Situating Setting
Metaphor can be a very effective shortcut for conveying setting. A well-phrased simile can create a comparison that immediately brings to vivid life what a certain place at a certain moment looks like:
“The fenced-in front yard with its cypresses, shaggy grass, and scatter of roses looked, Maryna said, like a poorly kept small graveyard.”
Like A Marriage
The simile is also useful for comparing two things seemingly absolutely unalike on the surface. Only by digging down past the assertion does the utilization of the metaphor come clear:
“Our community is like a marriage, M. says to me today, and suddenly I’m on my guard. I don’t mean our marriage, she says, laughing.”
That’s Some Acting
An unusual use of simile is introduced to describe what can only be described as some very sublime acting. One may not be entirely sure if such a thing described is possible, but one can fully picture it occurring:
“You walk well. I liked your walk tonight. You don’t forget the play is set in Venice. Portia walks as if she is treading on marble.”
Time is Space
One of the central metaphorical images around which the novel is constructed is stated early on. It is almost buried in a never-ending paragraph, but perhaps that is the point. Perhaps the author is encouraging the reader to keep an eye out for answers by coding them and hiding them:
“the past is the biggest country of all, and there’s a reason one gives in to the desire to set stories in the past: almost everything good seems located in the past”
Metaphorical Allusion
This is what is know as a literary novel. A serious, award-winning kind of novel. Not a bestseller or steamy romance or genre. The kind of novel where people are described using allusions to other literary writers:
“With his goatee and careless posture and melancholy stare, he was like the doctor in a Chekhov play”
