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Creation - Softcover

Vidal, Gore

 
9780345340207: Creation
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345340205 ISBN 13: 9780345340207
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 1993

Inhaltsangabe

Once again the incomparable Gore Vidal interprets and animates history -- this time in a panoramic tour of the 5th century B.C. -- and embellishes it with his own ironic humor, brilliant insights, and piercing observations. We meet a vast array of historical figures in a staggering novel of love, war, philosophy, and adventure . . .
"There isn't a page of CREATION that doesn't inform and very few pages that do not delight."
-- John Leonard, The New York Times

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gore Vidal is the author, most recently of The Last Empire, a collection of essays from 1992-2000 and The Golden Age, a novel that concludes his seven-volume series of narratives of the American Empire. He divides his time between Ravello, Italy, and Los Angeles.


From the Hardcover edition.

Aus dem Klappentext

he incomparable Gore Vidal interprets and animates history -- this time in a panoramic tour of the 5th century B.C. -- and embellishes it with his own ironic humor, brilliant insights, and piercing observations. We meet a vast array of historical figures in a staggering novel of love, war, philosophy, and adventure . . .
"There isn't a page of CREATION that doesn't inform and very few pages that do not delight."
-- John Leonard, The New York Times

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

book one

Herodotus Gives a Reading at the Odeon in Athens

1

I am blind. But I am not deaf. Because of the incompleteness of my misfortune, I was obliged yesterday to listen for nearly six hours to a self-styled historian whose account of what the Athenians like to call "the Persian Wars" was nonsense of a sort that were I less old and more privileged, I would have risen in my seat at the Odeon and scandalized all Athens by answering him.

But then, I know the origin of the Greek wars. He does not. How could he? How could any Greek? I spent most of my life at the court of Persia and even now, in my seventy-fifth year, I still serve the Great King as I did his father-my beloved friend Xerxes-and his father before him, a hero known even to the Greeks as Darius the Great.

When the painful reading finally ended-our "historian" has a thin monotonous voice made even less charming by a harsh Dorian accent-my eighteen-year-old nephew Democritus wanted to know if I would like to stay behind and speak to the traducer of Persia.

"You should," he said. "Because everyone is staring at you. They know you must be very angry." Democritus is studying philosophy here at Athens. This means that he delights in quarrels. Write that down, Democritus. After all, it is at your request that I am dictating this account of how and why the Greek wars began. I shall spare no one-including you. Where was I? the Odeon.

I smiled the poignant smile of the blind, as some unobservant poet characterized the expression of those of us who cannot see. Not that I ever paid much attention to blind men when I could see. On the other hand, I never expected to live long enough to be old, much less go blind, as I did three years ago when the white clouds that had been settling upon the retinas of my eyes became, suddenly, opaque.

The last thing that I ever saw was my own blurred face in a polished-silver mirror. This was at Susa, in the Great King's palace. At first I thought that the room was filling up with smoke. But it was summertime, and there was no fire. For an instant I saw myself in the mirror; then saw myself no longer; saw nothing else, ever again.

In Egypt the doctors perform an operation that is supposed to send the clouds scurrying. But I am too old to go to Egypt. Besides, I have seen quite enough. Have I not looked upon the holy fire, which is the face of Ahura Mazdah, the Wise Lord? I have also seen Persia and India and farthest Cathay. No other man alive has traveled in as many lands as I.

I am digressing. This is a habit of old men. My grandfather in his seventy-fifth year used to talk for hours without ever linking one subject to another. He was absolutely incoherent. But then, he was Zoroaster, the prophet of Truth; and just as the One God that he served is obliged to entertain, simultaneously, every aspect of all creation, so did His prophet Zoroaster. The result was inspiring if you could ever make sense of what he was saying.

Democritus wants me to record what happened as we were leaving the Odeon. Very well. It is your fingers that will grow tired. My voice never deserts me, nor does my memory . . . Thus far.

There was deafening applause when Herodotus of Halicarnassus finished his description of the Persian "defeat" at Salamis thirty-four years ago. By the way, the acoustics of the Odeon are dreadful. Apparently, I am not alone in finding the new music hall inadequate. Even the tone-deaf Athenians know that something is wrong with their precious Odeon, recently thrown together in record time by order of Pericles, who paid for it with money that had been collected from all the Greek cities for their common defense. The building itself is a copy in stone of the tent of the Great King Xerxes which somehow fell into Greek hands during the confusions of Persia's last campaign in Greece. They affect to despise us; then they imitate us.

As Democritus led me to the vestibule of the music hall, I heard on every side the phrase "The Persian ambassador!" The throaty syllables struck my ears like those potsherds on which Athenians periodically write the names of anyone who has happened to offend or bore them. The man who gets the most votes in this election-or rejection-is exiled from the city for a period of ten years. He is lucky.

I give a few of the remarks that I heard en route to the door.

"I'll bet he didn't like what he heard."

"He's a brother of Xerxes, isn't he?"

"No, he's a Magian."

"What's that?"

"A Persian priest. They eat snakes and dogs."

"And commit incest with their sisters and mothers and daughters."

"What about their brothers and fathers and sons?"

"You are insatiable, Glaucon."

"Magians are always blind. They have to be. Is that his grandson?"

"No. His lover."

"I don't think so. Persians are different from us."

"Yes. They lose battles. We don't."

"How would you know? You weren't even born when we sent Xerxes running home to Asia."

"That boy is very good-looking."

"He's Greek. He has to be. No barbarian could look like that."

"He's from Abdera. The grandson of Megacreon."

"A medizer! Scum of the earth."

"Rich scum. Megacreon owns half the silver mines in Thrace."

Of my two remaining and relatively unimpaired senses-touch and smell-I cannot report much of the first, other than the wiry arm of Democritus, which I clutched in my right hand, but as for the second! In summer Athenians do not bathe often. In winter-and we are now in the week that contains the shortest day of the year-they bathe not at all, while their diet appears to consist entirely of onions and preserved fish-preserved from the time of Homer.

I was jostled, breathed upon, insulted. I am of course aware that my position as the Great King's ambassador at Athens is not only a perilous one but highly ambiguous. It is perilous because at any moment these volatile people are apt to hold one of their assemblies in which every male citizen may speak his mind and, worst of all, vote. After listening to one of the city's many corrupt or demented demagogues, the citizens are quite capable of breaking a sacred treaty, which is what they did fourteen years ago when they sent out an expedition to conquer the Persian province of Egypt. They were roundly defeated. This adventure was doubly shameful because, sixteen years ago, an Athenian embassy had gone up to Susa with instructions to make a permanent peace with Persia. The chief ambassador was Callias, the richest man in Athens. In due course, a treaty was drafted. Athens acknowledged the Great King's sovereignty over the Greek cities of Asia Minor. In turn, the Great King agreed to keep the Persian fleet out of the Aegean Sea, and so on. The treaty was very long. In fact, I have often thought that during the composition of the Persian text, I permanently damaged my eyes. Certainly, the white clouds began to thicken during those months of negotiation when I was obliged to read every word of what the clerks had written.

After the Egyptian debacle, another embassy went up to Susa. The Great King was superb. He ignored the fact that the Athenians had broken the original treaty by invading his province of Egypt. Instead, he spoke warmly of his friendship for Sparta. The Athenians were terrified. Quite rightly, they fear Sparta. In a matter of days it was agreed that the treaty, which neither side could ever acknowledge, was once more in force, and as a proof of the Great King's faith in his Athenian slaves-so he calls them-he would send to Athens the friend closest to the bosom of his...

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Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
1993
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345340205
ISBN 13 
9780345340207
Einband
Taschenbuch
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