Tuesday, December 17, 2013

a home rehearsed & scheduled like a Broadway show shelters best seller's narrator

 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt,  is one   of this past year's  most popular new novels  While  it's not something  that could move  from page to  stage,  it  does suffer from  a flaw I've  seen  recur  in many new plays,: It  seems to  end, but then goes on  for another ending. . .and then another one.   That said,  Tartt  did provide me with some  apt  tropes  to  proof that  no  dictionary like Similes Dictionary or  Metaphors  Dictionary  is  ever finished.

The  very  readable  novel   turned up  several apt  additions  to   the  new Simile Dictionary's   existing  head words:

For PALLOR,  ,  Tartt described someone as  pale as a cod,  and  a young man who was thin as well as pale as   thin and pale as a starved poet.

For STUPIDITY,  there was  a young woman  as   dumb as a set of  sofa cushions.

Fitting  ORDER/DISORDER,  an orderly  household  that  provided  temporarily  shelter to the  displaced  main character was described as one  where everything was rehearsed and scheduled like a Broadway production.

Suitable  for  DISAPPEARANCE,  Tartt   introduced someone who   vanished as quickly as a bird flying from a  windowsill.

In  one of  the  narrator's  many moments   to fit the heading  DISCOMFORT,  he felt    as uneasy and conspicuous as a dreamer wandering naked in a nightmare.

For the Metaphors Dictionary,  I was struck  by   a scene  about an awkward attempt at conversation described as follows:     Efforts to make conversation all stumbled and sank into  quicksand.