A Hare, Perhaps
People use similes every day when doing things like giving directions or explaining the nature of objects. For instance, you might tell someone to turn right when they get to a house that looks like a flying saucer. But what happens if there is also a house that looks like rocket at the intersection just before the one you mean? Did you really mean flying saucer or did you mean a UFO? One person’s bunny is another person’s hare, after all:
“There’s the lake, see? The one that sort of looks like a rabbit.”
“I don’t see it,” Megan said.
“Right here.” Amit took Megan’s finger and drew it firmly to the spot.
“I mean, I don’t get how the lake’s supposed to look like a rabbit.”
Exile from India
Exile from one’s homeland may not always be traumatic, but it can certainly be expected to cause some emotional ups and down. Any number of metaphorical images might come to mind here—a rollercoaster, perhaps or even a basketball. The author takes things in an unexpected direction:
“While Sudha regarded her parents’ separation from India as an ailment that ebbed and flowed like a cancer, Rahul was impermeable to that aspect of their life as well.”
Slumping toward Acquiescence
Another curiously unexpected metaphorical image from the author is equally illustrative. Familiar with that look of utter acceptance of defeat that results in bad posture, but a positive attitude toward accepting those things which one must?
“She would slouch in her chair, lookI am a ing bothered but resigned, as if a subway she were riding had halted between stations.”
“I am her boyfriend.”
No, this is not metaphorical. It is a statement of literal fact. It is the effect it has upon a man who is not the boyfriend of the “her” in question that stimulates the use of metaphorical imagery:
“The words landed in Paul’s chest like the dull yet painful taps of a doctor’s instrument.”
Prenab Kaku
Don’t worry, it’s just a name. The name of a man who gets one of the author’s most memorable uses of a simile that just does not pop up with routine regularity. That is quite a feat considering how many books have been written and the limited supply of imagery available for comparison. The gender-bending unconventionality really seals the deal when one realizes that Pranab has a chest fill of thickly-matted black hair:
“He was an odd sight, with his pole-thin legs and a small, flaccid belly, like an otherwise svelte woman who has had a baby and not bothered to one her abdomen.”
