Burr

A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)

De: Gore Vidal

Narrado por: Grover Gardner

For listeners who can’t get enough of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, Gore Vidal’s stunning novel about Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel - and who served as a successful, if often feared, statesman of our fledgling nation.

Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist named Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler. Together, they explore both Burr's past - and the continuing civic drama of their young nation.

Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to post-World War II. With their broad canvas and sprawling cast of fictional and historical characters, these novels present a panorama of American politics and imperialism, as interpreted by one of our most incisive and ironic observers.

©1993 Gore Vidal and 2012 The Beneficiaries of Gore Vidal (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Aaron Burr Created in Gore Vidal's Image

Note, this is a novel. It’s a historical novel and almost all of the people in it (other than the main narrator) as well as the events are historical, but it is still a novel and it must be read as such. It’s written about the adult life of Aaron Burr, the man who very nearly became the third president of the US when he was defeated by Thomas Jefferson and thus became Jefferson’s vice-president. But he is really famous for a duel while he was vice-president where he killed Alexander Hamilton and in doing so, his own political career. Later he was accused by Jefferson of treason for plotting to break off some of the western territories and set up another republic, possibly including Mexico, charges which do seem to have been at least partially trumped up by Jefferson. He he was acquitted of those charges by the Supreme Court’s Justice Marshall. 

So, that’s the man, but Gore Vidal is actually going much further than just a biographical novel. You might say that his real topic is an account of the early days of the republic and he applies to it the cynical and pessimistic tone of the age when it was written, the age of Nixon and the protests against the Vietnam War. And that is how the time is portrayed, as an experiment gone badly wrong from the beginning, hijacked by incompetent leaders whose belief in the democratic experiment depended on whether things were going in the direction that they believed to be correct and in ways that were beneficial to them.  

I bought this partly because it was rated highly, partly because of my great respect for Alexander Hamilton and thus a curiosity about the man who killed him, and partly because, other than the duel with Hamilton, Burr was an important figure in the founding of our country about whom I (we?) know very little. And there was much in this that I did find to be fresh and interesting. As the saying goes, history is written by the victors, and therefore it is to be expected that the villains that we know may not have been as totally depraved as they have been pictured and our heroes did have some flaws that were papered over. 

And the quality of the writing, the plot, the structure is certainly excellent. The “story” is told in a creative way by a young New York City journalist named Charles Schuyler, who takes pains to inform us that he is not of “that” Schuyler family, in other words, the wealthy and influential Schuylers, one of whose daughters was the wife of Alexander Hamilton. Since this is the one significant character in the novel who is not historical, it seems that Vidal must have chosen this name with some reason in mind. 

And indeed, Charles Schuyler is a fledgling journalist who has been given an assignment. It is 1833 and Schuyler’s editor is strongly opposed to presidential hopeful Martin Van Buren. Burr and Van Buren were good friends (and this was true) and there was even a rumor that Van Buren was Burr’s illegitimate son (also true that this was a rumor but the rumor was incorrect). It was hoped that Schuyler could gain Burr’s trust and his agreement to cooperate in working on a biography, maybe the Burr would admit that the rumor was true which would scuttle Van Buren’s political career. This kind of literary device is quite effective for this type of novel because it makes it easier to bounce back and forth in time while keeping the dialog in the present since the past would be told by Burr in the present. 

Burr is now an aging man who must know that he is coming close to the end of his life and he is likely to want to tell his story to someone he feels he can trust to portray him as Burr wants to be portrayed. 

Of course, the Aaron Burr who is telling us his story is, at least partly, the creation of Gore Vidal. And, unlike most of the other founding fathers, Burr’s papers were mostly lost in a shipwreck (that also took the life of his daughter), so, to be fair, Vidal does have less to work with. The result is at least believable even if fictional. It’s impossible to know if this is the “real” Aaron Burr but it certainly sounds like a plausible version of him. 

And therein lies one of the difficulties of this book. This Aaron Burr is always right and was able to defend every action. Of course, that’s not too surprising. Everyone else is a villain of some sort, which may not also be too surprising from someone who had been villainized by the public and whose ambitions had been destroyed. Burr was the only one who really cared about democracy, about freedom, about the rule of law and judicial independence. Why was everyone so upset about a duel. Was he the first one to engage in that practice? And those people had turned Hamilton into almost a god, second only to Washtington, Hamilton, who was a scheming, conniving, incompetent man who just followed the coattails of whoever was in power. Washington was a stoic who had no friends, who was greedy and egotistic and really wanted to be king. And he was an incompetent general who lost Canada because he wouldn’t listen to Burr’s advice. Monroe also hated Washington. And Monroe would likely have killed Hamilton long ago if Burr hadn’t talked them out of a duel, though it was obvious they were cowards who didn't really want to fight anyway. John Adams is quarrelsome, arrogant, pompous, thin-skinned, and paranoid. But Jefferson was the worst. Jefferson was sleazy and two-faced. He was in France when the Constitution was framed and never supported it. He decried the power that it gave to the presidency until he became president and then certainly never believed that it should limit his power. He was a coward who, when governor of Virginia, abandoned his post and fled as the British approached. You could never trust him, except to do whatever was beneficial to Jefferson. And Jefferson had betrayed his own vice president, trying to convict him of treason for a plan that Jefferson himself had supported. 

Some of that is true. Much of the criticisms of Jefferson are supported in Jefferson’s own writings about himself. Adams was arrogant and pompous. It’s not clear what Monroe thought of Washington and it may be that he did not hold him in the highest regard, but there is no evidence that he hated him. As for Washington, he did have trouble expressing his feelings and certainly had some great military failings in his early years but he was able to learn from his mistakes to achieve some significant strategic victories in his later years as a general and he very clearly didn’t want to be king. 

The problem is that this “Burr” seems a whole lot like Gore Vidal. It seems that Vidal took the evidence that was there to support an Aaron Burr that was truly better than the reputation that has been passed down in history and from that created a more perfect Burr in his own image. 

I recommend it as fiction. I recommend it as giving us a more human view of our founders and even a better understanding of just how easily things could have gone wrong in those early days. But for an accurate portrayal of history, it is greatly lacking and in fact seems closer to a distortion written with an axe to grind.

Fascinating

Well! What a counterpoint to Chernow’s HAMILTON! I’ve now read several straight biographies and historical fiction about the “founding fathers” and find we really need to move to national leadership by women. These were a bunch of egotistical, greedy, power-driven white guy’s who’s legacy is Insurrection, insecurity, rivalry, and vindictiveness. I was no fan of Gore Vidal personally but he does write well. A recommended read.

Compelling listen

The story, and the reading are erudite and compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I’m ready to start another Vidal classic!

Engaging history of the founding

Of this nation. Contentious as we still are. Excellent narration of Vidal’s representation of Burr and Hamilton and Jefferson

Delicious

Yep, I'm a self-avowed Vidal groupie: have read "Burr" about five times over the past 20 years and was thrilled to see Audible finally added it to its catalog. You either get Vidal or you don't: he was acerbic, exacting, scholarly, bitchy and enormously entertaining. Our politics don't always line up, but his insights into the paths by which the U.S. arrived at its current point-in-time on the world stage are spot-on. Listen carefully: rewind and review, if need be. However, you'll not consider America's Founding Fathers (and a few of its Mothers) as you had previously after listening/reading "Burr." You GO, Gore!

Great book

Wow can’t believe I hadn’t read or listened to this book before now. Highly recommend

The much maligned Vice President

Loved it. It sounded just as I envisioned it would sound. Very, very satisfying. I'd recommend it, even if you've already read it.

A fantastic novel!

I was hooked from the beginning. Gore has a way of describing characters and events, like no other.

Joyful to hear

This was my first time listening (reading?) to anything about Burr. I found this story interesting and intriguing. It certainly has spurred me to read more about Burr. This is also the first book by Gore Vidal that I’ve read and I really enjoyed his prose! So much so that I’m glad I took the chance to purchase this book and I will definitely continue reading the other books in this series.

history in flesh and blood

the language, the wit, the endless irony, Vidal and Grover Gardner bring to life the American beginning. The most ironic is the way the framers of our amazing constitution bent and twisted the thing but could not break it. and politicians do now, and we can see our present in this past. it's Delicious!