Today's quote comes from Alessandro Piperno's sprawling novel, The Worst Intentions, recently translated from Italian and published by Europa Editions (to which I currently have a strange, crack-like addiction). The quote below describes Beppo Sonnino, a Jewish-Italian who bares a striking resemblance to Mr. Bernard L. Madoff:
"Bepy was an ingenious and shameless flatterer, what in English is called a confidence man: that was how he snared you. His fawning wasn't sugary; it had something intrinsically masculine about it - he was like the enzyme produced by an overexcited body. He came to believe in the compliment he was about to make. How many times, in the presence of famously ugly women, did Grandpa dissolve in reckless eulogies: "My dear, I've rarely seen you look so splendid." That bold, affectionate tribute lavished with such conviction by the Prince of flatterers was enough to transform the unfortunate woman- at least once in her poor, faded existence - into Greta Garbo."
Just flows so nicely.
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