Just read this in Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey, and couldn’t help sharing it:
“He bent over his son and kissed the air above his forehead and then walked in tiptoe in that slightly exaggerated and silly way that men like Theophilus, normally gruff and bustling about their business adopt as a sort of dance to celebrate their most tender feelings.”
This kind of brief, but intensely effective characterisation belongs in a short story, but I’m not complaining Peter Carey put it in a novel. I love Peter Carey, and can see why he won the Booker.
On with the reading. But first, dinner.
See you on the other side, world, once I’ve finished with Oscar and Lucinda!