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Joe Blevins 
"Don't I look handsome?"
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 Posted - 08/12/2007 : 22:58:29
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Hello, all.
I just got through reading Gore Vidal's 1968 novel Myra Breckinridge and its remarkable 1974 sequel Myron. I've not yet seen the infamous 1970 film adaptation of the former, though I am now anxious to do so. Had the Myra adaptation not flopped, Myron might have made a terrific movie in its own right.
What amazed me about Myra the novel is how similar it was in tone to both Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The novel tells the story of Myra Breckinridge, who considers herself the most beautiful woman in the world and the potential savior of the human race. The novel begins as Myra goes to Hollywood, claiming to be the widow of the late Myron Breckinridge and hoping to claim his inheritance. Along the way she matches wits with an ex-cobwoy actor named Buck Loner and schemes to break up a straight couple (Rusty and Mary-Ann) by seducing both of them. Eventually, it is revealed that Myra is Myron as the result of a sex-change operation. It struck me instantly that Myra Breckinridge herself is a precursor both to Beyond the Valley's character Z-Man/Superwoman and of course to Rocky Horror's Dr. Frank N. Furter. Like those characters, Myra is an ubersexual creature who combines the strongest traits of both men and women, speaks in a highly stylized manner, and delights in playing God and exercising control over others. Note that all three plotlines involve the ritualized debauching of a conventional straight couple: Rusty & Mary-Ann versus BVD's Harris & Kelly, and RHPS's Brad & Janet. I know that Rocky Horror creator Richard O'Brien has acknowledged the influence of both Myra Breckinridge and Beyond the Valley. (A Beyond soundtrack album is visible in Rocky Horror, and O'Brien's unproduced sequel screenplay Revenge of the Old Queen makes reference to "Myras and Myrons" in one of its songs.) But I wonder if BVD screenwriter Roger Ebert was thinking of Myra Breckinridge when he wrote his script? Has he ever said?
As for Myron it is a novel which could probably only be done justice on the screen today, what with advances in CGI and special effects. What amazes me about Myron is how forward-looking it was, how ahead of its time. I'm not sure of its literary legacy, but it seems to eerily anticipate a number of motion pictures from the 1980s onward.
The plot of Myron has the dueling personalities of Myra Breckinridge and Myron Breckinridge fighting for control of the same body. One night while watching a late movie on TV, "they" are magically transported into 1948 and, more specifically, into a fictional Maria Montez movie called Siren of Babylon while it is still being filmed. Myron wants only to escape and get back to his regular life, by Myra wants to try and change the movie and in the process change the course of history. At one point, Myra even "becomes" Maria Montez! I'm not sure how widely-read Myron was, but it uncannily presages a number of movies: All of Me; Pleasantville; Back to the Future; The Truman Show; The Purple Rose of Cairo; Being John Malkovich and possibly others. I was reminded of all those films while reading Myron. |
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 08/12/2007 23:02:34 |
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Gore Vidal's "Myra Breckinridge" & "Myron"
