Guardian on Vidal at Hay

[sawyl]

The Guardian has been a positive Gore Vidal-fest of late, what with an interview with the Great Man in Saturday's Review and coverage of his performance at the Hay Festival. Here's Charlotte Higgins' relatively respectful account:

Age may have taken its toll on the body of Gore Vidal - but not on his ability to fire the sharpest one-liners or to deliver the most withering scorn. On John McCain: "He's pretty goony. Intellectually, he's in George W Bush's league ... America is a country where you can't bea phoney enough. He's as much a war hero as I am. He crashes his plane, he's captured by the Viet Cong, he is stuck in a box for several years from which he makes no attempt whatever to escape. Where's the grandeur in that?" Has age, inquired the interviewer, not brought wisdom McCain's way? "Senility is the word you're looking for," uttered Vidal. Asked about whom he considers to be his successor, Vidal growled, "I am not holding the door open. I am still the Bishop of Rome!" (at this, waving his walking-stick madly about like a papal crozer).

And here's the more ascerbic John Crace:

Gore Vidal has always been tricky. So it's hard to know if he has his hearing aid switched off or if he is just being deliberately difficult. Either way, he spends much of his slot asking his interviewer, Sky News' political editor Adam Boulton, to repeat his questions. By the end Boulton looks like a nervous wreck; Vidal is as deadpan as when he started.

And for good measure, he also swipes at Messrs Rushdie and Kureishi:

Fortunately Salman is next up to calm things down. And how. With a performance worthy of a superannuated lecturer on a cruise ship, Rushdie narrates a dull and esoteric slide show on early Indian art and history. No one seems too sure why. It's possible Hanif Kureishi is in the audience: he's definitely grumpy enough when he gets his 60 minutes; almost every question is treated with thinly veiled boredom. Kureishi seems desperate to escape. He isn't the only one.

But that's OK: Crace swipes at everyone. I rather imagine that, like Charlie Brooker, he's nice as pie in real life, having vented all his frustrations via the printed page...