Written April 9, 2023, rewritten March 2, 2024, last updated April 3, 2024
My legs had fallen asleep and a girl passing by told me she liked that story I read in a creative writing workshop. I nodded, ignored her, she moved on. I was fingering a condom that was lodged in my pocket. I was making a decision.“I don’t take that class,” I told Jamie.
"No future, no future, no future—for you," Jamie half-sang.
The future constantly haunts Victor.
The novel’s main conflict begins because Victor’s father finds his son’s indecorous behavior to be detrimental to his run for presidency. Their restauarant conversation seems to be innocuous: a father concerned for his son’s future.
In actuality, his father is using this as a last test before fully replacing his own son. If Victor could supply any real answer, he wouldn’t have to be replaced. Instead, Victor does anything but answer the question.
“I’m a knockout, Dad. A total knockout. I’m rippin’. Things are happening. I’m in control of all the elements. You are laughing somewhat jaggedly, Dad, but I am in continuous flux.”Pay attention to the wording! It comes back later.“Is that right?”
“I’m staking out new territory, Dad.”
“Which is?”
I stare straight ahead. “The future.”
There are two memories that follow Victor throughout the story. They’re important because they show why Victor has such insecurity when it comes to his future.
One is the first time he met Chloe. Here we see the basis on which his career as a famous model is found upon. And it’s not a pretty start.
At first I was confused by what passed for love in this world: people were discarded because [...] they weren’t hip, they weren’t remotely famous. This was how you chose lovers. This was what decided friends. And I had to accept this if I wanted to get anywhere. On the verge of tears—because I was dealing with the fact that we lived in a world where beauty was considered an accomplishment—I turned away and made a promise to myself: to be harder, to not care, to be cool. The future started mapping itself out and I focused on it.
He’s aware that he has to kill parts of himself to have the future he's mapped out. But ultimately, he’s deciding based on what he believes the world considers to be successful. It’s not what he really wants.
Victor’s inability to pave a future without outside influence is in every page. He’s a model and actor who gets told what to do. He follows trends, no matter how nebulous and nonsensical they are. Every action he takes has already been decided by someone else.
“I mean,” JD continues, “I think comparatively it’s pretty in.”“But in is out,” I explain, squinting to see where we’re heading. It’s so cold our breath steams, and when I touch the banister it feels like ice.
“What are you saying, Victor?”
“Out is in. Got it?”
“In is … not in anymore?” JD asks. “Is that it?”
I glance at him as we descend the next flight of stairs. “No, in is out. Out is in. Simple, non?"
The second memory is the recurring one of Jamie, which takes place before he meets Chloe. Jamie is a major reason for Victor’s cool, flashy front.
In his words, she was “inexpressive and indifferent” and that made her compelling. He envied this because “it was the opposite of helplessness or damage or craving or suffering or shame.”
And while he would never admit it, it’s obvious that the “helplessness” and “damage” he’s referring to is his own. Out of desperation to get her to care, he emulates and tries to impress her, to no avail.
This behavior of attempting to impress people that don’t care continue years past this interaction.
“You spend your life trying to impress people you’re impressed with, that’s why.”“Why should I try to impress people who don’t impress me, baby?”
“Because the people you want to impress aren’t worth it?”
After taking this in, I clear my throat. “My … emotions at the moment are a little, um, mixed up,” I whimper.
“You cater to people who don’t really give a damn.”
“Oh come on, baby,” I exclaim. “They just pretend not to give a damn—”
In fact, Glamorama’s purpose as a story is to impress the reader.
In the first sentence of the story, Victor dictates what he believes to be a good story: “I don’t want a lot of description, just the story, streamlined, no frills, the lowdown: who, what, where, when and don’t leave out why.”
From this, we see another interesting aspect of his character: he wants to be told what the story is and what it will be.
Why? Because no one takes him seriously. And why write your own story if you’ve been taught to distrust your own thoughts and capabilities?
“You know, Dad,” I interrupt, “the question that I always dreaded most at Horace Mann was whenever my counselor would ask me about career plans.”“Why? Because you didn’t have any?”
“No. Because I knew if I answered him he’d laugh.”
“I think things need to be reduced for you,” the director says. “In order for you to … see things clearly.” He pauses, checks something on the VCR’s console. “Otherwise we’ll be shooting this all year.”It’s not until the end when he begins to trust himself enough to start coming to his own conclusions. But there's still someone with him, enough to cause him doubt. He even admires the way they're able to be confident in their explanation, a quality he lacks.“I don’t think I have the energy to watch this.”
“It’s short,” the director says. “You still have some semblance of an attention span left. I checked.”
"But I might get confused,” I say, pleading. “I might get thrown off—”
I have so many little theories. I’m still piecing together clues—there’s only a blueprint, there’s only an outline—and sometimes they come together, but only when I’m drinking from a cold, syrupy bottle of Sambuca. Davide has one big theory that explains everything. “I like the really cool way you express yourself, Davide,” I say. Looking down, I add, “I’m sorry.”
It takes getting rid of the last person he was with, to finally think on his own. This is why the ending of the novel is:
I’m drinking a glass of water in the empty hotel bar at the Principe di Savoia and staring at the mural behind the bar and in the mural there is a giant mountain [...] and a bridge strung across a pass through the mountain will take you to any point beyond that you need to arrive at, because behind that mountain is a highway and along that highway are billboards with answers on them—who, what, where, when, why—and I’m falling forward but also moving up toward the mountain, my shadow looming against its jagged peaks, and I’m surging forward, ascending, sailing through dark clouds, rising up, a fiery wind propelling me …Remember what he said about laughing jaggedly and being in continuous flux?The stars are real.
The future is that mountain.
Lust is something I really haven’t come across in a long time and I follow it now in Tower Records and it’s getting hard to shake off the thought that Lauren Hynde is part of my future.
The room is a trap. The question about the hat will never be asked. The question about the hat is a big black mountain and the room is a trap.
“And yourself? What are you doing in Paris?”“I’m just, um, moving on to the next project, y’know?” I say.
“That’s … constructive.”
“Yeah. Go figure,” I say. “I don’t have a master plan yet.”
She tells me I need to shave and I tell her that I want to grow a beard and then, while forcing a smile, that I need a disguise and she thinks I’m serious and when she says “No, don’t” something gets mended, hope rises up in me and I can envision a future.
:(
It’s all very clear but you have to keep guessing. It’s what you don’t know that matters most. This is what the director told you.