The figurative language of John McPhee…

Reading time: Just over 1 minute

I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. In today’s post you’ll see an interesting piece of figurative language by John McPhee that I encountered recently.

Many years ago I mentored a young student. He took off to journalism school in New York City and, when he returned, brought me the gift of a book, The John McPhee Reader. I was pleased with his success, grateful that he thought of me and thrilled when he went on to a successful career in the television industry.

But I must confess: I’ve never much liked John McPhee’s writing.

I know McPhee won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1999 and he’s considered one of the pioneers of creative non-fiction. But I find his writing difficult to slog through; to me, it’s often too meandering and too dense.

That said, I’m always willing to be proved wrong, and I enjoyed an image of his in a July 2, 2012 New Yorker story headlined Editors and Publisher. Here it is:

(William) Shawn was the hub of a bicycle wheel and his writers were the spokes. He kept them separate, stiffened, discrete — connected to him but not to one another. 

I like the way McPhee takes a very concrete image — the hub of a bicycle wheel — and spells out exactly how his metaphor works. The editor (William Shawn) is controlling enough to be compared to something made of metal! The more you think about the image, the more nuanced it becomes: Isn’t it interesting how the wheel is rigid yet moves so smoothly.

If you’ve ever ridden a bike, of course, you also know there is no hope that the spokes will ever connect. Unless there’s a terrible accident….

[Photo credit: Office of Communications, Princeton University. Cropped. ]

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