'THE LAST EMPIRE' Vidal unleashes another volume of contrarian wit

He finds some people worthy of praise, such as Mark Twain, Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon.
By ROB STOUT
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
& quot;The Last Empire, Essays 1992-2000, & quot; by Gore Vidal (Doubleday, $27.95).
It is always hectic being a professional contrarian. But it must be especially trying of late for Gore Vidal. What was billed as the masterful, concluding stroke to his seven volume saga on America, & quot;The Golden Age, & quot; was all but pelted with dead cats by critics. At the same time, the revival of his 1960 Broadway production, & quot;The Best Man, & quot; played to packed houses and kept his continued political thrusting alive in the host of publications he has used over the years for his colorful harangues against, well, just about everything.
Most recently, Vidal made world headlines when he revealed his correspondence with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Certainly, public comments like, & quot;This boy has a sense of justice. That's what attracted me to him, & quot; did little for the publicity department at Doubleday. And, no doubt, after imagining himself on the next cover of Career Suicide Magazine, Vidal decided not to be Terra Haute's only celebrity death witness as he had intended, and ceased any further statements to the press.
His comments do cast something of a pall over his latest collection of essays, published as a companion volume to 1993's & quot;United States: Essays 1952-1992. & quot; However, & quot;The Last Empire & quot; is the predictable combination of Vidal's high-plumed observations, gossip, vanity and venom that, by now, a reader gears himself for when buying a collection of his work.
In these 48 previously published essays, readers of the Vidal canon (or as is often the case, cannon) will find contemporary subject matter, as well as the author's ability to return to past crusades without seeming repetitious or dull.
Sacred cows: During his lifelong search to find the pastures of every last sacred cow, Vidal draws often upon his wartime experiences. In the reprint , & quot;How We Missed the Dance, & quot; he begins, & quot;In the three years I spent in the Army, I heard no soldier express a patriotic sentiment. & quot;
While older ducks still keep popping up in Vidal's shooting gallery, none incur the deadly aim as his chief literary nemesis, John Updike.
& quot;Rabbit's Own Burrow & quot; recounts Updike's life as if told by a more erudite Kitty Kelley and punctuated with its share of Vidal's literary blood letting. & quot;There is nothing, sad to say, surprising in Updike's ignorance of history and politics, only a knowledge of people like himself; in this, he is a standard American. & quot;
Targets: Others come under similar fire: Harry Truman and the National Security Act that destroyed the "national perfection of our exceptional society; & quot; both Clinton and distant cousin Al Gore emerge as political versions of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer struggling to navigate the muddy waters of Washington; and the one time Kennedy house guest brings out the clan's inherited tawdriness in & quot;The Dark Side of Camelot. & quot;
Just so readers do not imagine & quot;The Last Empire & quot; as an eight-year snit, on Vidal's good side are Edmund Wilson, Mark Twain, Dawn Powell, Frank Sinatra, and (yes) a respectful rest-in-peace to Richard Nixon. Herein lies the difference between the inexhaustible bitterness found in so much of today's accepted literary and social commentary versus observations born of serpentine humor and wit.
As America's most famous self-imposed political exile, now sequestered in his villa high above the Italian coast, one can only hope that Vidal finds more feuds left to settle and accepted wisdom worthy of his rhetorical puncture.