[rating=5]
176 pages & 256 pages • Penguin English Library • 31 May & 27 September, 2012 [PB]

E.M. Forster’s Italian novels are full of beauty and conflict, and the film versions are but pale shadow.

“A Room With A View is a romantic comedy, and a more conventional book than Where Angels Fear To Tread. Forster was apprehensive about it, and he fretted over the quality of the character’s inner lives.”

September 8, 2012

Recommendations from Polari’s writers based on what they are reading this week.

“This week: Jenni Fagan, Gore Vidal, Cormac McCarthy & Christopher Fowler.”

August 20-26, 2012

Weekly Digest of articles, Week of August 20-26, polarimagazine.com

“This week: Queer History, Eric Kuhlmann, Tale of Homophobia, iamamiwhoami, Charli XCX, Tom Bullough, Cecilia Gimenez, Gore Vidal.”

Jay Parini to write Vidal Biography.

Polari’s editor talked to Gore Vidal about Jay Parini being his ideal biographer back in 2009. Parini has been contracted by Doubleday to write the biography for a 2015 publication.

“I asked if there was any chance that Parini would write the decent biography, and added, ‘he seems to me like the best candidate’. Vidal responded, ‘I think he would be, but I prefer some things after death’.”

1925-2012.

Gore Vidal, one of America’s greatest writers, died on July 31 at the age of 86.

“Over the course of sixty-six years Vidal published twenty-nine novels (five under pseudonyms), four memoirs (one disguised as an extended essay, Screening History [1992]), and countless essays as well as plays for television, stage & cinema.”

Assumptions and Prejudice Have Changed Little.

A CBS report by Mike Wallace, ‘The Homosexuals’, from 1967 uses arguments that are disturbingly similar to those used today. How much have things changed really?

“It is apparent that what was being said and assumed then about homosexuality publicly is not so different from what is so often being said and assumed now.”

Only Obama Got The Point.

This week in the same sex marriage debate, Obama came out in support, the Conservative government retreated, and North Carolina voted to ban civil unions and same sex marriage.

“The Conservatives played the blame game, and so the same sex marriage rights that had been on the table before last week’s elections were excluded. Politics is being played with rights, and that is deplorable.”

Polari Facts looks at the idea of history.

To mark the end of LGBT History Month, Polari Facts looks at how Hollywood and history are more compatible than one may think.

History does not mean his story. The etymology, from the Ancient Greek, ἱστορία – hístōr – means inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge. Ok, let’s just move on now, shall we?

Clementine delivers the one and only Queen’s speech.

Clementine, the Queen of Polari, reflects on her three years as its regina.

Three eventful years have seen me probe gay marriage, and Darren Hayes.

[rating=4]
256 pages • Harry N. Abrams, Inc. • November 2nd, 2009 [HB]

A beautiful book of photographs that charts the life of writer Gore Vidal, with the sardonic commentary one would expect from its author.

The format frees Vidal to bring his comic asides to the fore. It is a romp through a fascinating life. The addition of newspaper articles, original book covers, and letters adds a dimension to the photographs that enliven it.