“I was moved to vomit Kreisler forth.”
Many critics have compared an author’s creative process to vomiting, but almost unquestionably Lewis is one of the few novelists to employ one of the more revolting metaphors to his own act of creation. And yet, there in the Prologue, after admitting that the story’s gestation period had been eight years, is the admission that one of the story's main characters perhaps came into the world as a bout of morning sickness.
“A tenuous howl, like a subterranean wind, rose from the borderland of their consciousness.”
Lewis here displays a nifty example of combining a simile and a straight-up metaphor to design a more complex work of figurative design that is dependent upon the sentence’s foundation of unusual metaphorical imagery. It is not often that a howl can be described synonymous with fragility.
“He turned his head aside vaguely, as a dog does when doubtful”
While the example above engages a simile as just one element in a more complex use of figurative imagery, here is a perfect example of engaging a simile for its most readily useful purpose: when a writer wants a reader to see vividly in his mind exactly what the writer has in his mind, few devices are more efficient than a simile. And few similes are more effective at doing than one that offers a nearly universal image. Who will not instantly be able to picture in his mind exactly how the “he” turned his head in this passage?
Gypsies
For the title character, Gypsies are a metaphor for those things of interests which distract from the main concern. Gypsies are the flighty obsessions made available only to a life not focused on personal improvement.
“Kreisler was the implacable remote creditor of the situation.”
The reference here is to a three-fold friendship between Kreisler, Bertha and Tarr. The fragile construction of that friendship inevitably begins to crack under the strains of emotional clarity The metaphor is an example of subtle irony. Tarr and Kreisler are artists; Bertha an art student. The metaphor of friendship as a purely transactional and contractual relationship is distinctly at odds with aesthetic philosophies.
