Two Sisters

by Gore Vidal

A movie scenario in the form of a Greek tragedy, and the narrator's reflections on two longtime friendships are interwoven in a fictionalized memoir

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Plays, American

213 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Works of American writer Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, noted for his cynical humor and his numerous accounts of society in decline, include the play The Best Man (1960) and the novel Myra Breckinridge (1968) .

People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.

Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.

Essays and media appearances long criticized foreign policy. In addition, he from the 1980s onwards characterized the United States as a decaying empire. Additionally, he was known for his well publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote.

They fell into distinct social and historical camps. Alongside his social, his best known historical include Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as the first major feature of unambiguous homosexuality.

At the time of his death he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and has been described as the 20th century's answer to Oscar Wilde

Also used the pseudonym Edgar Box.

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Gore Vidal é um dos nomes centrais na história da literatura americana pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Nascido em 1925, em Nova Iorque, estudou na Academia de Phillips Exeter (Estado de New Hampshire). O seu primeiro romance, Williwaw (1946), era uma história da guerra claramente influenciada pelo estilo de Hemingway. Embora grande parte da sua obra tenha a ver com o século XX americano, Vidal debruçou-se várias vezes sobre épocas recuadas, como, por exemplo, em A Search for the King (1950), Juliano (1964) e Creation (1981).

Entre os seus temas de eleição está o mundo do cinema e, mais concretamente, os bastidores de Hollywood, que ele desmonta de forma satírica e implacável em títulos como Myra Breckinridge (1968), Myron (1975) e Duluth (1983).

Senhor de um estilo exuberante, multifacetado e sempre surpreendente, publicou, em 1995, a autobiografia Palimpsest: A Memoir. As obras 'O Instituto Smithsonian' e 'A Idade do Ouro' encontram-se traduzidas em português.

Neto do senador Thomas Gore, enteado do padrasto de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, primo distante de Al Gore, Gore Vidal sempre se revelou um espelho crítico das grandezas e misérias dos EUA.

Faleceu a 31 de julho de 2012, aos 86 anos, na sua casa em Hollywood, vítima de pneumonia.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

From yesterday’s gore to today’s Gore, this delightful novel cured the heartsickness I felt at a certain French bile-maker. An extremely playful formal experiment mingled with exquisite high-class prose, Two Sisters describes an act of incest through a script set in Ancient Greece, a notebook by the perpetrator to his sister, and Mr. Vidal’s former lover’s confessions. Certain understandings about sexuality in the novel only make sense halfway through for those not versed in Vidal’s “we’re all bisexual” stance, but once the story takes flight, the faux-autobiographical style is a clever and effective technique. Vidal puts himself in the novel and riffs on his encounters with Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, and his refusal to script the movie version of Slaughterhouse V. It’s patchwork stuff, perhaps, but I was enthralled and tickled for the duration.

[Esteva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Não é um 3 normal, é um 3 na escala de Gore Vidal, em que 5 corresponde a CRIAÇÃO e JULIANO, e 4 a KALKI. Um 3 de Gore Vidal é sempre um prazer.

[Charles Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though the structure of this book was initially confusing, it well rewarded my perseverance. Alternating between a writer's twenty year old journal, a film screenplay, and Vidal's current day (1969) thoughts and reflections on these (the author is a character in his own book), Two Sisters is a clever and entertaining satire, whose targets include Vidal himself.

[Janie Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I wrote a review a few years ago. I have to find it.
p171: We discussed absent friends, applying to them the same high standards we knew they applied to us; none measured up.

[Tom van Veenendaal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is secretly one of Vidal's finest. Structurally it is his most daring experiment, but because of its brevity it and humor it makes no great demands on the reader. The novel switches between a present narrator who is a fictionalized version of Vidal himself, the contents of a diary/notebook left by an old (fictional) friend, and a hammy screenplay the friend wrote. This allows Vidal to make comments on the present in a form not unlike his essays and to parody the Hollywood of the past. As the narrator says early on, he is "addicted to Time’s political ‘reporting’ in which one can follow from week to week the fictional adventures of actual people. Instead of decently ending, the novel seems to have got a new lease upon our attention in the form of the weekly ‘news’ magazine." Playing on this, Vidal cleverly fused fact and fiction.

Because Vidal was an uneven novelist, perhaps not born for the craft, the disjointed form of Two Sisters actually aids him. Fans of his essays will be happy to find passages that could be put into his collected prose writings, while the autobiographical elements have far more power than when they were set out with ostensible seriousness in Vidal's actual autobiography Palimpsest. The characters sketched here, including the author of the diary (spoofing Anaïs Nin) and an old Hollywood hack ("He will lie even when it is inconvenient, the sign of the true artist") are also incredibly funny.

It really is the best kind of short read, and when it was done I felt I had read something honestly worthwhile, like a good collection of light verse that somehow is hard to forget.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Gore Vidal’s odder books. It is not one thing, it is several things at once: a memoir (it is said), a novel, a screenplay. Modernist? Pomo? And yet it is not a product of the university, of the U Novel, as Vidal called it — “American Plastic.” It is a clever juxtaposition of forms and intents, and yet it is completely readable.

It sports a typically brilliant Vidal opening: “Despite my protests, Marietta revealed her breasts.” Though he seems to be writing about sex memoirist Anais Nin, he mentions her on the first page (cover your bets!) as a flawless writer of “handsome prose.”

On page 4 I read what is, for me, the money quote. He is talking books with the breast-bearing lady, and then reflects:

‘[I]n the back of my mind, the perfect analogy to Nabokov had suddenly surfaced. James Branch Cabell. I began to compose a blurb: “Not since Cabell's ‘Jurgen’ has there been a novel so certain to delight the truly refined reader as Nabokov’s ‘Ada.’”’

A droll book, quite good. Not like other fiction, unless of it can be said that NOT SINCE NABOKOV'S ‘ADA’ HAS THERE BEEN A NOVEL SO CERTAIN TO DELIGHT THE TRULY REFINED READER.

[David Haws · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two Sisters seems ill-considered. Coming off the success of Myra Breckinridge, which he certainly enjoyed, but may or may not have understood, Vidal was probably doing the “respected author” equivalent of profit-taking. I noticed this in Manhood for Amateur, the publication of which, by another good writer, with excellent prose, seemed a little mercenary. Is it wrong to confuse the motivation to write, with the motivation to publish? Maybe not. I read both these books through to the bitter end because I respect the authors enough to read whatever they chose to publish, but it can’t help but make me question the "purity" of their motives. Please pardon my pedantry.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is essentially the story of Gore Vidal reading a screenplay and commenting upon it. It's interesting to read a story through commentary on a fictional, and rather bad, work of art but the characters are all so transparently real (and identifiable) people that it seems about like the sort of thing Perez Hilton would write if he had any knowledge of the classical world. Sometimes Vidal doesn't even try.

[Robert Moreno · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd little book. Part screenplay, part semi-fictional memoir. The novel jumps back and forth between the film script, about two sisters in 5th century Greece, his fake relationship with a brother-sister pair-acquaintance, all the while interspersed with Vidal's usual wit and snide remarks on everyone and everything. It does seem, as others have suggested, that Vidal just "phoned this one in", as they say, but it really is a quick and fun read, albeit far from his best.

[Nicole C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the form of a memoir, it concerns the fictional Vidal (V) recalling a love affair with two twins, male and female. Another character, Marietta, who seems to be a parody of Anais Nin, gives V a notebook from the male twin, in which there is a screenplay and diary entries. It sounds complicated, but it twines together in an interesting and readable fashion.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would probably give this two and a half stars if Goodreads allowed us to go halfsies. I think because I prefer his political commentary this book just felt beneath him the entire time I was reading it. And HONESTLY, you would think a book about incest would be more interesting at least in the "I can't look away" manner, but sadly no. I kept wanting to put it down and take a nap.

[Jack Burnham · Rating 5 out of 5]

An odd one for sure, but I really enjoyed it. It felt unique in a good way, and I quite liked the tricky structure. Kind of grab bag of different ideas (Vidal pauses the narrative to ruminate on his favourite subjects: power, the state of the literary arts, the impossibly of love) but a rewarding one

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of pretense and a bit convoluted, but I enjoyed portions of it. Not the place to start with Gore. I enjoyed his bitchy comments about his contemporary authors.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Gore Vidal. I am sold.,

[Kevin Cole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Between the two triumphs of "Myra Breckinridge" and "Burr" came this well-meaning, I suppose, but falling-flat-on-its-face effort. Only for Vidal fans.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant full throttle Vidal

[Erzen Llapashtica · Rating 2 out of 5]

sleaze extreme but really dull and pretentious, whether ironically or not

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Everything exposed in the worst light." Love heals over some wounds more easily when they dealt with in charity. The Epistles of Paul often come to mind in reading a good novel. Arguably it is even true of non-Christian authors.