RIP Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal was the last of a generation of literary lions who attempted—sometimes with spectacular success, but also a healthy amount of failure—to broaden the possibilities of fiction and nonfiction. In contrast to the usual stereotype of intellectual-as-wallflower, Vidal was also famous for being a literary brawler of the first order: witness this pleasant little conversation between him and William F. Buckley Jr.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8

Or this equally notable brawl between Vidal and Mailer (which is mentioned in Intellectual’s Maxim 95):

The intellectual life: it’s not for wimps.