SOURCE: “The Waspish Grandee,” in The Spectator, October 9, 1993, pp. 31-2.

In the following review of United States, Raphael commends Vidal's “moral courage,” though finds fault in his smugness and antagonism.

Before we get down to cases, here is an exercise in the etiquette of reviewing. You are sent a book of essays of very many pages, which you look forward to reading over the summer months, as to a sort of prolonged, even spicy, intellectual buffet. After starting it, you discover, buried among its mountainous 1,200 or so pages, a mousy reference to yourself. Do you consider (a) that you can still read and give a fair account of the book or (b) that honour requires you to disqualify yourself from the critical role or (c) that you will not mention that slight, but grab the opportunity to give as good (or bad) as you’ve got or gotten...