Impressionist Art
Impressionist art is only half-representational. It has to look like the thing it is, of course, but not entirely. The subject should be off just a little to the viewer because it is an impression of that thing to the creator. Can one recreate the impression of things of another? Metaphor writing is kind of like that:
“In another landscape, a line of spruce in the distance would appear an inkblot, a punctuation to the endless gray sentence of the morning”
Sea Similes
The comparative quality of a simile is based in large part upon the ratio of familiarity to what is being compared. Because most people these days are very familiar with animals from the oceans—as opposed to the 19th century when hardly anybody knew what a narwhal looked like—the comparison to monsters from beneath the waves does not even need to relate to marine image:
“Ben lies there for a while in his soccer shorts and high kneesocks, his legs splayed like a giant sea creature, mottled pink skin and black hair.”
The Book’s Philosophy
Hidden amongst the novel’s many footnotes (despite it being a novel, it does have footnotes) is a metaphor that simply and directly states what might be called the philosophy of the book. One could glean this philosophy without being told, but it acts as kind of nice little easter egg:
“Random is the place of history in our lives.”
Impressionistic Character Development
It is not just the painting within the narrative the explores the concept of impressionistic visuals. The structure of the writing itself also flexes the muscles of creativity by abandoning the directly representational in favor of a more oblique impressionist approach to character delineation. The writer uses metaphor in a way that asks the reader to fill in the blanks of the information that is left out:
“Elizabeth, he said, as if it were a name difficult to pronounce.”
And Then There’s This
Not all use of metaphorical imagery is so oblique, of course. Nor is the comparison within the simile so unusually constructed. One of the reasons that authors like this kind of figurative language so much is that when necessary, one reach into the toolbox and come up with an image that is as close to universal communication as it is possible to get:
“Here I am like a chicken with my head cut off.”
