While I prepare a longer post on adjective combinations in Tom Crewe’s recent short story “The Fête” (in The Paris Review), I wanted to share two sentences containing unexpected combinations of verb + preposition (dazzle at and sweat into):
- His monocle dazzled at her.
- They sweated into their light summer things.
Conventionally, the subject of the verb “dazzle” is the actor who does the overwhelming. But here the subject, the monocle (belonging to a besotted Albert), loses control, and the roles in the sentence get confused—which amusingly makes the intensity of the bedazzlement even more clear. Crewe could have written, “His monocle marveled at her.” But dazzle is more interesting, and its connotation of light resonates with the themes of the story.
The preposition into in the second sentence intensifies the drama. The story evolves with dancers celebrating on a very warm night, with the heat’s salience ever increasing. By the dancers not only sweating in, but sweating into their light summer things, the clothes then show a concrete impact of the hot air, a change that readers can see, feel, and smell, before the dramatic and destructive climax.
More to come on Crewe’s defamiliarizing and telling word combinations.