Between Whimsy and Senility
What is the difference between someone being whimsical and someone manifesting signs of senility? It’s a tough nut to crack because in certain cases, there really is no difference. Such might be the case that the author is trying to press in his description of his mother’s father’s love for his daughter:
“He thought she hung the moon. He actually believed this from time to time. He believed the moon wouldn’t have been there but that she’d hung it. He believed the stars were wishes, and that one day they would all come true. For her, his daughter. He had told her this when she was little to make her happy, and now that he was old he believed it, because it made him happy and because he was so very old.”
Of Cats and Men
The reader is entertained by William with a joke his father used to tell about how one should go about breaking devastating news about the death of a cat to a pet owner who is out of town. Rather than just blurting out that the cat go run over, the appropriate thing would be to concoct a story that takes time and allows the cat owner to prepare themselves. This story should rightly begin along the lines of “Your cat’s on the roof” and then the joke naturally moves to its punchline in which the next time the cat owner calls, his neighbor begins by telling him about how his father on the roof:
“My father is on the roof. This is how I remember him sometimes. Well-dressed in a dark suit and shiny, slippery shoes, he is looking left, looking right, looking as far as his eyes will travel. Then, looking down, he sees me, and just as he begins to fall he smiles, and winks. All the way down he's looking at me–smiling, mysterious, mythic, an unknown quantity: my dad.”
The Giant
One of the most entertaining uses of imagery in the novel is the short tale of how Edward Bloom takes Karl the Giant. The story is related by William, of course, who tells it as it should be told rather than as it actually happened because, of course, that’s the whole point:
“Karl was as tall as any two men, as wide as any three, and as strong as any ten. His face and arms bore the scars of a life lived brutally, a life closer to that of animals than of men. And such was his demeanor. They say Karl was born of woman like any mortal, but it became clear soon enough that a mistake had been made.”
The Swamp
A swamp is growing around Jenny Hill’s home. A literal swamp all stagnant, mossy, dark, and possessive that eventually entraps her, isolating her, alienating her and figuratively representing the trap of inaction and a life lived in the service of passivity that transforms her into a kind of swamp creature not quite human:
“No one can see Jenny Hill all cold and hard at the picture window staring out and think nice. They think, There's a woman who's in no mood to be nice. And her eyes glow. Really and truly. People go by the house at night and they swear they can see faint yellow lights at the window, two of them, her eyes, glowing in her head. And it’s kind of scary.”
