Flamboyance by Jack Parlett review – a serious study of the spectacular

The Lead

A friend's mother once told the author that for a couple of years in the 1980s, she wore an almost daily uniform of jeans and a white T-shirt. On her wedding day, she broke with habit and put on a dress she had bought, at great expense to her, that was fun, sexy and, although she didn't use this word, flamboyant.

Unpacking Flamboyance

Jack Parlett's memoir-cum-cultural history explores our attempts to push the boat out and make any effort without risking embarrassment. Parlett finds examples of this in Oscar Wilde and what cultural critic Susan Sontag once described as camp, a worldview obsessed with artifice and performance.

The Data Analysis

The book is couched as an alternative; Parlett presents flamboyance as a model for how to live a life that not only 'burns with a resistant energy' but 'puts politics back into the picture'. In practice, this means that he has little patience for the notion of art for art's sake; he insists, for example, that there is no making sense of flamenco without understanding the history of fascism in Spain.

The Impact Analysis

Although primarily concerned with the culture of gay men in the English-speaking world, 'Flamboyance' nevertheless makes a broad set of philosophical claims about the value of sincerity, love and political commitment. The term 'flamboyance' has its origins in an architectural metaphor, describing the gothic style of 15th-century churches whose ornate curves looked like flames rising up to the sky.

The Prediction

Despite some shortcomings, Parlett succeeds in introducing a cast of writers, artists, dancers and musicians of which he has deep knowledge. This means that, though there is a lot to wade through in 'Flamboyance', there is undeniably much to learn.