Sunday, January 13, 2008

Similes and Metaphors

I've decided that I hate similes and metaphors. I used to like them. Maybe I still like them when they're ridiculous and inaccurate. Inaccurate metaphors are enjoyable, maybe, sometimes, if I'm drunk on wine or something. But similes... Here are some similes from things I wrote that are terrible:



  • "There's a smell like stomach-acid."
  • "...funny big eyes like little black rocks..."
  • "...arms move like small insects..."
  • "...black hairs pushing out of its skin like little burnt sticks."
  • "Traffic has become thicker and the cars moves slowly, heavily forward, like little robot-glaciers"
  • "Anastasia's eyes were very large and round like billiard-balls, maybe..."



    Anyway I kind of like "robot-glaciers" this morning, but only because it is a little meaningless. But it's impossible and false to compare one thing to another thing, and too easy, and when I read similes, or make similes, I find it too easy to begin to compare one thing to another thing and eventually each thing is the same thing and I can't see any difference.

    It's 8:54 am. I drank coffee and our neighbor is playing music very loud because, I think, he's a little deaf, or, he has a new sound-system, and has not yet learned how to change the volume. I kicked the wall and it stopped. This was very satisfying. Every person should have something to kick sometime.

    I read a little of the book 'NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN' because my brother likes it and he lent it to me. Here is my imitation of it: "He took the satchel and set in the crab-grass and looked at it. He looked at it for a long time. The caldera was wide and long and gray fog-shaped shadows shifted across it like dead predators with steel teeth. He could see the teeth beyond the satchel and he thought about teeth and satchels and money. He thought about it a long time."

  •