Julian

1964, 1991 Ballantine Books edition
Gore Vidal
Julian
Bought newish for $5.95
Very worn paperback
B-

Vidal had been publishing fiction for almost 20 years at that point, but this is the oldest of his books I own.  It also has the earliest setting of any of his historical fiction that I've read, telling the story of fourth-century Emperor Julian the Apostate.  It's mostly in the form of Julian's memoir, but interspersed are the comments of two of his friends, cynical Priscus and more idealistic Libanius.  Speaking of cynics, I suspect the portrayal of the Cynics and other students, including bearded young Julian, is partly satirical of the beatniks and other early 1960s rebels.

Vidal offers a balanced view of Julian, seeing him as a flawed hero who tried to fight the rise of Christianity, but at least 50 years too late.  (Julian was the nephew of Constantine.)  I'd give the novel a B, but I tend to be bored by wars, and I felt like the layering of the story was too much of a distancing technique.  Like many of his novels, there's a twist ending, although I didn't feel like it had much impact this time.

Vidal's The City and the Pillar had shown back in '48 his casual attitude to homosexuality, in the sense that for Vidal bisexuality is everyone's starting point and there's nothing remarkable about it.  Here, homo- or bisexuality, particularly of Roman soldiers, is a given.  Ironically, Julian becomes celibate and most of the characters would agree with Aldous Huxley that chastity is "the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions."