Autodidacticism
A simile is a metaphorical phrase in which two things are compared via the use of “as” or “like.” This makes the simile usually much easier to identify and to understand than a straight-up metaphor. But that is true only if the comparison is familiar. Since this is not always the case, sometimes imagery is required to facilitate understanding of the simile. Not that this imagery really does a good job explaining what an autodidact is, but it does convey the underlying element of their collective character:
“True, he talked like an autodidact. I guess he talked the way we all do now, those of us who are still alive (he talked as if he were living inside a cloud), but I couldn’t believe, from the way he dressed, that he had never set foot in a university…His tastes were eclectic: sometimes he would turn up in a suit and tie; other days he’d be wearing sports gear, and he wasn’t averse to jeans and T-shirts. But...it was always an expensive brand...Ruiz-Tagle was well dressed, and in those days, in Chile, autodidacts were too busy steering a course between lunacy and destitution to dress like that.”
Suicide is Painless Filmgoing
It has been said by some that drowning is not an unpleasant way to die. Of course, none of those who have such a thing ever actually died by drowning. Nevertheless, there seems to be something about drowning--even temporarily suicidal drowning--that writers find poetic enough to call upon their deep reserves of imagery:
“his whole life flashed before him like a film. Some parts were in black and white, others in color. His poor mother’s love, her pride, her weariness, how she hugged him at night when, in Chile’s poor neighborhoods everything seemed to be hanging by a thread (black and white); the trembling, the nights when he wet his bed, the hospitals, the staring, the zoo-like staring (color); friends sharing what little they had, the consolations of music, marijuana, beauty revealed in unlikely places (black and white).”
The Eyes of Bruno’s Soul
Another saying suggests that the eyes are the windows into the soul. Of course, just as many people who have been around to describe what drowning to death is like have ever actually seen a soul. Which makes it appropriate that seeing the soul of a person in their eyes is another fabulous opportunity for putting imagery to use:
“Bruno Schulz’s words had momentarily taken on a monstrous character that was almost intolerable. I felt that Wieder’s lifeless eyes were scrutinizing me, while the letters on the pages I was turning (perhaps too quickly) were no longer beetles but eyes, the eyes of Bruno Schulz, opening and closing, over and over, eyes pale as the sky, shining like the surface of the sea, opening, blinking, again and again, in the midst of total darkness. No, not total, in the midst of a milky darkness, like the inside of a storm cloud.”
Pop Culture
Metaphors, similes, allusions, and references that add a little spice and flavor to descriptive prose have become more and more intertwined with pop culture. It is as pervasive in post-19th century literature as references to mythology are in the literature up to then. And any reader who is as unfamiliar with Warner Brothers movies of the 1930’s as they are with the gods of ancient Greece is going to be missing out:
“As I looked at him it struck me that he was the spitting image of Edward G. Robinson. If you can imagine Edward G. Robinson put through a meat grinder and slightly rearranged: thinner, with darker skin and more hair, but the same lips, the same nose and above all the same knowing eyes. Eyes ready to believe that anything is possible but knowing, too, that nothing can be undone.”
