Lincoln (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Lincoln. By Gore Vidal. (New York: Random House, 1984. Pp. 657. $19.95.) "All of the principal characters really existed," writes Gore Vidal in an Afterword to Lincoln, "and they said and did pretty much what I have them saying and doing. . . ." This is true, to a point. Of Vidal's four novels of historical "faction" set in the United States (the others being Washington, D.C., Burr, and 1876), Lincoln has the highest ratio of fact to fiction. It is also, despite the familiarity of the material, the best and most interesting of the lot. Vidal has a jaundiced view of politicians, whom he sees in the main as ambitious and ruthless schemers. When he resorts to invention in Lincoln , it is often to illustrate this theme. William Seward, for example, daydreams of sending a detachment of troops to surround the Capitol. Their mission is to dissolve the Congress, disperse its members, arrest Senator Wade and the other "Jacobins," try them, and execute them if convicted. Of this last contingency Vidal leaves little doubt; Seward ends his reverie by debating "whether or not the gallows should be placed at the east or the west end of the Capitol." But Seward gets off lightly, compared to Salmon Chase, who is cast as a devious, hymnsinging monomaniac, or Mary Lincoln, portrayed as a mad, spendthrift virago. These figures seem recognizable but distorted, fun-house images caught in a mirror of cynicism. The portrait of Lincoln, on the other hand, is more sympathetic and balanced. His character is a study in contrasts. Abe is honest but crafty, articulate but inscrutable, grimly fatalistic but addicted to humor, conciliatory ' yet immoveable in his determination to preserve the Union. Vidal cannot resist speculating about Lincoln's darker side (Herndon makes an inevitable appearance and spills the beans while drunk in a bordello), but at times he seems awestruck by Lincoln's achievement. Beneath the facade of the earthy politician is a mythic hero who is consumed , physically and emotionally, by the war he prosecutes. John Hay ends the novel by musing that "Lincoln, in some mysterious fashion, had willed his own murder as a form of atonement for the great and terrible thing that he had done by giving so bloody and absolute a rebirth to his nation." The success of the Lincoln character is due, in part, to the structure of the novel. The president is seen only through the eyes of others; Vidal does not permit himself to enter into Lincoln's consciousness directly. This brings a certain amount of discipline and restraint; when he writes 352CIVIL WAR HISTORY about Lincoln, Vidal seems more like a conventional biographer or historian , often using his subject's own words and speeches. But when the action shifts to other characters, Vidal reverts to novelistic form, filling the pages with fantasy, repartee, sexual adventure, and political intrigue. He does this so often, in fact, that the book ends up being overly long. Lincoln suffers from the same problem as Salmon Chase's currency: inflation . There are extraneous subplots, irrelevant cameos, and odd details , like Lincoln's scarecrow hair, that are interesting once, tolerable twice, but tiresome on third or fourth mention. But Vidal at any length is still highly entertaining, and readers of this journal will find Lincoln an absorbing and provocative work of historical fiction. David T. Courtwricht University of Hartford Secession and the Union in Texas. By Walter L. Buenger. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. Pp. 255. $17.50.) This is the first full-scale, scholarly study of the secession movement in Texas. It is long overdue, for the Lone Star State's conversion from staunch L^nionism in 1859 to overwhelming secessionism in I860 provides material for a fascinating case study in the triumph of emotion over reason. Buenger thoroughly charts Texas's progression toward disunion , stressing along the way the unique features which make the state's experience in the secession crisis a distinctive one. The author clearly shows that Texas was far from being a homogeneous state, either culturally, geographically, or politically, in I860. Its people, most of whom had immigrated from other Southern states, had brought with them...