ACD and appreciation of male beauty
Dec. 26th, 2019 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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victorian221bHappy holidays, everyone!
There is a lull in the last days of the year, and I’m catching up on reading. Rodney Stone has been on my reading list for ages, ever since I saw that tumblr post with a quote from it describing the physique of a trained boxer. Finally I read the novel, and in one aspect it did not disappoint. The plot was somewhat boring, and the mystery predictable, but boy, those descriptions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember The Picture of Dorian Gray being that explicit in appreciation of male beauty. Or rather it celebrated another type of beauty: Dorian’s youthful, androgynous, even effete good looks—the aesthetic movement, etc. Meanwhile, Rodney Stone is all about masculinity and ogling manly men.
By the way, ACD did ogle manly men in a quite legit way: he was friends with Eugene Sandow, the pioneer bodybuilder, and agreed to be one of the judges at Sandow’s bodybuilding contest.stonepicnicking_okapi wrote a wonderful ficlet about Watson serving in the same capacity and Holmes being a tad jealous.
Returning to Rodney Stone, I’ll just leave the quotes here, for future reference if nothing else:
“...could look at his perfect shoulders, his narrow loins, and his proud head that sat upon his neck like an eagle upon its perch, without feeling that sober joy which all that is beautiful in Nature gives...”
“I looked at him, his proud, eagle face, and his tall, sinewy figure, and I wondered whether in the whole land there was a finer, handsomer man.”
“My uncle ran his eyes over the fine lines of his magnificent figure with the glance of a connoisseur.”
“His shoulders were sloping rather than bulky, and his chest was deep rather than broad, but the muscle was all in the right place, rippling down in long, low curves from neck to shoulder, and from shoulder to elbow. His work at the anvil had developed his arms to their utmost, and his healthy country living gave a sleek gloss to his ivory skin, which shone in the lamplight.”
“He was certainly a splendidly built young athlete, and one could not have wished to look upon a finer sight as his white skin, sleek and luminous as a panther’s, gleamed in the light of the morning sun, with a beautiful liquid rippling of muscles at every movement. His arms were long and slingy, his shoulders loose and yet powerful, with the downward slant which is a surer index of power than squareness can be. He clasped his hands behind his head, threw them aloft, and swung them backwards, and at every movement some fresh expanse of his smooth, white skin became knobbed and gnarled with muscles, whilst a yell of admiration and delight from the crowd greeted each fresh exhibition. Then, folding his arms once more, he stood like a beautiful statue waiting for his antagonist.”
Bonus:
This is from The Croxley Master, ACD’s self-insert story about boxing:
“He was trained to a hair, his skin gleaming like silk, and every muscle rippling down his broad shoulders and along his beautiful arms as he moved them. They bunched into ivory knobs, or slid into long, sinuous curves, as he raised or lowered his hands.”
There is a lull in the last days of the year, and I’m catching up on reading. Rodney Stone has been on my reading list for ages, ever since I saw that tumblr post with a quote from it describing the physique of a trained boxer. Finally I read the novel, and in one aspect it did not disappoint. The plot was somewhat boring, and the mystery predictable, but boy, those descriptions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember The Picture of Dorian Gray being that explicit in appreciation of male beauty. Or rather it celebrated another type of beauty: Dorian’s youthful, androgynous, even effete good looks—the aesthetic movement, etc. Meanwhile, Rodney Stone is all about masculinity and ogling manly men.
By the way, ACD did ogle manly men in a quite legit way: he was friends with Eugene Sandow, the pioneer bodybuilder, and agreed to be one of the judges at Sandow’s bodybuilding contest.
stonepicnicking_okapi wrote a wonderful ficlet about Watson serving in the same capacity and Holmes being a tad jealous.Returning to Rodney Stone, I’ll just leave the quotes here, for future reference if nothing else:
“...could look at his perfect shoulders, his narrow loins, and his proud head that sat upon his neck like an eagle upon its perch, without feeling that sober joy which all that is beautiful in Nature gives...”
“I looked at him, his proud, eagle face, and his tall, sinewy figure, and I wondered whether in the whole land there was a finer, handsomer man.”
“My uncle ran his eyes over the fine lines of his magnificent figure with the glance of a connoisseur.”
“His shoulders were sloping rather than bulky, and his chest was deep rather than broad, but the muscle was all in the right place, rippling down in long, low curves from neck to shoulder, and from shoulder to elbow. His work at the anvil had developed his arms to their utmost, and his healthy country living gave a sleek gloss to his ivory skin, which shone in the lamplight.”
“He was certainly a splendidly built young athlete, and one could not have wished to look upon a finer sight as his white skin, sleek and luminous as a panther’s, gleamed in the light of the morning sun, with a beautiful liquid rippling of muscles at every movement. His arms were long and slingy, his shoulders loose and yet powerful, with the downward slant which is a surer index of power than squareness can be. He clasped his hands behind his head, threw them aloft, and swung them backwards, and at every movement some fresh expanse of his smooth, white skin became knobbed and gnarled with muscles, whilst a yell of admiration and delight from the crowd greeted each fresh exhibition. Then, folding his arms once more, he stood like a beautiful statue waiting for his antagonist.”
Bonus:
This is from The Croxley Master, ACD’s self-insert story about boxing:
“He was trained to a hair, his skin gleaming like silk, and every muscle rippling down his broad shoulders and along his beautiful arms as he moved them. They bunched into ivory knobs, or slid into long, sinuous curves, as he raised or lowered his hands.”
