Seattle Sky
A story based in Seattle and you can make one prediction very confidently. If there is going to be weather-related imagery, it is going to be about the rain. Well, there is that, sure. But the best use of imagery as it relates to weather conditions is actually refreshingly free of a zealous focus on precipitation:
“Every feeling I ever knew was up in that sky. Twinkling joyous sunlight; airy, giggling cloud wisps; blinding columns of sun. Orbs of gold, pink, flesh, utterly cheesy in their luminosity. Gigantic puffy clouds, welcoming, forgiving, repeating infinitely across the horizon as if between mirrors; and slices of rain, pounding wet misery in the distance now, but soon on us, and in another part of the sky, a black stain, rainless.”
The Bottom of the World
You don’t come across a lot of novels that offer imagery which brings to life the bottom of the world. Certainly not a lot of novels about runaway middle-class Seattle agoraphobic wives and mothers trying to find out where their genius went. The passages almost seem out of place in context as if the result of a printing error in which a few pages of a completely different kind of book wound up in a novel where they don’t belong:
“We'd pass icebergs floating in the middle of the ocean. They were gigantic, with strange formations carved into them. They were so haunting and majestic you could feel your heart break, but really they're just chunks of ice and they mean nothing. There were ebony beaches dusted with snow, and sometimes there was a lone emperor penguin, giant, with orange cheeks, standing on an iceberg”
Seattle Pigeons
The novel really is a portrait of Seattle with all its graces and flaws. A famous mainstay of the community is given his moment of glory—in a way—through one of the more ambiguous bit of imagery found in the story.
“Hovering over me was the Chihuly chandelier. Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle. They’re everywhere, and even if they don’t get in your way, you can’t help but build up a kind of antipathy toward them. This one was all glass, of course, white and ruffly and full of dripping tentacles. It glowed from within, a cold blue, but with no discernible light source. The rain outside was pounding. Its rhythmic splatter only made this hovering glass beast more haunting”
Not Really about Canadians
The author uses allusions to pop culture as imagery as a way to get inside a character’s head regarding how she feels about not recognizing that equality is not really the same as fairness. As a genuinely talented person—an architect of supreme abilities—it is not really Canadians who are the object of her scorn. They serve merely in the role of microcosmic imagery to be applied more lavishly:
“The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that’s how I fear Canadians. To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Frank Gehry is no greater than a hack pumping out McMansions on AutoCAD. John Candy is no funnier than Uncle Lou when he gets a couple of beers in him.”
