Chekhov
The author references the Russian writer Chekhov’s notebooks, in which he writes about a man walking past a store with a sign reading “Large selection of bears” and wonders who would need such a thing only to have the mystery later answered upon the revelation that the word at the end is actually “pears.” This moves the author to comment on the power of literature to form and shape opinion:
“A poet removes all signs from their places. An artist always incites insurrections among things.”
Automatic Against the People
The following metaphor, taken out of context, may quite naturally be assumed to apply to the normal things one considers when hearing the word “automatization.” Things like factory assembly lines of the past or computerized programming today. But that isn’t what the author means. Within context, “automatization” refers instead to those things done everyday as habit and manifestations of unconscious thinking.
“Automatization eats away at things, at clothes, at furniture, at our wives, and at our fear of war.”
The Oxymoron
Many stories, the author points out, are constructed upon oxymoronic plots: the underdog defeating the invincible poet tracing back at least to David knocking off Goliath. Titles like f Dostoevsky's “The Honest Thief” are especially subject to oxymoronic metaphorical imagery. To illuminate the point, however, he presents two easily accessible examples of this particular example of metaphor:
“If I were poor as a billionaire
If I were as little as the great ocean”
My Dear, Watson
Dr. Watson, scribe who recounts most of the cases of Sherlock Holmes written by Arthur Conan Doyle, is a metaphor. Sure, he’s a doctor and a loyal friend, but for the purposes of detective prose he primarily serves just one metaphorical purpose. But at least’s not alone here:
“Watson is necessary as the `eternal fool'…he shares the fate of Inspector Lestrade”
Living Literature
Literature is a living thing, the author argues, which is in a constant state of evolution. Genres come and go, but even more significant is that the actual form of writing in which those genres live and die are also not immune to immortality:
“like the customs of the British Parliament—where a certain Lord of the Exchequer sits on a leather bag lined with fur—literary forms may outlive their usefulness”
