Review: "The Most Golden Bulgari" (1 of 2)

“The Most Golden Bulgari” is the first section of Felice Picano’s “memoir in the form of a novel” Men Who Loved me (1989).  The book is itself the second installment of an autobiographical trilogy.

Felice Picano was a member of the Violet Quill, a group of writers who met to discuss gay writing, back in the 1980-1.  Members included Edmund White and Andrew Holleran.

I’m currently reading Men Who Loved Me for the second time.  I find the writing entertaining but a bit on the “light” side.  I’m more naturally drawn to the style of White and Holleran, who seem more introspective and thoughtful.  Their writing seems more sensuous somehow—although Picano can certainly turn a clever phrase.

Picano had earned a literary college degree, then found himself employed in New York City as a social worker.  This was the 1960s.  He saw plenty of “life” in a certain sense—the life of the troubled and the poor in the area around the Spanish Harlem in Manhattan.  Faced with the prospect of a promotion and a successful “career” in social work, he decides instead to go to Europe and actually live—and look for love.  And to “become homosexual.”  What he actually means by this phrase is not clear.  He had dated women, but the relationships had gone nowhere; they weren’t even relationships, really; just casual dating.  He’d then tried men—but that hadn’t gone anywhere either.

Arriving in Rome, he almost immediately encounters a group of expatriate American actors and actresses; through them he meets…his first long-term lover, a Yugoslavian film director named Djanko.  “The Most Golden Bulgari” follows the semi-comic exploits of these people.  It’s a bit confusing keeping the three women straight in my mind—which one is from Boston, which from the Mid-West, etc.  The young actor is more memorable, since more unique:  He speaks a rural slang and comes across as rather inane; but he possesses marvelous musculature and is therefore ideal to play characters like Hercules in sand-and-sandal epics. 

Picano and Djanko fall in love “at first sight.”  Whether it is love or lust is difficult to tell.  It’s clear Picano cares about him; he remains with him a year, after all.  How Djanko feels in return is less certain—he’s always working or worrying about his current and future film projects.  What Djanko does do, though, is shower Picano with presents, including a golden Bulgari watch.  Even though he is filming what seem to be second- or third-rate movies, he’s presented as being fabulously rich; Picano never lacks for adornment.  Perhaps because he’s grown up in Communist Yugoslavia, Djanko is obsessed with gold and insists on presenting Picano with gold watches, gold cigarette cases, gold cuff links…  When Picano can’t decide which color shirt he prefers, Djanko simply buys him one of each color so that he’ll have the color his prefers whenever he finally gets around to choosing.

(To be continued)