Angry Mom
What is the pursuit of happiness—as opposed to actually experiencing happiness? Good question and, fortunately, the author has half an answer in of metaphor. The answer to what is happiness part of the equation is perhaps not what most expect,. The metaphor is one of those examples of using figurative language more for effect than clarity:
“Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the same as being happy – which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances, and a bit bovine.”
Angry Mom, Devil Daughter
The author situates the reader into the world of being happy with the somewhat ironic image of a mother who is angry. So angry, in fact, that the mom has one very unique metaphor for referring to the child engendering her fiery emotion:
“When my mother was angry with me, which was often, she said, ‘The Devil led us to the wrong crib.’”
Writing Is Dangerous Business
One of the themes of the book is the power of storytelling to assist in creating a narrative for one’s life that makes that life easier to understand. Of course, this may be much easier for a writer to do than the average person and that may be a good thing because she is also quick to point out that this business of creating narratives does not necessarily always produce the results you may want:
“there are two kinds of writing; the one you write and the one that writes you. The one that writes you is dangerous. You go where you don’t want to go. You look where you don’t want to look.”
The Risk of Obscurity
A simile can be perfect for those who understand the point of comparison, but fall absolutely flat to those who don’t. Such is the case when the author references a movie that is far from obscure, but not exactly a household title. It is a science fiction movie about Martians who visited earth taking a good five million years for their plan to reach fruition and for those who are familiar it is one of the finer uses of metaphor in the book. For everybody else, of course, it is just a strange combination of words completely meaningless for the purpose of comparison:
“She was looking at me like a scene from Quatermass and the Pit, as a previously knowable object was transforming in front of her eyes.”
An Unhappy Mother
When she wasn’t angry, the author’s mother was unhappy. To the extreme. She was a woman for whom life was many thing—metaphorically speaking—and not a single one of them even close to joyful. Well, maybe just one thing:
“Life was a burden to be carried as far as the grave and then dumped. Life was a Vale of Tears. Life was a pre-death experience...Christmas was the one time of the year when my mother went out into the world looking as though the world was more than a Vale of Tears.”
