"He possessed, now that he was in the prime of life, the power to stir the fancy and rivet the eye which will keep a memory green long after all that more durable qualities can do to preserve it is forgotten. The power is a mysterious one compounded of beauty, birth, and some rarer gift, which we may call glamour and have done with it. 'A million candles', as Sasha had said, burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one.
He moved like a stag, without any need to think about his legs. He spoke in his ordinary voice and echo beat a silver gong. Hence rumours gathered round him. He became the adored of many women and some men. It was not necessary that they should speak to him or even that they should see him; they conjured up before them especially when the scenery was romantic, or the sun was setting, the figure of a noble gentleman in silk stockings.
Upon the poor and uneducated, he had the same power as upon the rich. Shepherds, gipsies, donkey drivers, still sing songs about the English Lord 'who dropped his emeralds in the well', which undoubtedly refer to Orlando, who once, it seems, tore his jewels from him in a moment of rage or intoxication and flung them in a fountain; whence they were fished by a page boy.
But this romantic power, it is well known, is often associated with a nature of extreme reserve. Orlando seems to have made no friends. As far as is known, he formed no attachments."
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
Ha I immediately thought of ‘Shock and Awe’ when I read that passage. I wonder if some cult theorist (Michael Bracewell?) has written a secret history of Glam that identifies Woolf as its founding prophet.
ReplyDelete‘Orlando’ is full of aristocratic snobbery that is very Glam-inflected. There is, for example, a withering put-down of DH Lawrence that sounds like Freddie Mercury talking about Paul Weller.
There was a RoMo band called Orlando, wasn’t there? I don’t know if they were inspired by Woolf, or managed to capture any fleeting fragment of her brilliance.
Given the timings, they were probably inspired by Sally Potter's 1992 film, rather than the book. Orlando is played by Tilda Swinton, one of the all-time greats in the British pantheon of glamorous androgyny.
DeleteI think you dropped this quote in a comment on one of the blogs and I've been hoarding it ever since!
DeleteYes the name Orlando must be a tribute to the book and/or fillm
Swinton not only is a classic Brit glamdrogyne but has a slight resemblance to Bowie. And she appeared as his spouse in the video to "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" https://youtu.be/gH7dMBcg-gE?si=vJnXckIvfvYU1HFB