Once again as in Burr (1973) Vidal centers on politics as the
manifestation and shaper of American identity. Here he illuminates
one of the nation's dark moments, the disputed Tilden-Hayes
election along with the centralizing drift of money, power and
sectional interests toward the capital. Charlie Schuyler is again
the journalist-narrator. He has returned to New York City after 37
years in France with his beautiful, widowed daughter Emma and some
Rip Van Winkle obsessions: "When I was young. . . The American was
lean, lanky, often a bit stooped with leathery skin. . . Some new
race has obviously replaced (him). . . a plump, voluptuous people.
. . ." They are the prosperous New Yorkers, from the monumental
"Mystic Rose," Mrs. William Astor, to the clients of cigar store
brothels. As an admirer of the ailing Tilden, a scrupulous ascetic,
Schuyler forgoes his detachment and reports the corrupt electoral
tangles. While Tilden falls, notables in New York and Washington
are observed: a smooth, intelligent Garfield (". . . when you are
dealt the cards you play them"); a glum, bewildered Grant; a
"deceitful" Senator Conlding ("Senate seats are expensive. . . It
is all money nowadays"); and also that likable rake, James Bennett,
Jr. of the Herald. While Schuyler lives out what is to be his last
year, daughter Emma breaks an engagement and marries a widower
(whose son will appear in Vidal's next novel). 1876 is a rich,
talky book, but the talk - rarefied escritoire to bock-beer blunt -
moves easily. An achievement - Vidal revolutionizes the genre with
a seriousness and a muscle both firm and new. (Kirkus Reviews)
With the centennial year of the United States as the target of this historical novel, Gore Vidal again mounts a glorious expedition into that grimy and intricate activity called politics. And this is politics as it ought to be: gossip, corruption, money, dinner parties, more corruption, and all the tacky panoply of power. Into the rarefied atmosphere of a world where money has begun to talk very loudly ? usually through the mouths of people called Astor ? step Charles Schuyler and his daughter Emma. Charlie is the unacknowledged bastard son of Aaron Burr; Emma is rather beautiful; and both think it is prudent to return from penury in Europe and secure a fortuitous marriage for Emma. But America is no longer a young republic; it’s a fledgling international superpower with its attendant seedy administration, dubious election campaigns, snobbery, ‘popped corn’, ‘speaking tubes’ and ‘perpendicular railways’ (lifts). It’s a world that will welcome into its social and political bosom these two attractive exotics with the right names. And it’s a world whose every political peccadillo, social slip-up and irresistible intrigue is recorded in this, the journal of Charlie Schuyler.
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