Fictional men and their fictional styles

(published in Billionaire, October 2010)

Was watching Die Hard the other day. Frankly, I was watching it for Alan Rickman. He was probably the guy who invented the techno-Euro-suave terrorist. With his trim beard, well-barbered hair, precisely cut clothes, and relaxed smooth way of talking, Rickman’s Hans Gruber simply stole Die Hard (although he did fail to steal the bearer bonds of Nakatomi Corporation).

How could one not appreciate a guy with semi-automatics and surrounded by hardened terrorists who whistles relaxedly in an elevator, pauses, then compliment his hostage by saying: “Nice suit. John Phillips, London. I have two myself. Rumor has it Arafat buys his there.”

And Gruber doesn’t stop there. Upon seeing the models of Nakatomi Corporation’s buildings, he lets out a groan of pleasure and ad libs from Plutarch: “"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." Then, almost apologetically, he mutters smiling: “The benefits of a classical education.” That is style. Pity that John McClane threw him off the Nakatomi building.

The thing is, style is really that important for men. Or at least fictional men. And they’re probably even more important than fictional women’s style or fashion. Who remembers what Elizabeth Bennet wore, or of Catherine Earnshaw, or even Ms. Marple? As one lady friend of mine says, it’s a given that women will have their fashion or style. So except for Holly Golightly or Annie Hall (and we’re talking here of their cinematic versions), apparently it’s the men’s sense of style that seems to have the greater significance, particularly as to how the story progresses.

Thus, as Alexander Pushkin tells us, Onegin was a "dandy on the boulevards ... strolling at leisure until his Breguet, ever vigilant, reminds him it is midday." This automatically tells us loads of details about Pushkin’s lead character: that he was a man of leisure, vain, worldly, and yet kept a certain amount of discipline about him. Characteristics that would manifest itself in the dueling sequence of the verse novel.

Breguet would appear as well in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, this time worn by Baron Danglar, one of the enemies of the Count. Here, Danglar’s “watch, a masterpiece by Breguet which he had rewound with care ... chimed half past five in the morning." Again, certain facets of the character are revealed: his wealth, punctiliousness, and deliberation. All of which the Count had to take into consideration when carrying out his revenge against Danglars.

However, perhaps no other novel carried the weight of the character’s personal style to the plot and denouement than that of The Age of Innocence. Edith Wharton’s devastatingly sad tale of a man caught between two loves and two worlds is rife with details of Newland Archer’s appearance and the New York that he navigates. Thus, Archer would be careful to wear the correct leather shoes to the play, making sure that the flower in his buttonhole is neither to showy nor too shy as to be invisible, his cufflinks are worn within the precise amount of distance from his coat, his cigar cutter hanging rightly by its chain, along with the turnip watch. In the movie version, Archer would have a little bit of difficulty in writing with his pen, complaining that while such is very modern it’s still not as good as the old pens.

But it is in the way Archer selects the flowers for the two women in his life that makes the manifestation of the fictional man’s sense of taste and style highly relevant to the internal struggles going on within the characters’ minds and soul. To his fiancé May, he sends pure white lilies-of-the-valley. To his real love Ellen, he sends bright yellow roses. The contrast between the religious overtones that the lilies represent, along with its notes of innocence and virginity, to the blatant, intense, and overt sexuality of the roses couldn’t be more apparent. That he was buying the flowers from the same shop and at the same time is incredibly telling as well.

True, The Age of Innocence does make much symbolism of what the women wore or how they carry themselves. Thus, when May’s wedding dress was depicted as muddied and torn, it was supposed to depict the marital problems between her and Archer. But in the end, it is Archer’s style that grabs us because it says so much about him. May and Ellen and the rest of New York in The Age of Innocence are revealed through what they say or do, not really by what they wear or how they appear. In the case of Archer, a man who wears the most conservative of clothes that could not be faulted by his peers and yet retreats to his study to appreciate the smell of his newly delivered books, we get to know that he is a man bound by duty to his family and class, and yet looks longingly at the possibilities offered by going beyond them.

Obviously, no such conflict can be found with Hercule Poirot. Very elegantly tailored, well coiffed mustache, very shiny patent shoes, a large turnip pocket watch. He is the very embodiment of what Agatha Christie thought a Belgian detective would look like: loud, expressive, emotional. Nevertheless, Christie does give one telling detail: Poirot’s extreme cleanliness.

This is important because, no matter the obvious differences between Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, the similarity with regard to their clarity of thought is palpable. So, despite Arthur Conan Doyle giving Holmes a quite bohemian lifestyle, nevertheless, the need for the character to have a deep regard for personal neatness and cleanliness is quite indicative of how both authors believed external order to be a manifestation of their characters’ internal order.

Holmes appearance and style, of course, are so central his personality and perhaps is the single most important reason why the movies find him such an appealing character. Thus, we know that Holmes keeps his correspondence fixed by a knife stuck into the mantelpiece, that he keeps his tobacco in the toe-end of a Persian slipper, he plays the violin well into the night, he target practices inside his room by making out the letter V in honor of Queen Victoria, he takes cocaine for relaxation, is clean shaven, and he is very correct in his clothes. The last detail is important because it again reveals Holmes to be a man of method and precision. He is also not above crawling around in the dirt to pursue a lead. And that is also the reason why depictions of Holmes wearing the famous deerstalker are wrong. One simply does not wear the deerstalker anywhere but in the countryside.

Of course, Philip Marlowe has his own style to set him apart from his predecessors. While not a cocaine addict or sugar junkie (like Poirot), Marlowe prefers to smoke Camels. But then again, to indicate how different he is from other men, he is a pipe smoker at home, at a time when pipe smoking is for granddads. And it is a testament to his professionalism that he is seen wearing nothing extraordinary but his Luger, Colt, or Smith & Wesson. Interestingly enough, he plays chess, which, to even heighten the symbolism of the thing, he plays mostly against himself.

From the other side of the fence would be the correct and formal style of Michael Corleone. Whether it be in Mario Puzo’s book or Francis Ford Coppola’s telling, Michael Corleone is the same: correct, bland, almost invisible. This is a thing missed by most men who watch the Godfather movies. Contrary to what is usually though of Michael, he is not quick to show off his wealth, power, or how dangerous he is. What is constantly emphasized by the books and the movies is how much he wanted to blend in among the businessmen and community leaders he so much wanted to be and never will. Thus, the gold cufflinks, the tie-clasps, and the Italian suits were all supposed to convey a middle-aged businessman in the 1970’s. Al Pacino did wear shades, which unfortunately conveyed a more sinister look to Michael Corleone but even that was actually there to protect the gang leader’s eyes from the effects of diabetes. In the end, Michael Corleone’s appearance reveals to us what he really is: the former college kid who wanted to be a normal member of the community, the monster who wanted to deny his true self, the pathetic figure misunderstood for the wrong reasons.

Of course, for the sheer fun of combining blandness and lethality, one could not better Tom Ripley. Here, the style is simply not to have a style. Everything is hidden. From his ordinary, inoffensive face, to the correctness of his clothes, to his utterly impeccable manners, Ripley would be a great friend or neighbor to have were it not for the fact that he is a brutal but methodical serial killer. But it cannot be denied, the man has style: from his thin beautiful French wife Heloise, to his learning German, ability to cook French cuisine, appreciation of wines and art (even forgeries of Derwatt), gardening, painting with water colors, to playing the harpsichord. He loves his Patek Philippe (on a brown leather strap) and, perhaps as indication that every man has his snobbish side, couldn’t stand the vulgar tastes of David Pritchard (who’d eventually be found dead), with his round eyeglasses and wristwatch of “the stretchable gold-bracelet variety, expensive and flashy, with gold surround for the watch, gold-coloured face even” (which Ripley thought suitable for a “pimp”).

But then, when discussing fictional men and style, it all comes back to Bond. James Bond. We don’t really need to repeat much of what has been written about him. Entire articles have been written about his tastes, jewelry, food, wardrobe, cars, weapon, and women. Like Marlow, he drinks copious doses of alcohol. And contrary to what many people think, Bond, like Marlowe, has whiskey as the favored drink. Not vodka. Not vodka martini, shaken not stirred, which has actually the effect of watering down the martini. Not the Vesper, which he only drank in the book Casino Royale, and really doesn’t contain any vermouth whatsoever. In the books, he has probably drunk more whiskey’s, champagne’s, and sake’s than he has ever drunk martinis (whether it be vodka or gin).

But the thing with Bond and which most people miss is how “the job” takes up almost his entire existence. His wardrobe is easy to wear and carry, his luggage (battered Louis Vuitton’s) he prefers more for their durability than for their style (unlike The Jackal, in The Day of the Jackal), he has a battered gunmetal cigarette case, old set of golf clubs, and shoes that have seen a lot of wear and tear. The Rolex Oyster Perpetual is there as it can never be broken even in the most violent of fistfights. Indeed, “battered” is a word that keeps cropping in Ian Fleming’s depiction of Bond. The effect here is not the Bond of the movies, invulnerable and unflappable, but a man nearly past his youth on the cusp of middle age, who has just seen too much and yet knows no other existence but to create mayhem. Indeed, even the Vesper was not drunk out of enjoyment or for some gastronomic showing off. Bond drank the Vesper as he thought it would make him perform better in his card game against Le Chiffre. In fact, one of the reasons “Bond” was chosen as his name was to give the connotation of reliability, of one who could get the job done.

But precisely because Bond was misunderstood, particularly as to how glamour bafflingly crept into the movie versions, that the so-called “anti-Bond” was made. Everything about Harry Palmer was supposed to be about ordinary. He was ordinary. From the government issued thick black-framed glasses, to his trench coat, to his working class background and accent, Harry Palmer’s style was to be as ordinary as possible. He was so ordinary that Len Deighton didn’t even bother giving him a name and it had to come to the movie version for him to have a name and even then the makers of The Ipcress File (including Michael Caine) decided on the most ordinary name they could come up with.

In the end, it’s the man who makes the clothes not the other way around (as the cliché would rather make us believe). It’s what’s inside the man, even the fictional man (as envisaged by his author), that matters. The rest are just commentary.

In any event, as Hans Gruber would say: “I could talk about men's fashion and industrialization all day but I'm afraid work must intrude.”