Gore Vidal - Legacy

Legacy

After Vidal's death tributes immediately poured in from various media sources. The New York Times described him in his obituary as being in his old age "an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right. Few American writers have been more versatile or gotten more mileage from their talent." The Los Angeles Times described him as a "literary juggernaut" whose novels and essays were considered "among the most elegant in the English language". The Washington Post remembered him as a "major writer of the modern era" and an "astonishingly versatile man of letters".

UK's The Guardian said "Vidal's critics disparaged his tendency to formulate an aphorism rather than to argue, finding in his work an underlying note of contempt for those who did not agree with him. His fans, on the other hand, delighted in his unflagging wit and elegant style." The Daily Telegraph described him as "an icy iconoclast" who "delighted in chronicling what he perceived as the disintegration of civilisation around him", while BBC News said he was "one of the finest post-war American writers... an indefatigable critic of the whole American system. Writing in Los Angeles, BBC journalist Alastair Leithead said: "Gore Vidal saw himself as the last of the breed of literary figures who became celebrities in their own right. Never a stranger to chat shows, his wry and witty opinions were sought after as much as his writing."

Popular Spanish publication Ideal reported Vidal's death as a loss to the "culture of the United States" and described him as a "Huge American novelist and essayist". The Italian Il Corriere described him as "the enfant terrible of American culture" and said that he was "one of the giants of American literature". French paper Le Figaro described him as "the Killjoy of America" but also said that he was an "outstanding polemicist" who used phrases "like high precision weapons."

Following his death, despite generally positive appraisals by many, Vidal has been criticized by at least one commentator as "racist and elitist" and as "forever mourning the decline of his era of aristocratic privilege".