Creation

Zusatztext “An incredibly detailed and convincing picture of the ancient world.” –Anthony Burgess “Brilliantly realized. . . . Fertile! vivid! and ingenious. . . . [A] surging river of a book.” –Mary Renault! The New York Review of Books “His best novel. . . . There isn’t a page of Creation that doesn’t inform and very few pages that do not delight” – The New York Times “Highly literate! stylish! entertaining and provocative.” – The Wall Street Journal Informationen zum Autor Gore Vidal Klappentext A sweeping novel of politics, war, philosophy, and adventure-in a restored edition, featuring never-before-published material from Gore Vidal's original manuscript- Creation offers a captivating grand tour of the ancient world. Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens-the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates-Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life's journeys: how the universe was created, and why evil was created with good. In revisiting the fifth century b.c.-one of the most spectacular periods in history-Gore Vidal illuminates the ideas that have shaped civilizations for millennia. book one Herodotus Gives a Reading at the Odeon in Athens 1 I am blind. But I am not deaf. Because of the incompleteness of my misfortune, I was obliged yesterday to listen for nearly six hours to a self-styled historian whose account of what the Athenians like to call "the Persian Wars" was nonsense of a sort that were I less old and more privileged, I would have risen in my seat at the Odeon and scandalized all Athens by answering him. But then, I know the origin of the Greek wars. He does not. How could he? How could any Greek? I spent most of my life at the court of Persia and even now, in my seventy-fifth year, I still serve the Great King as I did his father-my beloved friend Xerxes-and his father before him, a hero known even to the Greeks as Darius the Great. When the painful reading finally ended-our "historian" has a thin monotonous voice made even less charming by a harsh Dorian accent-my eighteen-year-old nephew Democritus wanted to know if I would like to stay behind and speak to the traducer of Persia. "You should," he said. "Because everyone is staring at you. They know you must be very angry." Democritus is studying philosophy here at Athens. This means that he delights in quarrels. Write that down, Democritus. After all, it is at your request that I am dictating this account of how and why the Greek wars began. I shall spare no one-including you. Where was I? the Odeon. I smiled the poignant smile of the blind, as some unobservant poet characterized the expression of those of us who cannot see. Not that I ever paid much attention to blind men when I could see. On the other hand, I never expected to live long enough to be old, much less go blind, as I did three years ago when the white clouds that had been settling upon the retinas of my eyes became, suddenly, opaque. The last thing that I ever saw was my own blurred face in a polished-silver mirror. This was at Susa, in the Great King's palace. At first I thought that the room was filling up with smoke. But it was summertime, and there was no fire. For an instant I saw myself in the mirror; then saw myself no longer; saw nothing else, ever again. In Egypt the doctors perform an operation that is supposed to send the clouds scurrying. But I am too old to go to Egypt. Besides, I have seen quite enough. Have I no...

Product details

• Authors: Gore Vidal
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 27.08.2002
• EAN: 9780375727054
• ISBN: 978-0-375-72705-4
• No. of pages: 592
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 205 mm x 30 mm
• Series: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature