The Opening Line
The very first line of the book is a metaphor and a pretty abstract one at that. Its mystery and ambiguity effectively sets the stage for the conflict that will drive much of the narrative. The opening line also foreshadows the story’s period setting in an oblique and allusive way with its promise to tell a story about a different kind of war that so profoundly influence an entire generation or two:
“Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live.”
Efficient Character Description
For anyone not living in a cave for the past century, one single sentence is capable of creating a perfect image of what Homer’s friend Roy Lee looks like almost exactly. Some similes are just more efficient than others. As time goes on, however, this simile is certain to lose some of its effectiveness:
“He looked a bit like a very young Elvis.”
Boys and Cars and Girls
Homer doesn’t even need to warn us first that he thinks Dorothy Plunk is the prettiest girl in school. The particular use metaphor which follows this confession conveys that personal “opinion” plus so very much more about his feelings toward her:
“She had a long shimmering ponytail and eyes the electric blue of my father’s 1957 Buick.”
Sputnik
It is almost impossible to overstate for readers not alive at the time the way that the launch by the Soviet Union of the first man-made satellite in impacted the world. It was genuinely seen as an epochal, existence-altering moment in time after which nothing was ever going to be the same. Homer gets at that feeling with his description of actually watching as Sputnik passes over his backyard:
“I stared at it with no less rapt attention than if it had been God himself in a golden chariot riding overhead.”
A Boy Really in Love
If the comparison of Dorothy’s eyes to the color of a beautiful 1957 Buick is not enough to translate the depth of Homer’s affection for Dorothy, just a few paragraphs all pretense is dropped and he dives into the deep end of metaphorical imagery:
“Dorothy Plunk was God's perfection”
