whole, are also extraordinarily dull.
And there was Fortuyn, flush from a huge electoral upset. His upstart party of dodgy amateurs had swamped the city council of Rotterdam. The party elders were outraged, especially Melkert, who could not even bring himself to look Fortuyn in the eye, let alone congratulate him. The more churlishly his rivals behaved, the more Fortuyn hit his stride, using his body like a trained actor: teasing, joking, mocking, cajolingâall in that high-pitched, teasing tone. An arched eyebrow, a slight flutter of the eyelashes, was enough to make the earnest regenten look like gauche schoolboys who failed to see the joke at their expense. One couldnât keep oneâs eyes off the man. Never before had Dutch politicians looked so foolish.Their carefully nurtured facade of quiet authority lay in tatters. It virtually ended Melkertâs career. The relnicht had won.
5.
T he son of a traveling salesman (in envelopes), whom he despised, and a doting mother, who indulged his fantasies of being her âcrown prince,â Fortuyn always felt like an outsider. That was a large part of his appeal to all those who felt excluded, in terms of class, wealth, prestige, or power. Even religion may have played a part. The Fortuyns were Catholics in a largely Protestant small town. At school, Fortuyn always wore a suit and tie, eccentric even in more formal times. He was not interested in sports, let alone girls.
âI want to belong,â he wrote in his autobiography, Babyboomers, âbut I donât belong ⦠since my earliest childhood years I felt different and peculiarâ¦. Whenever I forgot how different I was, my friends and their parents would remind me of it. â¦I was always special, in the way I dressed, spoke, and behaved.â He knew why, or at least he thought he did: âBeing an outsider is part of my character. Iâm âa man in his own rightâ and that has to do with my homosexuality.â 4
Wishing to belong, yet taking a special pride in being different, is not unusual among minorities. The desire to conform to an ideal that is out of reach can turn into a kind ofmockery. Benjamin Disraeli saved the English aristocracy in a bourgeois age by flattering their self-image in a bizarre form of mimicry of their manners. Yet the aristocrats never quite trusted him, as though he were really playing some elaborate trick at their expense. Oscar Wilde, the Irish dandy, took his climb into the English upper class very seriously, yet never missed a chance to ridicule it. Such men know they will never quite belong. But they like to imagine that they do, in a form of theater that verges on satire.
Fortuyn bought a house in Rotterdam, to go with his suits, his butler, his Daimler, and his pet dogs. He named it Palazzo di Pietro. The house was bought by an admirer after Fortuynâs murder. Everything has been lovingly preserved. One can visit the house on a âvirtual tourâ at www.palazzodipietro.nl . First comes the family crest, designed by âProfessor Dr. W.S.P. Fortuynâ himself, an ornate coat of arms with two stylized lions, a type of Greek goddess, and a crown topped with a pair of stag horns. A click of the mouse then guides the visitor through the marble-floored hall, the drawing room, the study, and various other rooms, all done up in a self-consciously classical style with candelabra, empire furniture, red velvet drapery, nineteenth-century paintings, and various busts and pictures of Fortuyn. A set of photographs in an album embossed with the family crest shows Fortuyn relaxing in his house in Italy, Fortuyn driving the Daimler, Fortuyn with Kenneth and Carla, Fortuyn giving aspeech, and Fortuyn reclining like a movie diva in his professorial cap and gown. It is pretentious but not without humor. He took such delight in his masquerade, and yet there is that hint of travesty, the arched eyebrow, the mocking smile of the eternal
And there was Fortuyn, flush from a huge electoral upset. His upstart party of dodgy amateurs had swamped the city council of Rotterdam. The party elders were outraged, especially Melkert, who could not even bring himself to look Fortuyn in the eye, let alone congratulate him. The more churlishly his rivals behaved, the more Fortuyn hit his stride, using his body like a trained actor: teasing, joking, mocking, cajolingâall in that high-pitched, teasing tone. An arched eyebrow, a slight flutter of the eyelashes, was enough to make the earnest regenten look like gauche schoolboys who failed to see the joke at their expense. One couldnât keep oneâs eyes off the man. Never before had Dutch politicians looked so foolish.Their carefully nurtured facade of quiet authority lay in tatters. It virtually ended Melkertâs career. The relnicht had won.
5.
T he son of a traveling salesman (in envelopes), whom he despised, and a doting mother, who indulged his fantasies of being her âcrown prince,â Fortuyn always felt like an outsider. That was a large part of his appeal to all those who felt excluded, in terms of class, wealth, prestige, or power. Even religion may have played a part. The Fortuyns were Catholics in a largely Protestant small town. At school, Fortuyn always wore a suit and tie, eccentric even in more formal times. He was not interested in sports, let alone girls.
âI want to belong,â he wrote in his autobiography, Babyboomers, âbut I donât belong ⦠since my earliest childhood years I felt different and peculiarâ¦. Whenever I forgot how different I was, my friends and their parents would remind me of it. â¦I was always special, in the way I dressed, spoke, and behaved.â He knew why, or at least he thought he did: âBeing an outsider is part of my character. Iâm âa man in his own rightâ and that has to do with my homosexuality.â 4
Wishing to belong, yet taking a special pride in being different, is not unusual among minorities. The desire to conform to an ideal that is out of reach can turn into a kind ofmockery. Benjamin Disraeli saved the English aristocracy in a bourgeois age by flattering their self-image in a bizarre form of mimicry of their manners. Yet the aristocrats never quite trusted him, as though he were really playing some elaborate trick at their expense. Oscar Wilde, the Irish dandy, took his climb into the English upper class very seriously, yet never missed a chance to ridicule it. Such men know they will never quite belong. But they like to imagine that they do, in a form of theater that verges on satire.
Fortuyn bought a house in Rotterdam, to go with his suits, his butler, his Daimler, and his pet dogs. He named it Palazzo di Pietro. The house was bought by an admirer after Fortuynâs murder. Everything has been lovingly preserved. One can visit the house on a âvirtual tourâ at www.palazzodipietro.nl . First comes the family crest, designed by âProfessor Dr. W.S.P. Fortuynâ himself, an ornate coat of arms with two stylized lions, a type of Greek goddess, and a crown topped with a pair of stag horns. A click of the mouse then guides the visitor through the marble-floored hall, the drawing room, the study, and various other rooms, all done up in a self-consciously classical style with candelabra, empire furniture, red velvet drapery, nineteenth-century paintings, and various busts and pictures of Fortuyn. A set of photographs in an album embossed with the family crest shows Fortuyn relaxing in his house in Italy, Fortuyn driving the Daimler, Fortuyn with Kenneth and Carla, Fortuyn giving aspeech, and Fortuyn reclining like a movie diva in his professorial cap and gown. It is pretentious but not without humor. He took such delight in his masquerade, and yet there is that hint of travesty, the arched eyebrow, the mocking smile of the eternal
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