Hyperthymesia
Ng’s celebrated short story “Every Little Thing” opens with a metaphor providing vivid comparison description of her rare neurological syndrome. Hyperthymesia is the ability to recall in much more vivid detail minute moments from their entire life. It is something like having a photographic memory of every experience you ever encountered. Or, as the narrator says:
“First let me try and explain: it’s like falling into deep, deep water.”
Grace
Almost a full paragraph of metaphorical imagery is handed over to the narrator’s description of Grace in the story “Girls, at Play.” It shows up after a major event in the story which marks a turning point in the relationship and the sheer volume of descriptive prose given over to the task of delineating this fact is enough to make the paragraph worthy of close reading:
“Sometimes we look at her, at this new creature with darkened eyes and sleek clothing, who keeps her head up in the hallways, who sees people look at her and bats her eyes and smiles. At first she looks like a stranger. But there’s something familiar about her, like she’s someone we saw once in a movie, or someone we knew as a child but haven’t seen in years.”
Character
Character description is the playground of metaphor and simile. It is where most of the fun in a story takes place because the writer is allowed a little bit of leniency to get poetic. Poetry is not really at home in prose, in fiction, in American because realism has remained all the rage since the turn of the last century. But it still manages to seep in and upset the apple-cart, usually so subtly that the reader does not even realize it, such as in this example from “How to be Chinese.”
“`You adopted?’ At your nod, she says, `Very important, you learn about your culture.’ The way she says it, like an edict, makes you feel entitled. Culture glistens in the distance, like the prize in a scavenger hunt.”
The Weirdest Sex Metaphor Ever?
Probably not. After all, sexual metaphors go back a really, really long way. So in the reality of that context, this example barely even rates, but that being admitted, it must be pointed out that there is a line that shows up near the end of the story “B&B” that is just unusual and unexpected enough to really catch a reader short. Or maybe not. Let each reader decide for themselves:
“She is not surprised as he strokes her hair, coaxes off her clothes. And she lets him. What she does not expect is the awkwardness of her body, which does not know how to bend, and the heaviness of his hands on her skin. And the taste of him: damp and sharp, like meat gone just sour.”
Grace, Later
“Girls, at Play” is really the author’s singular triumph of applying metaphor and simile to a single character in the short form. It is not quite at the level of brilliance with which she makes Izzy Richardson into a latter-day, post-modern, more feminine-but-also-tougher Holden Caulfield. But the vision of Grace as seen through the eyes of the narrator comes close:
“Then she looks up at us with a scowl, like we’re keeping something from her, like we’re evil stepmothers keeping her rightful crown under lock and key. We know, now, that we can keep nothing from her, that we will have to teach her everything we know. The girl in front of us doesn’t even look like our Grace anymore. She looks like a Trissy doll: tiny clothes, perfect makeup, everything but the cartoon bubble drawn from her mouth.”
