A0002 Julian Gore Vidal Random House
Book Version: http://book.douban.com/subject/1376713/
Main Character: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)
Writer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal
Title: The Perspectives of Julian: A Novel by Gore Vidal
On each first encounter with a historical fiction lies the inevitable distortion of time, and accordingly, readers' perspective. People who've been familiar with this type of narrative often plot the jumping of time along the story. As a result, one usually ends up with a fairly attractive drawing with more than a few mathematical degree of freedom, the beginning of One Hundred Years' Solitude, for example. As for old scripts (as a historical fiction is meant to be presented), they naturally enjoy another special right of altering the whole coordinate system's origin point to a new (or old perhaps) place, thus allowing the reader a total immersion of this discreetly planned estrangement and alienation.
Specificly, we have five basic reference points on the timeline:
1. Modern Time (2014 AD)
2. Book Composition (1964 AD)
3. Memoir Composition (380 AD)
4. Iuliani Childhood (331 - 348 AD)
5. Backgroud: Founding of the Byzantine Empire and the Rise of Christianity (ca. 300 AD)
with the theme developing around the 3rd and 4th point.
That is the time dimension. Next is the dimension of individual viewpoint. Since Gore Vidal himself is an American, it is not difficult to guess that the author incorporated much of what this identity have bestowed to him and took full advantage of this allegorical narrative to reflect on the capricious existance of our transient mundus, and to criticize the ubiquitous imbecility of men, possibly the God too, mostly in terms of religion, that is Christianity, in the society which he lives. Though he appears to be a firm agnostic, namely neither acknowledging the existence of deity nor denying it, I doubt that he has much to say about many actual versions of Christianity except for their infinite ignorance. After the author comes the reader's view, MY view, which varies significantly among the reader. And because of the byzantine nature of the period, we only need to empathize with the main characters like Julian and Gallus and Constantius, or else we will be overwhelmed by the complexity of the scenario and not being able to appreciate the theme. Moreover, the two aged men in the book should be taken as one panoramic entity overseeing the memoir in which Julian oversees himself, while the author and we the reader overseeing them altogether, creating a triple-deck triangle scanner in the book's architecture while excluding the possibility of leaving any desired infomation untold. They were helping the author to insert his own views and balance the weight of a single-sided private journal narrative instead of just being essentially irrelavent book compilers. So, the personal angles we might consider are as listed below:
1. Gore Vidal (The author)
2. The reader
3. Correspondents (Libanius and Priscus)
4. Contemporary Christians (Arian/Nicean/Athanasian)
5. Pagans/Philosophers/Republicans/Senators
6. Julian the Apostate
7. Gallus
8. Constantius
The third category roughly equals to the regional, national or cultural dimension. In 1964 the time the book first appeared, U.S. was involved in a desperate war in Vietnam, racists were rampaging in the south; China was at the foredawn of Cultural Revolution and just launched its nuclear bomb; Khrushchev was forced offstage; the South America backyard was constantly raped by Uncle Sam; fundamentalists obsessed with killing everyone; one gets defined and then purged for he offends the sexual orthodoxy... If one is to claim that this degree of turbulence does not have much verisimilitude with the fourth century, few would take this view very seriously. Hi, Pinker!
One might be right in assuming that the author does not expect this book to be read by other people outside of the most narrow sense of "the English world" or even United States. But out of this work derives a million interpretations. Confronted with the book, each can design his exploration though the unique model his life knowledge provided him. Therefore, unknown territories may be dicovered through the experience each individual possess. For me, it is always a recurring leitmotiv that the history of Christianity and Roman Empire as a whole might reveal an outlet of the problems facing China today. Consequently, we add perspective of this sort:
1. Ancient Roman
2. U.S.
3. China
The last dimension is a phenomenological one, liars-level if you will. It concerns with whether a character write something because of the de facto happening demands, or because one believes it, or one wants others to believe it, or one wants others to believe that he believes it...... The false belief cycle goes forever. If the author is a Straussian as Kissinger, he must be influenced somewhat by the doctrine of crypric writing. In the book, the author certainly depicted Julian as a shrewd figure capable of deceiving others. So far, we have another triple-tier structure: ability to deceive. It goes at least through three deceptive layers:
1. The Author
2. The Narrator
3. The Truth
Now we have a moderately elaborated lens by which we can apply our Mittyesque speculations to this book. Have a good time!
Main Character: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor)
Writer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal
Title: The Perspectives of Julian: A Novel by Gore Vidal
On each first encounter with a historical fiction lies the inevitable distortion of time, and accordingly, readers' perspective. People who've been familiar with this type of narrative often plot the jumping of time along the story. As a result, one usually ends up with a fairly attractive drawing with more than a few mathematical degree of freedom, the beginning of One Hundred Years' Solitude, for example. As for old scripts (as a historical fiction is meant to be presented), they naturally enjoy another special right of altering the whole coordinate system's origin point to a new (or old perhaps) place, thus allowing the reader a total immersion of this discreetly planned estrangement and alienation.
Specificly, we have five basic reference points on the timeline:
1. Modern Time (2014 AD)
2. Book Composition (1964 AD)
3. Memoir Composition (380 AD)
4. Iuliani Childhood (331 - 348 AD)
5. Backgroud: Founding of the Byzantine Empire and the Rise of Christianity (ca. 300 AD)
with the theme developing around the 3rd and 4th point.
That is the time dimension. Next is the dimension of individual viewpoint. Since Gore Vidal himself is an American, it is not difficult to guess that the author incorporated much of what this identity have bestowed to him and took full advantage of this allegorical narrative to reflect on the capricious existance of our transient mundus, and to criticize the ubiquitous imbecility of men, possibly the God too, mostly in terms of religion, that is Christianity, in the society which he lives. Though he appears to be a firm agnostic, namely neither acknowledging the existence of deity nor denying it, I doubt that he has much to say about many actual versions of Christianity except for their infinite ignorance. After the author comes the reader's view, MY view, which varies significantly among the reader. And because of the byzantine nature of the period, we only need to empathize with the main characters like Julian and Gallus and Constantius, or else we will be overwhelmed by the complexity of the scenario and not being able to appreciate the theme. Moreover, the two aged men in the book should be taken as one panoramic entity overseeing the memoir in which Julian oversees himself, while the author and we the reader overseeing them altogether, creating a triple-deck triangle scanner in the book's architecture while excluding the possibility of leaving any desired infomation untold. They were helping the author to insert his own views and balance the weight of a single-sided private journal narrative instead of just being essentially irrelavent book compilers. So, the personal angles we might consider are as listed below:
1. Gore Vidal (The author)
2. The reader
3. Correspondents (Libanius and Priscus)
4. Contemporary Christians (Arian/Nicean/Athanasian)
5. Pagans/Philosophers/Republicans/Senators
6. Julian the Apostate
7. Gallus
8. Constantius
The third category roughly equals to the regional, national or cultural dimension. In 1964 the time the book first appeared, U.S. was involved in a desperate war in Vietnam, racists were rampaging in the south; China was at the foredawn of Cultural Revolution and just launched its nuclear bomb; Khrushchev was forced offstage; the South America backyard was constantly raped by Uncle Sam; fundamentalists obsessed with killing everyone; one gets defined and then purged for he offends the sexual orthodoxy... If one is to claim that this degree of turbulence does not have much verisimilitude with the fourth century, few would take this view very seriously. Hi, Pinker!
One might be right in assuming that the author does not expect this book to be read by other people outside of the most narrow sense of "the English world" or even United States. But out of this work derives a million interpretations. Confronted with the book, each can design his exploration though the unique model his life knowledge provided him. Therefore, unknown territories may be dicovered through the experience each individual possess. For me, it is always a recurring leitmotiv that the history of Christianity and Roman Empire as a whole might reveal an outlet of the problems facing China today. Consequently, we add perspective of this sort:
1. Ancient Roman
2. U.S.
3. China
The last dimension is a phenomenological one, liars-level if you will. It concerns with whether a character write something because of the de facto happening demands, or because one believes it, or one wants others to believe it, or one wants others to believe that he believes it...... The false belief cycle goes forever. If the author is a Straussian as Kissinger, he must be influenced somewhat by the doctrine of crypric writing. In the book, the author certainly depicted Julian as a shrewd figure capable of deceiving others. So far, we have another triple-tier structure: ability to deceive. It goes at least through three deceptive layers:
1. The Author
2. The Narrator
3. The Truth
Now we have a moderately elaborated lens by which we can apply our Mittyesque speculations to this book. Have a good time!