Gore Vidal's Burr
The moment you take a real person out of history and put them into a story, be it on stage, on film, on TV, or--if you want to be old-fashioned about it--in a book, they become a character, and as a character, they must act in accordance with their role in the narrative.
Since it debuted five years ago, everyone I've met, who has any interest in musical-theatre, has told me how much they love Hamilton. I'm no different. Though, I've yet to see the show on stage (screw you, box-office, and your hella-expensive tickets), I have listened and relistened to the cast album innumerable times. Like everyone, I have my favorite tracks. At present, it's the finale of the Act I, Non-stop.
However, the story of Hamilton wouldn't be what it is without its "narrator," and, arguably, central antagonist, Aaron Burr.
Miranda's musical has probably done more to reintroduce, not only Hamilton, but Burr to the collective consciousness of the American people. Most people who knew of Burr before musical hit the boards knew one of two things about the man: 1) He served as the third Vice President of the United States or 2) He's the man who shot Alexander Hamilton. As is always the case though, there was more to the story besides those two notable details. Miranda knew this, of course, and so the musical tells not only the eponymous Secretary of the Treasury's story, but also dives into Burr's as well.
As Burr himself notes in one of the final songs in the musical, however, even though their duel marked the end of Hamilton's life and thus the end of his story, it wasn't the end of his own. That wouldn't come until much later. In the musical's penultimate song, "The World Was Wide Enough," Burr sings a variation on his constant refrain, "I'm the one who paid for it."
Since it debuted five years ago, everyone I've met, who has any interest in musical-theatre, has told me how much they love Hamilton. I'm no different. Though, I've yet to see the show on stage (screw you, box-office, and your hella-expensive tickets), I have listened and relistened to the cast album innumerable times. Like everyone, I have my favorite tracks. At present, it's the finale of the Act I, Non-stop.
However, the story of Hamilton wouldn't be what it is without its "narrator," and, arguably, central antagonist, Aaron Burr.
Miranda's musical has probably done more to reintroduce, not only Hamilton, but Burr to the collective consciousness of the American people. Most people who knew of Burr before musical hit the boards knew one of two things about the man: 1) He served as the third Vice President of the United States or 2) He's the man who shot Alexander Hamilton. As is always the case though, there was more to the story besides those two notable details. Miranda knew this, of course, and so the musical tells not only the eponymous Secretary of the Treasury's story, but also dives into Burr's as well.
As Burr himself notes in one of the final songs in the musical, however, even though their duel marked the end of Hamilton's life and thus the end of his story, it wasn't the end of his own. That wouldn't come until much later. In the musical's penultimate song, "The World Was Wide Enough," Burr sings a variation on his constant refrain, "I'm the one who paid for it."
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I actually listened to this book on Audible.
Source: Amazon
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For the curious, however, there remains a question: how did he pay for it?
If you are indeed one of the people who found yourself asking that question at the end of the musical, then the best place to go would be into the world of books, to a historical novel published in 1973: Burr by Gore Vidal.
The first installment in Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which covers a great deal of America's early (and poorly taught) history, Burr revisits not only the events of the Revolution from Aaron Burr's viewpoint--casting him, if not as a hero, as an anti-heroic protagonist with sympathetic qualities--but takes readers through the whole of the rest of his life.
The novel, much like the musical in its own way, is a "told story," meaning that while we follow the story of Burr from his earliest days through to his final ones as an invalid living on Staten Island, much of the story is actually given to the reader through second-hand reports of other characters.
Characters who knew our eponymous protagonist explain to the central narrator, a fictional journalist/lawyer named Charles Schulyer (no relation to Hamilton's own in-laws), what he was like and speculate in their own voices about why the Colonel (as Burr's often referred to as), did what he did. Of course, Vidal in the novel also takes pains to use much of the words of Burr's own later writings. The Colonel's memoirs are woven chronologically in and out of the story as the Colonel recounts them to Schulyer.
The famed Burr-Hamilton duel occurs just about mid-way through the book. However, after that misadventure, the story begins to explain just exactly how Burr paid for it. There are several times throughout Burr's middle years where he's vilified. Though he's indicted for Hamilton's murder, he's never put on trial or arrested. After his disastrous adventure in the newly acquired territory of Louisiana, he's put on trial for treason, but eventually, receives an acquittal. After that, any and all of Burr's chances of having a political career comparable to that of other founders like Washington, Adams, or Jefferson are forever undermined.
Vidal takes great pains to play up just how despised Burr became in his later life. In the public mind of America in the 1830s, he's practically America's boogeyman. Every bad thing that happens in the news is said, in some way, to be the fault of Aaron Burr. How do we know this? Because, Schuyler, our narrator, is a journalist and thus meets the editors of all the newspapers spreading these accusations.
Yet, Vidal also does his best to give a complex picture of Burr as a person capable of decency. Towards the end, as Burr's recollections begin to catch up to the novel's present, there's a scene where he stops recounting mid-flow. Schulyer, whose voice takes over the narrative, describes how the Colonel stared longingly at a picture of his daughter Theodosia as a look of sadness comes over him. It is the look of a father who has the unfortunate, and some would say unnatural, fate of outliving his child, and it renders the otherwise loquacious Burr mute.
If Burr were truly a villain in the black-and-white sense of the word, as many believed him to be, then would he be capable of such an emotional display?
In the end, Burr dies peacefully on Staten Island, having lived long enough to see the History he lived through distorted through the passage of time (History becomes Legend; Legend becomes Myth, to paraphrase opening of The Fellowship of the Ring film). Figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton are deified by the American popular imagination, honored with statues and monuments, while his role as "unredeemable villain" cements itself.
He lived out the maxim that, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Yet, as is the case with most generalizations and popular beliefs, it never tells the whole story.
If you are indeed one of the people who found yourself asking that question at the end of the musical, then the best place to go would be into the world of books, to a historical novel published in 1973: Burr by Gore Vidal.
The first installment in Vidal's Narratives of Empire series, which covers a great deal of America's early (and poorly taught) history, Burr revisits not only the events of the Revolution from Aaron Burr's viewpoint--casting him, if not as a hero, as an anti-heroic protagonist with sympathetic qualities--but takes readers through the whole of the rest of his life.
The novel, much like the musical in its own way, is a "told story," meaning that while we follow the story of Burr from his earliest days through to his final ones as an invalid living on Staten Island, much of the story is actually given to the reader through second-hand reports of other characters.
Characters who knew our eponymous protagonist explain to the central narrator, a fictional journalist/lawyer named Charles Schulyer (no relation to Hamilton's own in-laws), what he was like and speculate in their own voices about why the Colonel (as Burr's often referred to as), did what he did. Of course, Vidal in the novel also takes pains to use much of the words of Burr's own later writings. The Colonel's memoirs are woven chronologically in and out of the story as the Colonel recounts them to Schulyer.
The famed Burr-Hamilton duel occurs just about mid-way through the book. However, after that misadventure, the story begins to explain just exactly how Burr paid for it. There are several times throughout Burr's middle years where he's vilified. Though he's indicted for Hamilton's murder, he's never put on trial or arrested. After his disastrous adventure in the newly acquired territory of Louisiana, he's put on trial for treason, but eventually, receives an acquittal. After that, any and all of Burr's chances of having a political career comparable to that of other founders like Washington, Adams, or Jefferson are forever undermined.
Vidal takes great pains to play up just how despised Burr became in his later life. In the public mind of America in the 1830s, he's practically America's boogeyman. Every bad thing that happens in the news is said, in some way, to be the fault of Aaron Burr. How do we know this? Because, Schuyler, our narrator, is a journalist and thus meets the editors of all the newspapers spreading these accusations.
Yet, Vidal also does his best to give a complex picture of Burr as a person capable of decency. Towards the end, as Burr's recollections begin to catch up to the novel's present, there's a scene where he stops recounting mid-flow. Schulyer, whose voice takes over the narrative, describes how the Colonel stared longingly at a picture of his daughter Theodosia as a look of sadness comes over him. It is the look of a father who has the unfortunate, and some would say unnatural, fate of outliving his child, and it renders the otherwise loquacious Burr mute.
If Burr were truly a villain in the black-and-white sense of the word, as many believed him to be, then would he be capable of such an emotional display?
In the end, Burr dies peacefully on Staten Island, having lived long enough to see the History he lived through distorted through the passage of time (History becomes Legend; Legend becomes Myth, to paraphrase opening of The Fellowship of the Ring film). Figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton are deified by the American popular imagination, honored with statues and monuments, while his role as "unredeemable villain" cements itself.
He lived out the maxim that, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Yet, as is the case with most generalizations and popular beliefs, it never tells the whole story.
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