COMMENT, JULY 1961

Gore Vidal may not like New York Times' critic Orville Prescott, but he dislikes Ayn Rand's "philosophy" even more.

By Gore Vidal on May 19, 2008

Since what seems the original publication of The Scarlet Letter, the book reviews of Orville Prescott have made gaudy the otherwise impeccable greyness of The New York Times. Until now he has been spared criticism on the ground that, since few people seriously interested in writing read him, he can neither harm nor help a literary reputation. This is certainly true, but a great many people who don’t read books do read the Times. With a Prescott as view-finder, their picture of American literature is distorted, to say the least.
My own objection to Orville Prescott is not so much his style (J. Donald Adams’ words are winged by comparison) nor his ignorance of the more sophisticated critical strategies (he tells you the plot, anyway), but his identification with what he thinks to be his audience: the middle-aged, middle-class, moderately Affluent American woman who lives in Darien, New Canaan, Scarsdale, a region bounded on the south by the Theatre Guild, on the north by Womrath, on the west by Barry Goldwater and on the eats by…oh, well, you name it. Prescott knows these ladies are interested in sex; he also knows that they stand firmly united in condemning all sexual activity not associated with marriage. Grimly, they attend each Tennessee Williams play so that they can complain furiously in the lobby that this time Williams has gone too far! that this time they are thoroughly revolted by that diseasedmind! and never again will they expose themselves to such filth! And of course the next play Williams writes they will all be back on deck, ready to be appalled again.............................
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