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 splendid personification from William Boyd…
I picked up the novel Brazzaville Beach, by William Boyd, at my local library entirely because it carried a handwritten note from one of the librarians, recommending it. This must be a new manoeuvre my library is using, to increase readership. It worked.
The 2009 story — not one that would usually appeal to me — focuses on a British primate-researcher who relocates to Africa following the end of her marriage. Told in flashback style, the novel displays plenty of fine writing and some clever figurative language. Here are two examples that appealed to me:
She loved the woods at this time of year, the pale, lemon-juice rays of the sunshine spread through the thinning canopy of leaves dappling the ground, and the air was always cold enough to make her breath condense.
and,
In a corner a table fan turned its face this way and that, dispensing its breeze, endlessly saying no, no, no.
I found the personification of the fan to be particularly effective. Living in Vancouver — a city largely without air conditioning in homes — I have seen more than my share of table fans usually during the two weeks in July when the weather can become unbearably hot. There is indeed something puzzlingly regal about such devices. I’d never imagined them as shaking their heads to say no, but of course the image works perfectly.
