Adventures as I’m reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

Entry 4 - Dec 2, 2023 Suzann Kale SPOILER ALERT

Today’s adventure: Metaphors

No writer wants to use stale metaphors, so most of us try to think of new ways to compare or describe stuff. In all my reading (and I’m old), I’ve never experienced such delight and originality as those in The Bone Clocks.

Mitchell’s writing is alive - and part of the way he animates it is with his similes and metaphors. 

Take for example: Hugo, one of the protagonists, is on the train. “Commuters sway like sides of beef and slump like corpses…”

Or: “Penhaligon hears his future, and it sounds like a bottle-bank heaved off the roof of a multistory car park.”

Or, as Hugo is skiing, “The old snow here is glassy but fast and my skis sound like knives being sharpened.”

Or, “My mouth is as dry as lunar dust…” (Hugo again)

And the other thing: his metaphors are styled exquisitely to be in the exact personality of the characters. They are not just “this is like that” - they are tailored to the scene, the person, and the atmosphere of the setting.