Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

joyously paid for being Myra Breckinridge, whom no manmay possess except on her... my terms!). Yet not even I cancreate a fictional character as one-dimensional as theaverage reader. Nevertheless, I intend to create a literarymasterpiece in much the same way that I created myself,and for much the same reason: because it is not there. AndI shall accomplish this by presenting you, the reader (aswell as Dr. Randolph Spenser Montag, my analyst, friendand dentist, who has proposed that I write in this notebookas therapy), with an exact, literal sense of what it is like,from moment to moment, to be me, what it is like topossess superbly shaped breasts reminiscent of thosesported by Jean Harlow in Hell's Angels and seen at theirbest four minutes after the start of the second reel. What itis like to possess perfect thighs with hips resembling thatarchetypal mandolin from which the male principle drawsforth music with prick of flesh so akin--in this metaphor--topick of celluloid, blessed celluloid upon which have beenimprinted in our century all the dreams and shadows thathave haunted the human race since man's harsh andturbulent origins (quote Levi-Strauss). Myra Breckinridge isa dish, and never forget it, you motherfuckers, as thechildren say nowadays.3I shall not begin at the beginning since there is nobeginning, only a middle into which you, fortunate reader,have just strayed, still uncertain as to what will be done to