Like a Smell of Velvet (Simile)
After a late-night conversation between Geryon and Herakles about sex gives way to misunderstanding, Carson writes that "Something black and heavy dropped between them like a smell of velvet" (45). This simile is both evocative and confounding, as the clear visual of black heavy velvet is disrupted by the question of what velvet smells like. Fabrics most often retain the smell of people’s bodies, in the way that secondhand clothes smell like their former owners, so there’s something both intimate and disturbing about the “smell of velvet” evoked here. This simile also suggests a partition dropping between Herakles and Geryon, as though a velvet curtain divides them, exacerbating their misunderstanding and the difference between them.
As Beautiful as a Live Feather (Simile)
“Ancash sat very straight,/a man as beautiful as a live feather” (112). So Geryon narrates as they sit together at a table at the Café Mitwelt, waiting for Herakles to return with a newspaper. This simile might be taken as a straightforwardly beautiful description of Ancash as a slender, delicate, and sensitive man. But it also quietly establishes a parallel between Ancash and Geryon that persists throughout the final chapters of the story. Geryon is the only character with wings; Ancash is like a feather. Though they’re engaged in this unhappy love triangle with Herakles, Geryon often has more positive feelings toward Ancash than Herakles, whose rash bravado alienates the two reserved men. Geryon feels that “he would have liked to wrap his coat around this feather man” (114). The kinship between Geryon and Ancash is perhaps more natural than either man’s attraction to Herakles, and this simile subtly asserts their likeness.
As Two Cuts Lie Parallel in the Same Flesh (Simile)
“Not touching/but joined in astonishment as two cuts lie parallel in the same flesh” (45). This is how Geryon and Herakles are described after their misunderstanding about sex, as they drive away into the night. It does a number of different things: “not touching” indicates that the question of physical intimacy wasn’t resolved in that moment, while “but joined” suggests that they found a way to be in contact and in sync with each other nonetheless. It is through “astonishment” that they are joined, a word which suggests youth and newness and wonder. There is great potentiality and energy to being “joined in astonishment.” Yet the simile continues, “as two cuts lie parallel in the same flesh,” which adds an element of violence to their connection. If they share “the same flesh,” that flesh is wounded. What does this mean for their relationship? It suggests that their intense connection is fraught with pain as well as wonder.
Like Insects Into Lighted Boxes/The Experiment (Simile & Metaphor)
“Passengers streamed on board like insects into lighted boxes and the experiment roared off down the street” (85). This sentence involves both simile and metaphor. The simile of passengers being like insects transforms the city bus into a bug carrier, its illuminated windows like “lighted boxes” for the viewing of specimens. The metaphor of “the experiment” expands this simile, completing the transformation of people into insects, subjects of some strange experiment. This sentence conveys Geryon’s feeling of detachment, as he views these strangers through a clinical lens. Yet the humor of his imagination isn’t unkind. Geryon often observes human interaction from the outside, as we see in the many times where he notes what makes people happy as though he were an anthropologist jotting down behavioral notes. What’s most remarkable is how compassionately he looks at people, though from the outside in. He loves them at the same time that he feels alien and separate from them.
Like a Black Lace Map of South America (Simile)
Geryon takes a self-portrait with the humorous title “No Tail!” in which he lies naked on the bed in the fetal position, baring his wings. In the photo, “the fantastic fingerwork of his wings is outspread on the bed like a black lace map of South America” (97). This simile foreshadows the revelation in Peru that Geryon may be one of the legendary creatures who re-emerged with wings after being thrown into a volcano; that in a crucial sense, he is of the landscape. Geryon is always attentive to the relations between things, and we see this over and over again in the association between himself and volcanoes. This simile continues in such a vein, associating the patterning of his wings and the contours of the continent.
