When evaluating “Lost Splendor” I feel it is important to understand that Felix was an extremely worldly, exiled aristocrat who, like all of his international class had supplied the entertainment for the late Edwardian era. The Edwardian era (1901-1914; even though Edward VII had died in 1910, I believe the impulse of the era lived on until WWI) was the antithesis of the Victorian era that had ended in 1901 with the passing of Queen Victoria.
Edwardian Aristocrats were the “movie stars” of their era and were the object of universal interest among all classes and Felix was right up there at the top of the list as having been voted “The handsomest Young Man In Europe.” Poems were dedicated to aristocrats, novels were written about them, newspapers commented on their appearance and every aspect of their lives, fashion revolved around their personal choices, their photos were exhibited in shop windows, they were sculpted and painted by the most talented artists of their times, composers created music inspired by them. They supplied the entertainment and pomp and pageantry of their time.
Then all of this public attention changed with the violent social revolutions that interrupted and followed WWI, which discredited the value of aristocrats and destroyed their prestige and importance. After WWI the rise of the Cinema supplied the pomp and pageantry of the period and the “Movie Star” took the place in the public’s heart and imagination as objects of adoration. The aristocrats that managed to survive the holocaust of war and revolution were of little or no interest to the general public who had transferred that esteem to the cinema and stage.
Those worldly Edwardian aristocrats that did survive, like Felix, were very much like the worldly 18th century French aristocrats who out lived the French Revolution and had survived into the overly pious, highly conservative Victorian era. Many of these worldly 18th century aristocrats were like George Sand’s grandmother, who loved to scandalize her granddaughter with stories of her sexual exploits as a young woman to challenge and provoke her granddaughter’s Victorian, repressive education. Just so, Felix had out-lived the highly promiscuous “Edwardian Epoch” and had survived into a highly conservative mid-20th century culture of repression and false piety that in its strict conservatism was almost a mini-Victorian revival.
It seems to me that Felix’s tone in “Lost Splendor” was much the same as George Sand’s grandmother. Without apology or shame, Felix exposes his “cross-dressing” adventures and brags about his ability to even catch the eye of the greatest connoisseur of female beauty of the time, Edward VII himself; Felix flaunts his ability to attract attention for his male beauty from the same officers that were enamored with his mother’s beauty (i.e. the officer who was an ardent admirer of his mother’s who threw a bouquet of roses at Felix’s feet); he candidly shares his introduction into the secrets of love by a Argentine hedonist, etc.; details that were meant to shock and provoke his 1950 readers. They way Felix wrote of these experiences with such cavalier indifference, Felix clearly did not need his reader’s approval or acceptance.
Equally, when it came to history fact, Felix did not feel any inclination to tell the truth. I don’t believe that truth was something Felix would ever share with anyone. I feel that “Lost Splendor” was Felix’s attempt to become the center of attention once again, if only for a brief moment, and that his only duty to his reading public was to entertain them with delightful versions of the truth that would add flavor and zest to a vanished past and were meant, at the same time, to enliven a dull and repressive era that it was Felix’s misfortune to have lived into.
I am sure that Felix felt no pressure to be any more honest with his reading public than he would have with his own servants. If Felix said it was “this way” than it was “this way.” If Felix said it was “that way” then it was “that way.” I am sure that Felix felt that he did not owe anyone an explanation and that no one, certainly not his reading public, had the right to contradict or challenge his point of view; no matter how many times Felix might decide to change this point of view, past, present or future.
I believe that the power of persuasion, and not truth, was the only ethic Felix felt compelled by. I must add that I do find that Felix’s book, “Lost Splendor,” is written in an authentic voice and therefore a valuable contribution for anyone who wishes to imbibe the mental mood of a worldly Russian noble. It is this mental voice, the tone of the work and not its words, that provides the key to who Felix was and it is this genuine mental tone that makes the book worthwhile. However having said that and admitting that the book contains the delightful veracity of a bygone aristocratic milieu, at the same time, like Margarita and Richard, I too feel that the work is almost totally devoid of historic credibility.
