Darkness
Darkness is the defining metaphor of the modern age. Once you realize how omnipresent it is in literature since the end of the 19th century, it is almost impossible to avoid seeing it. In a work that is fundamentally structured upon the concept of metaphor, the one thing you can be sure of is that darkness makes itself known in metaphorical imagery throughout a text such as this:
“In the enclosed darkness memory is fugitive.”
“Her eyes open to distance as if to linger inside that which has passed in shadow and darkness.”
“Earth is made porous. Earth heeds. Inward. Inception in darkness.”
Poetry
Much of the text is poetic even when it is not strictly verse. Alas, for those who hate poetry, it is the kind of poetic that makes people hate poetry. Metaphorical imagery stripped of enough context to make literal sense. Better to simply recite the words out loud and listen to the music of the sounds:
“Pure hazard igniting flaming itself with the slightest of friction like firefly. The loss that should burn. Not burn, illuminate.”
Martyrdom
Similes are engaged to draw parallels between an expressed dream of martyrdom and the cruel reality of the violence required to make that dream come true. With the addition of the comparison throughout simile, it is a dream transformed into nightmare:
“To satisfy me I need all. Like You, my Adorable Spouse, I would be scourged and crucified. I would die flayed like St. Bartholomew. I would be plunged into boiling oil like St. John; I would undergo all the tortures inflicted upon the martyrs…and like Joan of Arc, my dear sister, I would whisper at the stake Your Name”
Finally, a Simple Example
The use of metaphor is integral to the overall construction of the text. It is intended to be difficult and even, at first at least, seemingly impenetrable. But don’t despair entirely: occasionally a very simple old-fashioned simile pops up that is very easily understood, even out of context:
“Earth is dark. Darker. Earth is a blue-black stone upon which moisture settles evenly, flawlessly. Dust the stone with a fine powder.”
Love and Annihilation
Holocaust is a tricky word to introduce into the sphere of metaphor. The particularities of its contextual relationship to a very specific mass genocide automatically endows it with a certain resistance to generalization. That doesn’t mean one cannot try:
“To satisfy Divine Justice, perfect victims were necessary, but the Law of Love has succeeded to the law of fear, and Love has chosen me as a holocaust, me, a weak and imperfect creature.”
