Reading time: Less than 1 minute
I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from David Bergen…
I had searched for the book The Case of Lena S. by David Bergen (pictured above) since its publication in 2012. The novel had received rave reviews but my library didn’t carry it. I don’t know why I didn’t buy it from Amazon (too cheap perhaps?) but when I was on a brief vacation earlier this month, I stumbled across it in a second-hand bookstore. I snapped it up immediately.
The coming-of-age story of a 16-year-old boy, the book’s plot didn’t really grab me. But I very much enjoyed some of the author’s figurative language. Here are my favourite examples:
- She said, “Listen,” and she lifted her head and moved it back and forth like some kind of small bird.
- They still played tennis through the last weeks of May and into June. Seeta had taken to wearing shorts and her legs crisscrossed like dark twigs and she began to charge the net, her runners emitting little barks as they bit the tarmac.
- She said his name clearly and slowly, as if, he thought, by holding it in her mouth she could maybe possess him again.
- She was hollow. It wasn’t her body, it was her voice. It exited from her mouth like an echo inside a thin tube. Mason had the urge to tap a knuckle against her skull.
I have heard that some of the author’s other books are even more engaging. I’ll be looking for them.