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| April 2019 |
"The power of metaphor comes from the distance bridged and the pleasurable shock we get from that electrical connection between two seemingly different entities." --John Drury, Creating Poetry
My selection for April's post-from-the-past, dipping back into blogging archives of now over nine years, is this one: Book Metaphors: Six Ideas and Counting. Who would have thought this post would be the one with the overall highest viewings of all those published here at Words and Such? But it is, and I'm amazed that it still gets a dozen or so new views each week. There's something real, tangible, and fulfilling about books, and we're still discovering ways to describe the experience. In addition, the subject of 'metaphor' itself is a fun one. Making those connections between two seemingly different entities, as John Drury says in his book Creating Poetry, can be a writing adventure.
So without further ado here's this month's post-from-the past, out of April's archives:
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Friday, April 6, 2012
What is a book to you, metaphorically speaking?
Others have weighed in on the subject, as evidenced by the following six quotes:
2. "Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time." --E.P. Whipple
3. "A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors." --Henry Ward Beecher
4. "Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind."--James Russell Lowell
5. "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." --Charles W. Eliot
6. "Books are a uniquely portable magic." --Stephen King
Six quotes turn into fifteen metaphors: compass, telescope, sextant, chart, lighthouse, garden, orchard, storehouse, party, company, counselor, bee, friend, teacher, magic.
But we don't have to stop there. We're writers--how about making up a few of our own?
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| Photos courtesy of sxc.hu |
My contribution: "a book is a ticket." A ticket to worlds and stories, places and things, ideas, insights, and imagination. A ticket to colors and wonder, images and emotions, mystery, heart tugs and promise. A ticket to the tapestries and threads of history and humanity--and to hope.
Would love to hear your ideas. How would you describe a book, metaphorically speaking?
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Breaking back into the present, we add to our list with contributions from blogging friends who shared their ideas of book metaphors in the original post's comments:
"A book is a hideaway, a place where we can get away from everything for a while." --Peggy Harkins
"A book is a portal to another world, traveling through time or space or both." --Elizabeth Varadan
"A book is transportation to a world filled with secrets that are not being let out at once but piece by piece." --Kamila Glomova
"A book is a hide-and-seek, a game played by writer and reader." --PS
More suggestions? From Meghan Cox Gurdon, author of The Enchanted Hour, the Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction: "Books are portals into wonders."
And this one, posted by Caroline Starr Rose, author of May B and Blue Birds, both novels-in-verse, on her blog earlier this year (here): "If education is the road out of poverty, books are the wheels for the journey." --Richard Crabbe, African Publishers Network
And so to our original list, we add hideaway, portal (to another world/into wonders), transportation to a world of secrets, game of hide-and-seek, and wheels (on the road of life's journeys). May books continue to be all these things and more to the next generations coming up. Wishing all a spring full of book adventures.
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