Skidding to Attention
The author is especially aware of the power of metaphor. Figurative language is the foundation upon which the entire premise of the book rests. Being aware of the power of metaphor, he is well-equipped to use it himself which he does especially well when relating a personal anecdote:
“Not long ago, I was reading a book when, suddenly, I jumped to attention— startled and embarrassed, like a tired driver drifting out of his lane. I had become conscious of the fact that I had no idea who a particular character I had been reading about was.”
Bleak House
A description of the power of figurative language is illustrated using an example from the Dickens novel Bleak House. Unfortunately, the full extent of the illustration is lost because of, ironically, the inability to reproduce the accompanying illustration here. Suffice to say that in the book, the point is facilitated by the author through the use of an image of a page from the novel which is itself not completely clear because it has been “fogged” over. Nevertheless, the point gets made:
“Bleak House opens in fog—and this fog is a component part of the world Charles Dickens has written into being.
The fog is also a reference to the “actual” fog of London.
This fog is also a metaphor for the English chancery court system.”
Turning Inward
Throughout, the author makes a recurring reference to the act of reading as being an act of looking inward toward the self as well as outward toward the author. A particularly vivid utilization of this imagery engages the metaphor to its logical extent:
“When I read, I withdraw from the phenomenal world. I turn my attention “inward.” Paradoxically, I turn outward toward the book I am holding, and, as if the book were a mirror, I feel as though I am looking inward.”
Limitations on Looking Inward
The father of American psychology is called upon to supply the metaphor for the inability to use this attempt to read the story of oneself by looking inward. It gets a little complicated out of context, but the general concept is easy enough to follow and the Jamesian metaphor needs no clarification to fully grasp:
“The story of reading is a remembered story. When we read, we are immersed. And the more we are immersed, the less we are able, in the moment, to bring our analytic minds to bear upon the experience in which we are absorbed. Thus, when we discuss the feeling of reading we are really talking about the memory of having read. William James describes the impossible attempt to introspectively examine our own consciousness as `trying to turn up the gas quickly enough to see how the darkness looks.'”
The List
Check out the many titles listed on this site. You will find on many of them sections just like this one which contains entries about metaphors. Metaphors are popular and, more importantly, consequential aspects of the literary experience. Most of those other works, however, do not afford the singularly peculiar and useful list that can be found in this text. Near the end can be found a list of words under the title “Some of the Metaphors Used in This Book to Describe the reading Experience.” Among that much longer list can be found these quite idiosyncratic examples:
Bathtub
Car trip
Game of Chess
Orchestra
Rorschach blot
