certain his reasons for doing this were valid -- he had matured as a man and a writer, after all -- but what this means is that today most copies of the book in circulation and all copies that have been printed for the last 50 years are of the revised version. In other words, if you want to get a sense of how shocking the book must have seemed to people in 1948 when it first arrived -- rather unexpectedly to an unready public -- you are kind of out of luck. I have no idea how much different the two versions are, or how forceful or how much softer the more overtly gay love passages are in the original book. Reviews and the introduction in the revised version simply say that Vidal revised it, while Vidal himself has said he completely rewrote it (which I doubt). This is a problem in terms of gauging historical perspective.

I read the 1965 revised version, so I felt out to sea in trying to replicate in my mind the experience of the typical 1948 reader.

All of this notwithstanding, the book gets off on a bad footing from the get-go. Vidal begins the book with a dissolute and drunken Jim, slouching about and playing with his spilled drink in a dim gin joint, like Humphrey Bogart mewling over Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. The scene is a flash-forward from the main story, and I think its a tonal mistake. It telegraphs too much of the eventual emotional fallout at the very beginning of the story, and it smacks too much of movie-stylistic gimmickry. Vidal was a huge movie fan as a youth, and it shows. He saw practically every film ever made at the time, and this device seems to have been lifted straight from one of his cherished screen melodramas. It reminds me of what I've read in Haruki Murakami, and I reserve the same critique for that author.

As in Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun, Vidal has to take his narrative from point A (or B, since when have to get past the flashforward) -- the epiphanous love scene -- to the resolution of point Z (or Y, since the "flashforward" thread is circled back to at the end). The problem is that all the points between, from B to Y, feel like forced labor. Almost of the characters, including Jim, are cardboard. The journey does allow Vidal to explore the nature of "empty" sex lives in a time when searching for same-sex love was especially challenging, yet little of this contains any true introspection as the narrative plods along in its boring particulars. Vidal grew up in elite circumstances, so when he talks about life in Hollywood or about tennis and cocktail parties he knows some things, but when it comes to detailing the life of a seaman he is, no pun intended, out to sea. Many of the dialogues feel, literally, like four-square conversations from an old movie.

Because Jim is not an introspective character, we have a hard time feeling the intensity of his anguish. This might be partially intended by Vidal, since the nature of Jim's desire is somewhat nebulous due to his confusion. But it forces Vidal to find external plotting strategies to make his points, and they often seem forced and wrenched about inelegantly. For instance, to make a point about Jim's sexual identity confusion, Vidal creates a scene in which he and a shipmate, the heterosexual Collins, go into Seattle and pick up two girls at a bar. Based on what we are told about the girls, Annie and Emily, the dynamic of this bar scene pickup are not convincing, but the whole scene is a setup so that Vidal can have his character, Jim, be pressured into identifying publicly as heterosexual. This is not a trivial point, and is the kind of situation many gay men have confronted in a hostile society, but in Vidal's hands it feels transparent and lumpen.

By creating a somewhat blank-slate protagonist, Vidal has created a somewhat correspondingly insoluble conundrum. There is nothing wrong with Jim being an inarticulate, non-cerebral character -- after all, even dummies can love and desire deeply. But Vidal has to fill an entire novel with this guy, and the sense of his maturation does not match the life experiences he goes through in the story. Jim has a love affair, he's unsatisfied. He has another, and is still unsatisfied, and on and on. There are moments of surface introspection (if that's not an oxymoron) but, barring Jim's ability to intelligently parse his feelings, Vidal could have solved this problem by spending more time giving us a sense of the confusions in Jim's brain, because, after all, we the readers deserve this if we're going to invest our time and emotions. There is a way to get at confused inner thoughts, but Vidal rarely takes the time to reveal them. I'm not sure if this is because Vidal feared making his character and situation too florid, or if it was simply a function of not being too explicit during a time when the book would undoubtedly be controversial, as it was.

What the book needed was the French touch, not the Hemingway touch; instead of leaden plot, more poetic feeling. The penny plainness of it all saps the mystery.

Sociologically, though, there are merits therein. The Hollywood and New York parties Vidal describes are fascinating for the explanation of gay codes and the descriptions of the various subsets of gay men: the manly gays versus the more flamboyant queens (the latter being so repugnant to Jim). Also interesting is the desire by many of the gay men to seduce and conquer the straight man, to smoke out the presumed bisexuality that he denies.

While trotting along with yawn-inducing Jim on his adventures, we are introduced at the halfway mark in the book to a jaded young writer named Paul Sullivan -- clearly patterned after Vidal himself -- and all of a sudden the life-essence missing heretofore springs up. Paul is a cerebral, interesting character who has thought profoundly about his situation as both an outsider artistic soul and gay man. In characterizing Paul's plight Vidal hits pay dirt, and I kept saying to myself, "Here's the damned book Vidal should have written! Paul is interesting. Paul thinks interestingly."

The concept of unrequited yearning, longing, of love held in abeyance, of creating and holding an ideal of someone that may or may not jibe with reality; these kinds of feelings expressed in adult fiction are among the primary reasons I read novels. In this book, the idea of futilely sought and elusive happiness is certainly a noble and worthy one, but given its preference of incident over thought during the longueurs, I was not persuaded or moved.

This book was a first and admirable attempt at waking people up, and Vidal chose not to wear his heart on his sleeve too much in writing it -- and it undoubtedly sent a signal to people that they were not alone in the world. That is fine, and even commendable, and the book is a landmark. But landmarks serve a purpose quite apart from art, and acknowledging the importance of the milestone does not make the art immune from criticism. It's a historically interesting book, but for me it is an unsatisfactory work that didn't resonate.


(KR@Ky 2016)

[Dagio_maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Credo che l’amore sia sempre una cosa tragica, per tutti, sempre».
«Ma è ciò che rende la vita interessante. Come possiamo valutare una cosa fino a che non è finita?».
«Niente luce senza oscurità?».
«Sì. E niente dolore senza piacere».


Virginia. Anni ’40.
Bob Ford, il migliore amico di Jim Willard, si è diplomato e tra qualche giorno partirà per realizzare il suo sogno: imbarcarsi sulla prima nave per conoscere il mondo.
Decidono di passare assieme l’ultimo weekend in una casa abbandonata sul fiume come hanno già fatto altre volte: rincorrersi, pescare e, la sera, stare semplicemente a chiacchierare davanti ad un fuoco. Due diciottenni come tanti.
Popolari a scuola: ammirati dalle ragazze per il loro fisici atletici ed invidiati dai compagni proprio per il stuolo di ammiratrici rubate.
Così si dirigono al fiume ma qualcosa accade.
Qualcosa che farà perdere la testa a Jim che inizialmente vede in Bob il suo gemello e si sorprenderà nello scoprire che quel fuoco si chiama Amore.

Anche Jim partirà ma questa non è la storia di un viaggio geografico ma il racconto di una strada tortuosa che cerca di comprendere se stessi e il mondo circostante.
Una riflessione su una realtà umana e sociale tanto pubblicamente taciuta e disprezzata quanto abbondantemente frequentata nel silenzio e nell’oscurità.

”A un tratto si domandò cosa sarebbe successo se ogni uomo come lui fosse stato naturale e onesto. La vita sarebbe stata senz’altro migliore in un mondo dove il sesso venisse considerato come qualcosa di naturale e non spaventoso, e gli uomini potessero amare gli uomini naturalmente, secondo la loro inclinazione, proprio con la stessa naturalezza con cui amavano le donne. Ma anche mentre era seduto a tavola, meditando sulla libertà, sapeva che era pericoloso essere un uomo onesto; e alla fine gli mancò il coraggio.”


Ma per quanto viaggi, per quanto si muova, per quanto conosca altre persone, Jim è ancorato, da allora, allo stesso porto.

”Tranne che per l’immagine dorata di Bob in riva al fiume in quel giorno di sole, lui non aveva storia.”

Il suo sguardo è rivolto solo al passato ed è la paralisi che gli impedirà di capire che ormai da tempo è una statua di sale.

Un romanzo di formazione dove la presa di coscienza dell’identità sessuale (Era uno di loro? (...) Con la conoscenza di sé, arrivò la paura. Se era davvero così, che tipo di futuro poteva avere? Alla deriva per sempre, promiscuità, sconfitta? ) procede di pari passo con la ricerca di un senso esistenziale più profondo.
Nonostante i pareri contrari degli editori, Vidal riuscì a pubblicare il libro.
Era il 1948 e divenne un best seller anche se il mainstrem lo trattava come oggetto perverso.

Vidal non abbatte il mito americano che si nasconde dietro i muscoli di atletico ragazzo biondo del college.
La sua è un’operazione di decostruzione di una virilità a senso unico.
Onesto, schietto e da leggere!

[od1_40reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was a whole lot darker than I’d expected. I’ve given it 4 stars, but as I’m reflecting on it more perhaps it should be 5, if only for what it stood for and meant in 1948?

The whole book is basically about internalised homophobia, caused of course by societies’ views at the time. At least that’s what I’ve taken away from it. And I’ve read that Vidal had to have a bleak ending in order to have it published in 1948. The gays couldn’t possibly live happily ever after. Frankly that in itself is darker than anything in the book!

I’ve heard younger readers complain that the book is not good queer representation. Please. Perhaps from our 21st century perspective… But in 1948 it was groundbreaking enough to have a novel in which the LGBTQ+ characters weren’t simply killed off!

The prose is frank, straight-talking, no frills. Some have said bland, to which I disagree. I really appreciated it, and read through it at speed.

I think over time I’m going to love this book more and more.

N.B. I’ve yet to read the Seven Early Stories also included in this edition.

[Daniel Myatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tragic and heartbreaking. A story on why you should never go back to your first love......

I first read this book at 18, then again at 29 and now at 42. Everytime I see something more and more in it that breaks my heart!

I really do wonder though what people thought of it when it was published in 1948?

[Ricky Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobody prepared me for that ending! This was largely a romantic journey across the coastline of North America. Jim is a sailor and then a tennis instructor as he lives out his transient gypsy life while pining the whole time for a lost love from his youth. He obsesses over and dreams longingly of his friend Bob, a redheaded dreamer like himself who shared a night of sensual connection with Jim but has since vanished into adulthood.

Hoping to run into his runaway lost love, Jim travels from New York to Alaska to Hollywood and Mexico. Along the way, he meets many diverse and intriguing characters and even a few stand-in lovers but none will replace the proverbial one that got away. The meandering search for Bob could be tedious or tiresome for some but the frequent fresh additions to the narrative including exciting locations rich with new adventure manage to make the odyssey enjoyable and diverting.

Vidal's prose is heavily influenced by Hemingway in it's no-nonsense frankness and brisk pace. Though his blunt matter of fact style can sometimes come off cold or unfeeling, that actually makes sense in context and the overall effect was a fast-paced character study of a young man grappling with his queerness and exploring the ways that others cope with their own unique struggles. More often than not, I tore through the propulsive pages of this classic queer novel and enjoyed the expansive and transportive experience.

The ending needed to be discouraging in order to be published in 1948 but Vidal's take on that stipulation is creatively disarming. I actually feel that this twist makes the whole story more interesting and rife for examination. I have to stop short of saying I liked the ending but given the parameters Vidal was given, it's a fascinating narrative choice.

The City and the Pillar is almost as shocking and salacious today as it must have been in its day. The longevity of its relevance is impressive and fascinating to observe. I will certainly be reading more Gore Vidal in the future and I'm honestly a bit obsessed with him now. If this is what he was writing in his early twenties, I am definitely curious and excited to see what he created in the rest of his prolific career. Though not a perfect novel, The City and the Pillar stands as queer classic worthy of its praise and the experience of reading it was a thrill that I won't soon forget.

[Wesley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for gay classics, and this book has been on my To Read list basically as long as I've had this account. It was not worth the wait whatsoever. I'm going to be overly critical of this and I don't care that it was originally written in 1946. I really don't !

This book is.....A Nightmare, honestly. I want to feel for Jim, I really do. But honestly I don't care about self-hating gays with so much internalized homophobia that he's disgusted with any male that shows even the slightest hint of femininity, only ever desiring "normal" men - aka men who appear and act straight, who one would never "suspect" of being gay. Jim Willard is the original masc4masc grindr bro. Maybe this was a revelation in 1948 but in 2019 it's distasteful. Even more so knowing that this rhetoric still exists today. Probably because of the prominence of stories like these hailed as gay "classics". Hearing that this was published in 1948 shocked me at first but now I see why a heteronormative publisher would take that chance. "True" gays that are effeminate and proud are clearly degenerates deserving of hatred, and Jim's attraction to men is only forgiven through the eyes of a heteronormative society because he is so repentant and remorseful, and he is so clearly Not A True Gay.

What really bothers me though, is the ending. I read the introduction where it mentions that the original ending had Jim killing Bob, and that Vidal changed it because too many people said it was too melodramatic/tragic/etc. I didn't realize that the change was from murder to rape, otherwise I would not have read the book at all. I don't know how that's suddenly less tragic, but it's certainly more abhorrent, particularly since it is treated as some kind of logical end to Jim's obsession, that he "finish what was started" when they were teenagers by forcing himself on Bob after being rejected. It's not! Nor is it fitting or what should happen or anything ! Jim is not entitled to having Bob, nor is Bob obligated to have sex with Jim because of some teenage experimentation ! This isn't melodrama, this is rape culture !

Anyways I'm sad I spent the time that I did reading this book but I guess I'm like "more cultured" now or whatever.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vidal's tragic gay love story was no doubt brave and groundbreaking for it's time, but imitators have diminished the story and contemporary readers will likely find the themes cliche. Like so many of his literary contemporaries, the character of Jim struggles to reconcile his physical desires with his yearning to live a "normal" heterosexual life, but Vidal doesn't belabor the point. Instead, he ensconces Jim within the pre-liberation bar scene without defining him by it. Vidal made a concerted effort to sculpt masculine queers - an aim contemporary gay novels don't hold as dear - and while he succeeds at times one wonders if he didn't rely on misogyny to achieve his desired effect. Perhaps, the novel's true legacy is to serve as a document of evolving gay self-identity. Overall, The City and The Pillar merits a read for it's historical importance and for the accuracy of Vidal's prose, just don't expect the same sense of affinity earlier readers found.

If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!

[Deniz Balcı · Rating 5 out of 5]

İngiliz yazar Iain Banks'ın 'Eşekarısı Fabrikası' isimli aykırı romanını okuyordum bir süre önce, orada Gore Vidal'dan bahsediliyordu. Kısa ama çarpıcı bir şekilde adı geçiyor ve 'Kent ve Tuz' isimli romanı ilham verici başka bir aykırı roman olarak etiketliyordu. Bu beni heyecanlandırmıştı zira kütüphanem içinde en sevdiğim eserler hep yasaklanmış, korkulmuş edebi metinlerdi.

'Kent ve Tuz' bu minvalde bakıldığında zamanına göre ilerici bir duruşa sahip, ancak günümüz için aykırı sayılamayacak bir metin. Yine de anlatımı ve sadeliği o kadar etkileyici ki, çok hoşuma gitti. Jim karakterini tamamen anlayabildim. Kitabı elimden bırakamadım, bir oturuşta okudum. Jim benim hep aklımın bir köşesinde yaşayacak karakterlerden biri olarak kalacak.

Çeviri ve baskı ise çok çok iyi. Hatta baskıyı o kadar beğendim ki Helikopter Yayınları'nın bastığı diğer kitapları da gözü kapalı okuyacağım. Yine Gore Vidal'ın diğer kitaplarını Literatür Yayınları basmış. Onları da aynı şekilde bir an önce okuyacağım. Türün meraklılarına kesinlikle ve şiddetle öneririm.

8/10

[Girish Gowda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A serviceable gay novel about first love which often isn't grounded in reality. Its plainness is its virtue ( unsentimental) but also its limitation ( repetitive and unexciting although only 180 pages long). I can imagine how revolutionary the novel's publication would have been in 1948

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started with the short stories, since I had never read them before. Interesting.

More of a surprise was The City and the Pillar, which I had read as a young man and remember hating. I was probably looking for more of a romance, or a fairy tale (happily ever after). This novel is not a romance, but is grounded in the social realism of its day — which does lift the spirits of a fearful young gay reader.

According to the author's preface, this version was reworked in 1965 and the ending was changed {spoiler alert!} (Jim no longer kills Tom at the end). I'm sure the original ending was certainly a buzz kill, but even the reworked ending is disturbing in its ambiguity. There is a struggle after a rejected sexual advance, Jim dominates Tom and pulls down his underwear . . . is this a rape scene? Nothing is specified, which for me only enhances the strength of the scene. Some of these encounters cannot be easily labelled (ie, “I was so drunk last night, I don't remember a thing. Hey, I have an idea. Let's get drunk again!") In any event, this reworked version, at this point in my life, was much more acceptable as a novel and as historical fiction document.

[Evi *]

In stallo di lettura da quasi nove mesi con l'aggiunta che è un periodo in cui fatico a leggere e concentrarmi, quindi lo faccio precipitare nel nutrito scaffale degli abbandonati, non è un pessimo libro, anzi, ma per ora non mi interessa proseguire.

P.S. notazione ci sono alcune affinità con la storia raccontata nel film molto bello I segreti di Brokeback Mountain, non solo perché entrambe storie di amori omosessuali.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Update: I just read this author's "The Messiah". No matter what one might think about this author's writing ability, one has to admit he was not afraid to take on any subject, which did indeed end all of his political aspirations.
Review:
This title shouts to us: "I'm meaningful and important! Read me with respect!" I was ready to dislike this book. I found the opening chapters ridiculously childlike. And then the characters grow up, the writing gets better. Then tough decisions have to be made. And then suddenly it ended: this is a 200+ page one-sit read, thus an admirable construction in story and events. I noticed the terms "rolling stone" and "in cold blood", was this their origins? Was this the first time words like "queen" and "trade" appeared in a bestseller as descriptions of the world Vidal depicts? Was that Truman Capote appearing as "Rolly"? (For me, this is major flaw of the novel, this character perhaps a vicious stab in the back to a literary friend/enemy. Very unkind.) Vidal was warned that if he published this book, his political aspirations were over. Check. His publisher warned him that if he published this book, Vidal would still be attacked for it in twenty years, 1968. Check. So now it's 2015. It's been 67 years since this book was published and there are places in America where it seems not a single note of this story has changed. There is a pitch perfect ending which, in essence, John Updike used in his brilliant "Rabbit, Run" in 1960, 12 years later. This novel is good, Vidal to be admired for his courage. But due to several unfortunate choices of character descriptions and a few pointless racial/ethnic slurs (with an emphasis on pointless, nothing was added to the story by their utilization, we didn't learn anything about how someone in the 1940s might think and talk: absolutely no excuse for Vidal), there are flaws. Vidal may have unintentional provided a blueprint; creating stereotypes that are still, unfortunately, with us today. But what courage it must have taken to hand this over to a publisher in 1948, and under his own name, one associated with politics in the USA. I find I have to appreciate that.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book, a good read. Gore Vidal explores relationships, particularly homosexual relationships, tastefully, delicately, and above all elegantly.

This short book has a cleverly constructed story line. It follows the development of young Jim Willard who develops a serious crush on his school friend Bob Ford just before both of them set off from their home towns to begin their lives in the wider world. Jim encounters a series of colourful characters including a flamboyant gay Hollwood screen actor and an hilarious New York host called Rolloson. Will Jim ever meet Bob again? This is what I kept asking as I read this enticing novel. Read it to find out.

[David Bjelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

... Oooooof.

This one's gonna leave a bruise.

I don't usually go for the kind of spare, direct style, but this just cuts so close to home that no ornamentation of philosophizing is really needed.

Jim's wishful delusions about sexuality - early on, that he's not quite so queer, and later on that everyone else isn't quite so straight - are painfully evocative of a couple-year period in my own life. So too was the weird noble-feeling but ultimately self-denying ideal of the Twin/Brother-Lover, with its heroic precedents, free of the sense of ridiculousness and powerlessness that can come with unabashed desire (see also: Car Seat Headrest's Twin Fantasy, Sufjan Steven's "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out To Get Us", et al.)

The brilliant maneuver that The City and the Pillar plays, and what elevates it above being a mere twist on a standard coming-of-age novel, is to present this dynamic as Tragically Noble at the very outset and then spend the bulk of the book misdirecting the reader from the fundamental misguidedness and toxicity of Jim's fantasy until it explodes in the final chapter, flipping the reader from affectionate pity to horror in the space of a paragraph.

This book could've been puffed up with a bunch of facile sentimentality and I still probably would've enjoyed it, because, hey: gay love story in WWII-era America! Brave and necessary message about sexual morality! It is both of those things, I do love it for that, but it's also something more brutal and existential. Jim's path through the world of this book is experimenting with ways of conforming his world to his own desires (to the extent he understands them), and he's even further from attaining that goal by the end than he was at the start.

I get the sense that readers are supposed to believe it's still possible for Jim, but that there are plenty of delusions left to shed before he gets there. Is that what we even want for him though? By the final page, I was surprised to find myself reading about a total stranger; someone whose stupidity I'd grown used to lavishing forgiveness on, recognizing it as a more literary version of my own, but whose cruelty was so fresh, stinging, and for once in a book that was until then so relatable... completely foreign.

Thank god kids have things like The "It Gets Better" Project nowadays instead of just this.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast read, for all the right reasons. Neat and lean, on the move, going somewhere with both hands on the wheel. Plus, it's a fine period piece with an appealing cinematic quality to it. Better than I had expected, somehow.

[Rainb0warri0r · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Così si incontrarono. Occhi serrati contro un mondo irrilevante."

Nell'America degli anni Quaranta, come oggi, non c'è nulla di più scandaloso dell'attentare al concetto di "normale". Riscrivere le categorie, rivedere i confini, definire l'indefinibile, mettere a norma l'anormale.
La grandezza di La statua di sale, più che nella sua trama e nel suo contenuto, sta nell'impatto che la contrastata pubblicazione e l'incredibile successo ha provocato nel mondo. Gore Vidal era perfettamente conscio delle conseguenze, e, mostrando un grandissimo coraggio, vi andò incontro. Con la ben avviata carriera politica, già a vent'anni, avrebbe potuto cambiare il mondo. Con questo libro fece molto di più.
La statua di sale è la storia di un amore e di una crescita, di un viaggio, forse una fuga; è, soprattutto, la storia della ricerca normale, universale, dell'amore. Distruggendo per sempre, o quasi, gli stereotipi dell'amore omosessuale, Vidal mette in scena il peregrinare umano di un giovane normale, normalissimo, un giovane come tanti, e che pure sfugge a qualunque definizione. Non c'è posto, per lui, nel mondo di chi lo vuole legato a un matrimonio, a una famiglia; eppure, non trova posto nemmeno nel mondo alternativo, parallelo, degli omosessuali americani, infagottati nei loro costumi di scena. Spinto unicamente dal ricordo di un amore giovanile, l'unico a sembrare valido, possibile, perché spontaneo - l'unico amore vero, voluto, diverso dai matrimoni disinteressati degli eterosessuali e dai rapporti occasionali degli omosessuali - il giovane Jim viaggia dentro e fuori gli Stati Uniti, incontra persone, si innamora, sì, ma sempre di ciò che non può avere, come tutti, in un peregrinare esistenziale che interpreta in maniera diversa quel che sarà la tematica principale della letteratura hipster e della beat generation.
Il finale brusco, improvviso, amarissimo, è un ritorno a casa che coincide con l'inizio di un nuovo viaggio. Non è forse questo, la vita?

[Fini (Hozier’s Version) · Rating 2 out of 5]

13/01/2023

★★☆☆☆

I cannot even begin to describe the ways in which this book was horrible and downright disgusting.
First of all, our main character is the most insufferable person and truly is in denial about his sexuality and deals with a lot of internalised homophobia, which wouldn't have been a negative aspect if he wasn't obsessing over men in one sentence and thinking about raping them and I quote, "Mentally, he raped him, made love to him." honey, get some professional help, and then in the next sentence uses the f-word when a man approaches him.

Also, spoiler: he literally sexually assaulted men and even raped one, from my understanding (and the edition I listened to).

We also can't forget about the overall SA glorification in this one. One character was talking about how it turned him on when women told him to stop. I'm about to throw hands.

This was such a tiresome story filled with sexism, misogyny, sexual assault, slurs, cheating, etc. Also, there is an actual place called "the slave cabin"...

The only reason this is two stars, is because it actually had a lot of things going on and explored a bunch of different topics and relationship dynamics, which I thought were interesting. However, I also have four pages of handwritten notes that I took whilst reading and the majority are very concerning regarding the story, but I guess one could figure that out from my review and rating.

[Lilirose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un romanzo che all'epoca in cui è uscito (1948) diede scandalo, per la maniera esplicita di parlare del mondo omosessuale. Vidal è stato un precursore e la sua opera seppure osteggiata da molti è stata invece apprezzata da larga parte di pubblico e critica.
Oggi il libro è spogliato del suo alone di innovazione e non esercita più su di noi il fascino del proibito, quindi possiamo giudicarlo per i suoi meriti oggettivi: quello che resta è un romanzo di spessore, con una accurata introspezione psicologica dei personaggi. E' interessante anche per la descrizione del mondo omosessuale della prima metà del secolo: un universo fatto di sottotesti e di non detti, di locali clandestini e incontri segreti. Non è certo un libro leggero, anzi è pervaso di amarezza e frustrazione ed il finale è praticamente un pugno nello stomaco, ma mi ha tenuto avvinta dalla prima all'ultima pagina

[Kadircan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kent ve Tuz, içselleştirdiği toplumsal koşullandırmalar doğrultusunda, insanın "doğası" gereği heteroseksüel olmak zorunda olduğunu düşünen, ancak kadınlara karşı da herhangi bir cinsel çekim hissetmeyen genç bir erkek olan Jim’in, homoseksüel çevrelerde farklı ilişki formlarındaki konumlanışını ve kendini arayış sürecini işliyor. Jim’in bu yolculuktaki kılavuzu ise, ilk gençlik yıllarında yakın arkadaşı Bob ile yaşadığı duygusal ve cinsel yakınlaşmanın ideali ve Bob’a günün birinde yeniden kavuşacak olmanın hayali.

Vidal bu romanıyla alışılageldik cinsiyet rollerine ve toplumun cinsel yönelimlere bakışına önemli eleştiriler yöneltiyor. Bunun yanısıra, 2. Dünya Savaşı dönemi Amerikan entelijansiyasının durumu ve bazı politik konular da ucundan kıyısından masaya yatırılanlar arasında.

Kitabın anlatım dili oldukça sürükleyici. Okurken akıp gidiyor, okumaya ara verseniz bile kitap sizi mıknatıs gibi kendine çekiyor. Şüphesiz Fatih Özgüven elinden çıkmış harikulade çevirinin de bunda önemli payı var.

Bende yazarın diğer yapıtlarını da okuma isteği uyandıran bu sarsıcı ve dönüştürücü eseri herkese şiddetle tavsiye ederim.

[fioo ! ♡ ∗ ˚ ˖࣪ ∗ ‎˖ ݁ . ° · ˚ ₊ · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was a mess actually 😂

[Tom the Teacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Or, the struggles of a handsome, blond, masc gay

Well, actually that's rather disingenuous. As a gay man in the late thirties and early forties, from Virginia, Jim didn't have it easy (although his looks made things easier than they could have been otherwise).

This was an interesting read for me. Vidal's writing style is quite direct, and honestly Jim isn't a very likeable protagonist. Perhaps that's the point, though - Jim doesn't know himself, doesn't really know the world, and hangs on to an adolescent encounter, enshrining it in his rose-tinted memories.

It's easy to see why this is in the gay canon, and while it's very much a product of its time, sadly there are still Jims and Shaws and Sullivans everywhere, all around the world, dealing with their damaged self-perception all stemming from who they love.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Gore Vidal's second novel. The content, coming of age as a homosexual male, had him blacklisted for 6 years. Undaunted he published under a pseudonym. Six years later, he published again under his own name, The Judgment of Paris, a different narrative with with the same coming of age content as "City" showing Vidal as remarkable and daring from the start.

This novel is better than "Judgment" which is more narrative and less interior. "City" gives the reader a glimpse into the emotional life of a young boy (and later, man) as he discovers his sexual and emotional self. Most teens have difficulty handling their high school crush; Jim's is even more difficult despite his high school assets of good looks and athletic success. He cannot make an overt move with Bob to find out, for real, if feelings are shared. He proceeds on assumptions.

Jim carries his feelings for Bob for years. He has experiences that define the situation of male homosexuals at this place in time. While one of his partners, Shaw, is a professional actor, Jim notes that people he meets in the gay community are the real Academy Award performers as they manage their families and other social interactions.

Under the radar homosexuality is the only big thing dated here. Most of the dialog could be spoken today. Only a few things stand out as quaint. In NYC, Jim is a partner in a tennis business, which today would never exist since any scrap of land the size of a court has a more cost effective cost/SF with more levels. In CA, Jim is hired by a hotel/club and given an on-site residence with almost no paperwork. In today's world there would be proof of identity, citizenship and most likely a background check. There is a reference to being older, sitting in a store reminiscing... not today's store.

This 1947 book and Yukio Mishima's 1959 Confessions of a Mask cover roughly the same time period in two very different cultures. Vidal's book shows a freer society. Mishima's character Kochan, has chaperoned dates with females while Jim goes to women's apartments and travels with Maria. Jim goes to parties and social events with other gays and Kochan is socially alone. On a political note, despite the country that makes his very existence illegal, Jim feels compelled to fight in the war and enlists while Kochan avoids the draft.

The City and the Pillar is an important work for its place, time, content and clarity.

[Joseph Sciuto · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took great courage on the part of Mr. Vidal to publish, in 1948, "The City and the Pillar." It could easily have ended his career, but thankfully it launched one of the great literary careers of the 20th century. The subject of homosexuality is dealt with head on. Mr. Vidal's style is hard, terse, and demanding. It follows the life of Jim Willard, a young, good-looking athlete, from a small town in Virginia, where he falls in love with his best friend Bob, who just graduated high school and is getting ready to leave the town to join the Merchant Marines and to be a sailor. Just before leaving they travel to a cabin in the woods, beside a river, to spend the weekend. They make love to each other, an experience of such joy to Jim that when he graduates from high school the next year he also leaves the town in the hope of finding his one true love, Bob. He joins the merchant marines, but has no luck in finding Bob.

In his hopeless longing for Bob, Jim finds himself living in Hollywood, New York, New Orleans, joining the army. He becomes well connected in the rich gay communities of New York and Hollywood and lives with celebrities and writers that the general public has no idea are gay. It is through this journey that Mr. Vidal paints a vivid portrait of the gay lifestyle that to many readers at the time must of been shocking.

This book is important on many levels: first, the writing is superb, and the characters unforgettable. Second, it presents the human side and needs that all people, whether gay, or straight, or bisexual, feel and want out of life. It is not sentimental in the least, but its message is clear and straight forward. Thirdly, Mr. Vidal, James Baldwin, Capote, and other notable gay and lesbian artists of this era opened the door to a world too often looked upon from the outside and never truly understood. The world owes all these artists a round of applause.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does everyone realize how much Gore Vidal rocks?

Unbelievable that this book was written -- and that Vidal got it published -- in the 1940s. It enlightened me about the partial freedom available to certain classes of gay men in the 30s and 40s. The coming-out/coming-of-age story seems a little ordinary now, but nobody had done it in America before Vidal, as far as I can tell. His perceptiveness makes it feel fresh. The problems of identity that Jim faces are still common today, and maybe will never disappear. Plus, the story of the teenage dream that dies horribly is applicable to anyone, gay or straight.

Can you believe this quote, more than 20 years before Stonewall -- I wish we could all be as articulate...
....
"Why should any of us hide? What we do is natural, if not 'normal,' whatever that is. In any case, what people do together of their own free will is their business and no one else's."
The fat man smiled. "But do you have the nerve to tell the world about yourself?"
Paul sighed and looked at his hands. "No," he said, "I don't."
"So what can we do, if we're all too frightened?"
"Live with dignity, I suppose. And try to learn to love one another, as they say."
....

[M. Cadena · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a piece of shit. I’m mourning the 20 dollars and 5 days I wasted on this trash, my god. Shitty main character, average writing, dull and plotless (which I usually enjoy, but this one was fucking awful and boring), racist, misogynist, homophobic (even though it’s about a gay man), etc. etc. etc.

I kinda understand why it is a classic, but I hate it more than any other book I’ve ever read. Anyone who truly likes this beyond it being a historical archive of gay life around those times or anyone who likes the main character should be in jail by now idc. The fact that 1-star reviews aren’t the majority is actually concerning. Criminal offensive side eye. It’s like one of those shitty dark romances which are just porn and weird stuff, I hate that shit. That horrible ending traumatized the hell out of me, wtf. I despise this book, I don’t give a fuck if it was written in 1946 or not, that shit shouldn’t be normalized in any context, ew.

I want my time and money back.