Rating: 
Summary: A lack of engagement.
Review: As I always feel bad for not finishing a book I have begun, it was with remorse and trepidation that I left my copy of Vidal's Creation in a South Korean airport. It's not that I do not appreciate history, or enjoy learning of foreign cultures, religions, beliefs. Rather, I bought the book because I enjoy those things so much. No, my chief complaint is Vidal's seeming inability to write a sentence in less than 5 words. The narrative goes on and on with silly, pointless, meandering prose that added nothing to the book but girth. He even admits that this re-released edition includes 100 pages that were edited out by a former editor. Well, that editor knew what he was doing, for this book is, at a minimum, 100 pages too long. Perhaps I alone do not like the long-winded prose of Vidal, and you might feel differently. Were it to add something to the tale, I might appreciate it. Yet, in the end, I just wanted to free myself of the narrative's laboriousness, and the only way I could was to leave it in an airport far far away. And Ill tell you, Ive had a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders ever since.
Rating: 
Summary: 5th C. BC celebs. Scholarly, able, but hardly a page-turner
Review: As Vidal says in his introduction to this edition,
'If nothing else, this narrative is a sort of crash course in comparative religion and ethical systems...'Although he's a Zoroastrian, our autobiographical narrator Cyrus Spitama generally represents the Judeo-Christian linear view - that we each live once and will meet the monotheistic 'Wise Lord' to be judged when we die. To take us beyond a dry text book analysis, Vidal has run with the enticing possibility of someone living in an age where he could have actually met, among others, Socrates, the Buddha and Confucius. So Vidal has Cyrus, for example, in dialogue with the latter two. Vidal has done his background reading so the conversations are informative, and more palatable than much of the texts he would have gleaned his material from (that being said, you can knock over Confucius' very readable Analects in a couple of hours yourself and be that much closer to the source). Moreover there's the pleasure of the fictional (but believable) characters he's created around the history and teaching. Still, if that's why you're reading the book, you'd be better off skipping all but about fifty pages of this door-stopping 700 pager. Vidal patiently or,depending on your perspective, indulgently devotes most of the book to evoking possible versions of historical people and settings in Persia, Greece, India and China in the fifth century B.C. I suspect this would be particularly enjoyable (or inflammatory) for readers who have recently been working with sources such as Herodotus, as Vidal's Spitama is consciously set up as an alternative voice. However, if, like myself, the various famous '-ocleses' that fly by are barely more than recognisable names, Vidal's speculations aren't that arresting; if you were reading this book purely as a fiction you'd wonder why this parade of minor characters are given stage time - the cameos only work if you're aware of the celebrity already. And that's a significant point - would this book be a worthy read if the faces weren't so famous? Well, it's not a labour to read. Vidal is an able writer, Spitama is an engaging character with interesting alternate values to our popular ones, and his commentary on other views of his time are stimulating. However I doubt that I could recommend the book to anyone without a prior interest in and knowledge of a significant portion of the history, philosophy and religion that it engages with. Politicians and kings take up a major part of the narratives, but these are the recollections of a cynical old man, and more often summaries rather than developed relationships. We don't really have a lot of affection for most of the sketched characters - partly because there are just so many of them. Spitama himself generally consciously distances himself from those around him. He has friendships, but, perhaps just in the way that they are narrated, they rarely involve our emotions over our mind. This is doubly so for the action. Cyrus describes the often dangerous and violent times and places he's lived through, but there is not a moment of suspense or drama. For example he drolly skips over his life-threatening adventure in having to follow a caravan through a dangerous and unfamiliar exotic foreign land, avoiding bandits and a ruthless pursuing police/military force for several days. Lois L'amour would spun out that week into an entire thrilling novel: Vidal reduces it to a throwaway sentence. Sure, Vidal is never trying to write a thriller, however I do think it's a weakness that when undeniably gripping events turn up he can't narrate them in a way that brings out the extreme emotions that would have been there at the time. A telling fact is that while I read this book, in between times I read four others. This is unusual for me: I'm normally pretty faithful to the one text as I go through it - however the other books I happened to come across along the way (e.g. a Douglas Adams, a David Lodge) immediately got me in, and when I went to pick up a book I wanted to read the others, but I could take or leave Creation. It was the choice between an undeniably scholarly piece OR something that would make me laugh and/or feel driven to find out what happened in the next chapter. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive, so, yes, I suppose that's my essential reservation about a very capable and interesting book.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, clever historical fiction
Review: Creation is the story of Cyrus Spitama, Zoroaster's grandson, and his desire to understand the origin of the universe. The backbone of the saga is his philosophical journey through Greece, Persia, India and China where meets a slew of Greek and Indian luminaries, Buddha, Confucious, and Li Tzu. Wrapped around these conversations are the political intrigues of the many kingdoms Cyrus visits and the narrative of his own life. Creation is witty and engaging. It should be placed squarely on the top of your reading stack.
Rating:
Summary: Jaded 20th century views imposed on the 5th Century B.C.
Review: First of all, let me state that I like and admire Gore Vidal. I find his political and social essays to be perceptive. Indeed, there are few modern political and social critics as perceptive, as brilliant even, as Gore Vidal. That is exactly why this book does not work.
Mr. Vidal has transplanted the 20th century, or at least the Industrial Age, mindset to the 5th century B.C. To put it mildly, this is a mistake. The men of that time did not think purely in political, materialistic, amd egoistic terms. These were people who actually believed, if not in the gods, then in the great Cosmic Mystery behind the gods. They actually believed in signs, portents, and oracles. After all, the 5th century B.C. was the time of the birth of many of the great teachings that would shape the entire world- east and west. These teachings sprang from deep inner wellsprings of the collective soul of Man, and not from petty squabbling between individuals and empires. Mr. Vidal reduces this to a tiresome, tawdry, political and materialist soap opera. Instead of capturing the feverish excitement of a time that gave birth to a new world, he instead manages to impose the jaded cynicism of the modern age on those times.
Even the classical Greece, where the story begins, celebrated the great Mystery religions, and both Socrates and Plato had profoundly mystical sides to their philosophies. Mr. Vidal's classical Greece comes across as located somewhere within the Beltway of Washington D.C. The Persians actually believed in the great cosmic struggle of Good and Evil as espoused by Zoroaster. The main character in this novel is a direct relative of Zoroaster, yet he seems to write off that great religion as simple fire worship and soma-induced hallucinations. In India, above all, it was union with the Divine, that most obsessed men over the concerns of the illusion of the "real" world, of Maya. Mr. Vidal's India comes across as a totally jaded, materialistic place full bad stereotypes of lazy and incompetent Rajas laying around the palace fixated on plotting and debauchery. As for China, well, the emphasis here is not on Lao Tzu and the great Taoist mystical philosophy, but on the shallow and moralistic teachings of Confucius. Oh yes, while both Buddhism, and the religion of the Jains, are touched upon briefly, they are dismissed as "madness." This in itself shows a complete lack of understanding of the ancient world, a world where madness was viewed as a wondrous and sacred thing (i.e. being "touched" by the Gods.)
All-in-all, if you know anything about the history, philosophy, and religions of the 5th century B.C. this is a painful novel to read. I kept being reminded of how the "Flintstones" transplants the mid-20th century mind-set to the stone age. However, here Mr. Vidal wasn't trying to be funny....
Had the people of this time really thought in the narrow terms that this novel imposes upon them, both eastern and western civilization would not have flowered- they would have shortly withered away.
Rating:
Summary: what an idea!
Review: Having read it many years ago, I bought this book as a gift fora friend in the hospital... Just for fun, I opened it up to peruse it a bit. And then I became totally engrossed and read it again cover to cover. THat is the test of a great book: you can read it again and again and see more each time. Of all of Vidal's novels, this one has the most ideas: the main character (a Persian ambassador to Athens who despises what he hears Herodotus reading) recounts his meetings with the creators of the several great cosmological systems, that is, monotheism, hinduism, and confucianism, all of whom may have lived within one person's lifetime. These are some of the principal systems that have undergirded world civilisations ever since. Vidal recounts them with fascination and acid wit. But that is not all. At the core of the book is a portrayal of court life at the high noon of the Persian empire, a hotbed of intrigue, fellowship, and sex. You learn about subject Babylon, Xerxes' alcoholism, and the governance via eunichs from the inner chambers of the queen's harem. What is most original is that Vidal sets Persian civilisation in stark contrast to the more primitive Greeks, who were enjoying their own golden (Periklean) age. This neatly turns our Western self image of Greek glory on its head, and is hilarious as well as effective satire (though Vidal is so subtle that I may be misreading him here). Highly recommended, the best historical novel I ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Around the world with Charlie Schuyler
Review: Historical fiction, particularly from classical times or earlier, can either be great or believable; I'm not certain it can be both. To make a story entertaining, it must be comprehensible to modern readers, couched in impossibly modern motives. Robert Graves's Claudius complained about this in reference to an assessment of Livy's histories (meant to be understood as an inside joke, as Graves was happily doing the same thing). No matter what period Vidal inhabits, his narrative figures have a modern, cynical eye, informed by ages of experience that the originals could not have enjoyed. This engaging story is based on a coincidence of history -- that in one lifetime of travel, one man could have met Zoroaster, Socrates, Democritus, Confucius, and the Buddha. THE Buddha. Persian ambassador Cyrus Spitama does this -- it's a lot of shoe leather, but barely possible -- and combines this epic journey with a pesonal search for the origins of the world. At the end, he comes up empty (as we all must), but still feisty: still Vidal's standard narrative persona (Charlie Schuyler), but a bit tougher. A lot of the book uses Cyrus's Persian/Greek viewpoint (he's mixed blood) to skewer the Age of Pericles. I enjoyed the hell out of that, since I've always been unimpressed by the Greek ideal. It sounded nice, sparked a lot of clever talk, but lasted only a lifetime in its purest form before it was snuffed out. But we're still talking about it, so there must have been something there. At least Vidal gives us an alternative story of that perilous time.
Rating: 
Summary: Slogging Through the Ancient World
Review: I agree with Oakshaman's observations that Vidal has projected 20th century cynicism onto a "BC" backdrop. I disagree with the rosey notion that it is only recently that men have become callous and cynical and that Washington and the beltway are unique in the history of mankind. There is nothing new etc. Even today we have Nobel prize winners giving away the prize money for scholarships, alongside governments enriching their friends by waging unecessary wars. Remember also that a great number of Americans literally believe that the "Lord" lives in the sky and is engaged in a running battle with "eevil". Vidal may have been taking a not so subtle indirect swipe at the "spirituality" of his motherland. The contention that we have an overly romantic concept of Greek civilization to the detriment of other ancient civilizations seems a fair point to me. Gore's point may also be that Athens was the cradle for a system that has mutated inth the farse now seen in Washington, so it doesn't seem like something to be overly proud of. My issue with the book is that it essentially lacks any engaging characters. The narrator's cynicism is not tinged with sufficient humour to make it palatable and there wasn't a single character or event in the book which I cared one whit about. I do agree that Vidal was summarily dismissive of Tao philosophy in favor of Confucian pragmatism and I was disappointed by this in terms of my personal phlosophical preferences. I would not recommend this as a pleasurable read but you might learn some ancient history by drudging through it.
Rating:
Summary: Slogging Through the Ancient World
Review: I agree with Oakshaman's observations that Vidal has projected 20th century cynicism onto a "BC" backdrop. I disagree with the rosey notion that it is only recently that men have become callous and cynical and that Washington and the beltway are unique in the history of mankind. There is nothing new etc. Even today we have Nobel prize winners giving away the prize money for scholarships, alongside governments enriching their friends by waging unecessary wars. Remember also that a great number of Americans literally believe that the "Lord" lives in the sky and is engaged in a running battle with "eevil". Vidal may have been taking a not so subtle indirect swipe at the "spirituality" of his motherland. The contention that we have an overly romantic concept of Greek civilization to the detriment of other ancient civilizations seems a fair point to me. Gore's point may also be that Athens was the cradle for a system that has mutated inth the farse now seen in Washington, so it doesn't seem like something to be overly proud of. My issue with the book is that it essentially lacks any engaging characters. The narrator's cynicism is not tinged with sufficient humour to make it palatable and there wasn't a single character or event in the book which I cared one whit about. I do agree that Vidal was summarily dismissive of Tao philosophy in favor of Confucian pragmatism and I was disappointed by this in terms of my personal phlosophical preferences. I would not recommend this as a pleasurable read but you might learn some ancient history by drudging through it.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, daring, informative
Review: If you wish to live for a while along with the ancient Greeks, Persians and Indians of the 5th century B.C., feel how they hey felt, think what they thought, plot what they plot and why... in man's neverending quest for power and glory, overwhelmed with VANITY and hate but also with wisdom... if you want to compare the man of today with the man of yesterday... the rational behind a great power's actions in relation to the personal interests of its leaders... then read this book!
Rating:
Summary: History masquerading as fiction
Review: Our narrator in "Creation" is Cyrus Spitama, son of a Persian father and Greek mother, grandson of Zoroaster and friend to Xerxes. Cyrus is old and blind, he has ended up in Athens in his last years, dictating the story of his travels and his life to his nephew and scribe, Democritus. In each of the places he describes - Babylon, Cathay, India, Greece, cities of Persia - his main focus is on the religious customs, particularly various creation myths. It is no secret that Cyrus definitely favors the one (male) god that created everything, we live one life - it's good versus evil and then there's either heaven or hell. There is so much crammed into this book, which is both its' strength and weakness. There are so many characters in this book, especially in the parts dealing with the Greeks, that it sometimes reads more like a history lesson than page turning fiction. Over the course of his life Cyrus comes to know Darius & Xerxes, both Great Kings of Persia, Zoroaster, the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Li Tzu, quite amazing for a single individual. Even so, it's the scope of this book that makes it so interesting, I thought the trips through what is now India and China were the best parts. Who were the Aryans, really? In spite of its weaknesses, I can't think of any other work of fiction that introduces so many customs, traditions, and philosophies of the ancient world and also encourages an awareness of the vastness of human civilization and history.
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