Love and Appetite
They say being in love can cause a loss of appetite. One lives on the nutrients provided by the love. Ridiculous tripe, of course, but it sounds good. At least until the hunger pains hit hard:
“Finally, when his stomach growled so loudly that he could swear he saw the plaster on the ceiling shake, he staggered upright and pulled on his robe.”
This Kid’s Got it Bad
One can always tell when a man has contracted love like a case of anthrax: he begins to speak about her—the one—in ways that really are just impossible to deal with. And if the spoken thoughts provide license to flee, just imagine what is comprising those unspoken thoughts:
“Anthony knew he was being fanciful, but when he gazed upon her face, he could not help thinking of the new dawn, of that exact moment when the sun was creeping over the horizon, painting the sky with its subtle palette of peaches and pinks.”
Death and Parents
A link is established between Anthony and his paramour on what seems an strange basis for most readers, but was probably not nearly as unusual during the actual period in which the novel is set. Both partners of this dynamic duo experienced trauma in the wake of the death of a parent. Anthony’s virile father is felled by a lowly bee while his beloved experiences the passage of a parent in a scene out of a gothic horror tale
“Your father told me that what happened next was the most eerie and awful moment he’d ever experienced. The lightning—it lit the room up as bright as day. And the flash wasn’t over in an instant, as it should be; it almost seemed to hang in the air. He looked at you, and you were frozen. I’ll never forget the way he described it. He said it was as if you were a little statue.”
Women
The life a rake is filled with women. This is true by definition. And not all of them—perhaps most of them—qualify as keepers. Such is the life of a rake, who must carefully balance between attribute and peculiarity:
“Eloise was barely seventeen and clearly had needed someone to watch over her, that bitchy Cowper girl had been tormenting poor Penelope Featherington, and someone had had to do something about that, and...And then there was Kate Sheffield. The bane of his existence.”
What’s in a Name?
What’s in a name? A question answered, of course, but forget for a moment all that stuff about roses smelling just as sweet even if they were called stinkalots. A name is everything to a woman in love. Just whispering those syllables comprising the sound is enough to transform literal flesh and blood into metaphorical fantasia:
“`Anthony,’ she whispered, his name a benediction, a plea, a prayer all in one.”
