Godsmurf Creation by Gore Vidal

Sunday 18 December 2005

Gore Vidal is a famous writer of historical fiction, one of my two favourite genres (sf being the other), but this was the first book of his I read. I found it while randomly scanning the shelves in the library before my trip and brought it along because it party dealt with India. It was a lucky find that made me enjoy our many long train rides through India.

The story is told by Cyrus Spitama, the fictitious Persian ambassador to Athens in the 5th century BC. He tells of his life at the courts of Darius and Xerxes, but also of voyages he made to India and China, where he met with the Buddha and Confucius respectively. Thus this book is an exploration of the cultures of the four great civilisations of that era - Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese - with a focus on their religions and philosophies, and mainly on the question of the origin and meaning of life - hence the title "Creation".

Everything is written in a witty style typical of Vidal, which especially shines in the narrator's condescending comments on the Greeks and especially the Athinians. His Persian perspective is of-course diametrically opposed to how we are taught about ancient Greek civilisation, which makes it very interesting. My favourite passage is when Spitama describes Xerxes' attack on Athens and says "his army moved south along the coast and killed a Spartan king and all his men along the way". This refers to the battle of Thermopylae, for the ancient Greeks one of the most heroic episodes in their history, so it's funny how the Persian brushes over it.

Besides learning a lot about this period in history, the main thing I take away from this book is Vidal's view on the typology and chronology of religions. He argues that in all these regions tribal invaders from the north (the Greeks in Europe, the Persians in Mesopotamia, the Aryans in India) replaced the original otherworldly religions with their own polytheistic worship of a pantheon of gods, but that the old religions gradually came on top again in new forms - Buddhism in India, Zoroastrianism in Persia, and later of course christianity. An interesting theory as it goes against the general perception that religion had a linear evolution from animism to polytheism to monotheism.

Anyway, this is recommended reading. I love Vidal's style - English at its best - and I'm definitely going to read his best-know work "Julian", which is set in the 4th century AD and deals with the early history of christianity.