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.
