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Too-long bio gorges on George Plimpton

By Bill Gallo, Special to the Rocky

Published October 23, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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George Plimpton, who died in 2003, left behind various anecdotes, told by his friends in "George, Being George."

Photo by Tom Herde / Boston Globe/1998

George Plimpton, who died in 2003, left behind various anecdotes, told by his friends in "George, Being George."

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George, Being George: George Plimpton's Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals - and a Few Unappreciative Observers

* Nonfiction. Edited by Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. Random House. $30. Grade: C

Book in a nutshell: Just a suspicion - the further a reader lives from the overheated social and literary precincts of Manhattan, the less likely he or she is to embrace the mythology of George Plimpton.

Five years after his death, Plimpton remains a semilegendary New York party animal and oft-quoted wit, a distributor of charm and the self-styled inventor of "participatory journalism." But only to those who care. Even in his vast circle of friends, good old scotch-soaked George never quite shook the image of a modestly talented rich boy playing with expensive toys - most notably the Paris Review, which he founded in the early 1950s.

George, Being George is not a coherent portrait but an unruly pastiche of anecdotes - mostly fawning, occasionally venomous, thoroughly gossip-ridden - about a man of letters who was more exhibitionist (his deepest passion: fireworks) than craftsman.

To his old pal Norman Mailer he was "a skillful playboy" whose savoir-faire provoked envy: "The gods had given him too much." Writer Larissa MacFarquar found Plimpton's literary tastes "a little too conservative." Society bandleader Peter Duchin describes him romancing a woman at the beach: "With George, you know . . . it's got to be a show."

Exes and friends repeatedly describe him as self-effacing, but his Exeter- and Harvard-bred sense of WASP entitlement comes across in George, Being George just as it does in his own writing.

Best tidbit: When Plimpton was working on Paper Lion, his first-person account of briefly suiting up for a pro football team in the early 1960s, he took a few snaps at quarterback and NFL star Alex Karras, who for one, took pleasure in knocking the intruder on his butt. Care to taste that satisfaction anew? On page 168, jazz musician David Amram recalls Plimpton's go with Archie Moore. When the retired heavyweight flicks some left jabs and splatters the writer's nose all over his face, you just might feel the thrill of justice served. Unless you're a confirmed Georgian, that is.

Pros: This informal survey of an irrepressible spirit can be wickedly funny.

Cons: Random Plimptonia, 409 pages of it, will likely tax the patience of the casual fan.

Final word: Like lit-life dish, George Plimpton is an acquired taste.