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Creation
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
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Creation
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Summary
A sweeping novel of politics, war, philosophy, and adventure - in a restored edition, featuring never-before-published material from Gore Vidal’s original manuscript - Creation offers a captivating grand tour of the ancient world.
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys: how the universe was created, and why evil was created with good. In revisiting the fifth century B.C. - one of the most spectacular periods in history - Gore Vidal illuminates the ideas that have shaped civilizations for millennia.
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What listeners say about Creation
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 09-10-23
Totally worth the time and effort
This took a while to get into but once I became familiar with the key characters I was hooked. Beautifully read. Subtly witty and waspish at times. The narrator handles it perfectly.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Hamburgerpatty
- 29-04-21
I whooped with joy ...
... when I discovered Gore Vidal's Creation was available on Aubible.
I had read Creation back in the Olden Days of the early 1980s and remembered what height, depth and breadth of a canvas of Ancient Hisory Gore Vidal had created for his lucky readers.
It's a novel set in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE and focuses on the diplomatic career of the fictiional career of Cyrus Spitama a Persian and the grandson of Zoraster. He is raised in the Persian court where he is acquainted with Darius and his son Xerxes. Cyrus Spitama is sent on a mission by the Persian king to study various philosophical and religious practices of his known world. He meets Aristotle, the Buddha, Confucius. He also meets beautiful women, savage generals, kings, merchants, concubines and commoners.
Cyrus' sponsors might have given him one assignment, but Cyrus himself is interested in learning about the Creation of the world and so sets about asking many people including those great phiosophers and religious leaders - how was the world created.
Vidal's history might not be totally accurate; his imagination and scope is tremendous. And every so often the reader/listener is rewarded with a zinger of an aside which only Vidal could have written. Delicious.
Vidal also reminds us that history is often written by the victors and victors have an agenda. Nothing changes and yet everything does.
I wonder has there every been a historical novel with such scope as Creation?
Why isn't this novel better known?
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- HistoryLover
- 07-10-20
One of the great historical novels
Vidal takes us to ancient Persian, the court of Darius the Great and Xerxes, for this amazing historical novel. It takes us from Persia to India and China. Masterfully conceived.
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- Lindsay Harper
- 15-08-20
amazing
Great book by great writter read before but just gets better each time I read it
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- Anonymous User
- 21-10-23
A truly fascinating historical epic!
Flowing with the wit and intelligence that only Gore Vidal could deliver, creation is both awe inspiring and thought provoking. Bringing to life historical figures - both real an imagined - for a cross cultural meditation that juxtaposing some of the foundational dogmas of civilization.
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