Welcome to the United States of Amnesia

Spectator, The, May 24, 2008 by Wakefield, Mary

That's all Congress does, is to take a look at the overview of the lies that the executive branch is telling you. I'd send every one of them to prison.' Is there anything hopeful in American politics then? I ask. 'No, ' says Vidal. Anything good about the American people? 'Not really.' How do you see the future of America panning out? 'It panned out already, it's sinking.' Can anything be done to save it? 'I don't give a f***, ' says Vidal and orders another whisky and soda.

Does he sound rude? He's not really. Gore Vidal can be acerbic, but it's all more act than attack. In his Two Sisters, his 'novel in the form of a memoir', the narrator, V, says: 'In a sense, the only purpose of life is the creation of a self and what matters is the sum total of all one's attempts.' Vidal picks a face to meet the faces that he meets, and he picks a pretty wintry face for the right-wing press, but there's a heart underneath it all.

After one particularly acid outburst against the British press, he seems concerned that I might have taken it personally, so he picks the cherry out of his whisky and soda and offers it to me, like an olive branch: 'Here, take this, it's for you.' Then he cocks an ear, and listens to 'Danny Boy' lurching away in the background and says in a gentler voice: 'Did you ever see a movie called That Hamilton Woman? They played this tune in the movie.

Get it out, you'll never stop crying. I also recommend The Letter with Bette Davis. You'll like that.' As our hour slides by and Vidal grows more mellow, I get the feeling that there is something valedictory about his UK tour.

He mentions more than once the plot of land in the Rock Creek Cemetery, where his long-term companion, Howard Auster, was buried a few years ago, and where he plans to be interred too. Last question, I say. 'You've written a fair bit about your dreams in your memoirs. So what do you dream about now? 'Oh, death mostly, ' says Vidal, calmly. 'I dream that I know I'm dead, but I'm trying to persuade people that I'm not and they won't believe me.' He smiles, shakes my hand, says: 'You have cold hands!' Warm heart, I reply. 'My heart is cold, ' he says. Then shrugs, then blows me a kiss goodbye.