Reading time: Less than 1 minute
I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about some personification from writer Olive Senior…
Despite having several rave reviews on Amazon, the novel Dancing Lessons, by Olive Senior, hasn’t yet persuaded me to finish it. I find it too self-conscious and the characters a bit too predictable. Still, every once in awhile, Senior produces some truly fine figurative language. Here’s an example:
They [women in a retirement home] all come out of their rooms at the same time, doors shut with a collective bang and keys turned, rouge and lipstick askew and perfumes sending out challenging signals left and right as they gather in the forecourt, leather handbags laden with prayer books, mints and tissue swinging martially, as if they are ready to have a go at each other, eyes narrowed and glasses glinting, weighing up the completion to see who is wearing more rouge.
I love that image of perfumes challenging each other “left and right” and handbags swinging “martially.”A Jamaican poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer currently living in Toronto, Senior is a 2005 winner of a Musgrave Medal.