Nana
A multi-generational story covering an idiosyncratic family over the course of nearly a century is inevitably going to delve into metaphorical shorthand to provide character description. Some of this shorthand attains the level of poetry rather than secret code:
“There she was, dear Nana, in the spring of cloud white silk, orange-blossomed, virginal, nestled under the big Canadian shoulder like a white mouse.”
A Lesson to the Young
At one point, a generation divide stumbles across an open graveyard of bones result from the state-sanction genocide of blacks by whites in Australian. The older man frames this terrible view within a historical lesson fraught with political philosophy to his eight-year-old companion:
“That, George, is the repository of they by-products of Christian greed.”
Forget it, Mom, it’s…
In response to the complaints of “dictatorship posing as a democracy” and the dream of finding someplace to live where an entire year could pass without hearing a sports broadcast, Reever responds in a way not terribly dissimilar from what Jake Gittes friend tells him at the end of Chinatown:
“This is Oz, mother. Life in the golden pineapple.”
Not Your Everyday Evangelist
The chapter title “The Buildup” commences with a humdinger of a metaphorical opening line. After this buildup, anything else might seem a comedown, but no fear: the fiery preacher in question delivers the goods:
“He wasn’t one of your Hi-here born-agains with a king size bedroom voice deep and comfily America, a personality that stroked conscience and wallet into instant release.”
A Long Walk toward a Strange Simile
It is a dark and stormy night where “the road out of town rippled like a river.” So far, so good. Billy begins to walk. And walk. And walk. The rain has practically stripped away the very thin clothing on his back, but he still walks. Two hours pass and then a simile one does not come upon too very often:
“His face ran like a beach.”
