THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. - Hardcover
It is 1939, and the U.S. is on the cusp of war when a teenaged science prodigy is summoned to the Smithsonian Institution. He becomes involved in a scheme to change history. The wax figures on exhibit come to life, while scientists in the basement experiment with time travel and nuclear physics. Among the characters our hero's encounters are a sexy 19th-century First Lady with whom he has a passionate affair, a slightly brain-damaged Abraham Lincoln, as well as Einstein and Hitler.
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About the Author:
Gore Vidal is the author of many bestselling novels including Julian, Burr, Myra Breckinridge, and Lincoln. He lives in Italy.
From Kirkus Reviews:
Another merry riff on Washington power politics, struggles, and failures from the venerable curmudgeon and sage: an appealingly unholy marriage of Burr, Duluth, and a suavely Vidalian amalgam of Tom Sawyer and Tom Swift. In 1939, a 13-year-old prep school student who's identified only as ``T.'' (and who, we soon learn, is a ``teenage mathematical genius'') is yanked out of classes and driven to the title location's main building (``the Castle''), where, after meeting wax figures who come mischievously to life after the doors are closed to the public, he becomes a pivotal figure in crisscrossing plans to either avert or win a forthcoming world war. Specifically, undisclosed forces (among them may be James Smithson, the Institution's presiding genius) have determined that T., also, incidentally, ``the best schoolboy pitcher in the Washington, D.C., area,'' may possess knowledge that will enable his country to detonate a nuclear bomb without producing the ensuing chain reaction certain to destroy the world. After a disturbing first few hours within the Castle, during which he's declared ``prime veal'' and almost parboiled in the Early Indian Exhibit Room (then relieved--to his relief--of his virginity by a nonNative American ``Squaw''), T. settles sturdily down to business, reassuring a depressed-looking Abraham Lincoln and a truculently pacifist Charles Lindbergh, explaining to Robert Oppenheimer just where Einstein went wrong, and, thanks to a jury-rigged thermostat, traveling about in ``innumerable parallel pasts.'' Only a cad would give away the beguiling results of T.'s refreshingly ingenuous adventures and discoveries--not to mention the dozens of ingenious anachronistic gags with which the narrative is studded. This may be the wisest book that Vidal--this incomparably urbane observer of our revered past, debased present, and unpromising future--has even written. It is, as well, entertainment of the highest order. Even Norman Mailer will like this novel. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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- PublisherRANDOM HOUSE.
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 0316645869
- ISBN 13 9780316645867
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Rating
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The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780316645867
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780316645867
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THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
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(1998)
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The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Good. Some shelf wear, outer side edges have not been sliced properly, otherwise book content is in very good readable condition. Seller Inventory # 020561-4
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First UK Edition. 260 pages. Fore-edge uncut. Cloth boards in dust-jacket which is slightly faded at the spine. Size: 8vo. Seller Inventory # 023988
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. 260 pages. 450 grams. This book is in very good unmarked condition. The dust jacket is in very good condition with minimal wear. Dust jacket condition preserved within new clear plastic removable non-adhesive protective covering. 'It's Good Friday 1939, and a teenage math prodigy from St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., is mysteriously summoned to the Smithsonian Institution, where a crash program to develop the atomic bomb is being conducted in the basement. Someone is also fooling around with the space-time continuum, and the preternaturally gifted teenager turns out to hold the key to both the secrets of nuclear fission and breakthroughs in the fourth dimension. In the subterranean laboratory, he brainstorms with Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists who will soon be at Los Alamos. Meanwhile, upstairs, the displays in the museum come to life after hours, and an adventurous First Lady from the inaugural-gowns exhibit takes it upon herself to show him the sexual ropes. The Smithsonian Institution is one of what Gore Vidal has referred to as his "inventions" - novels like Myra Breckinridge and Duluth - but it also deals with the themes central to his historical novels, books such as Burr, 1876, and Lincoln. In fact, Abraham Lincoln - along with Charles Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Grover Cleveland, and Adolf Hitler - turns up here as the teenage narrator tries not only to make sense of history but to intervene in key events that shaped the twentieth century. Questions about political responsibility and personal sacrifice are deftly woven into a surreal narrative of quantum physics, string theory, clones, the sexual habits of Eskimos, and the domestic arrangements of various U.S. presidents. It's a Vidalian tour de force of comedy and allusion.' 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Fiction, Modern First Editions.; ISBN: 0316645869. ISBN/EAN: 9780316645867. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 001323. Seller Inventory # 001323
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THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION A Novel
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(1998)
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