Refreshing quotes in a desert of city life

“I NEVER Metaphor I Didn’t Like” By Dr. Mardy Grothe Harper Collins, 2008

“You are the sunshine of my soul.” “You are the apple of God’s eye.” These sentences – and many more – that find themselves in conversations or in written pieces are metaphorical. “You sleep like a log” is a simile.

The book, “I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like” by Dr. Mardy Grothe, says that from the dawn of civilization, people have tried to understand one thing by relating it to something else. The author calls I “analogical thinking.” He cites many examples: “Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body” is a quote from Joseph Addison, which has now become the prosaic slogan of many gyms hereabouts. Even what others thought as boring contents of the Scriptures offer something refreshing as:  “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”

Metaphor

Metaphor, a key language invention. This book about metaphorical thinking is the latest (that I know of) from Dr. Grothe, whose earlier book, “Oxymoronica,” was reviewed much earlier in the Inquirer. This is not your ordinary book of quotations: The author made sure that everything in this collection are sayings, aphorisms and proverbs that illuminate certain truths – shocking, revealing, exasperating and inspiring – using a very important language invention called a “metaphor,” with a sprinkling of analogies and similes.

With 15 chapters covering every facet of human existence – its realities and ironies, and people’s faiths, loves, hopes, passions, angsts, pet peeves, and dreams – expressed in a startling combination that produces what the author calls “poetic prose,” as contrasted to prose that he calls “prosaic.” I call the latter bland, ordinary and unexciting.

Bland titles

The chapters, titled with metaphors, cover topics like The Human Condition, Wit & Humor, Insults & Criticism, Definitive Metaphors, Life, Relationships, Love; as well as Marriage, Home & Family Life, Sex, Ages & Stages in Life, Stage & Screen, Politics, Sports and The Literary Life.

The subtitles are obviously prosaic – bland – but metaphorical titles provide insights and charm,  like “The Lights may be on, but nobody’s home,” or “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser. If you are sports-minded, one title surprises you: “Sports is the toy department of life.”

The book asserts that conversations without analogical thinking have no power, are not interesting and do not deserve the paper they are printed on. They lack eloquence. That’s why William Cullen Bryant has this to say: Eloquence is the poetry of prose.”

Lucidity is not flowery. Aristotle still speaks to the modern man and woman when he says: “It is metaphor above all else that gives clearness, charm, and distinction to style.” The scholar of antiquity refutes people who wrongly believe that if you use a metaphor or a simile you are being “flowery.” It is the other way around. When you use a figure of speech, you are in fact illuminating a subject, and therefore you achieve lucidity or luminousness.

When you want to emphasize the enriching experience of travel, you need this quotation from St. Augustine, who says it best: “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” This is a good slogan for tourism secretary’s Department of Tourism.

Now, if you lament that justice is delayed, you need this saying by Russian poet Yevtushenko: “Justice is like a train that’s nearly always late.” It’s not quite late when the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the hold departure order against the former Philippine President. And yet it is so late if you consider the snail’s pace (a metaphor!) by which the prosecution is handling the trial of the murderers that resulted in the heinous crime in Maguindanao.

More questions

Should you want to say that life has more questions than answers, or life has no owner’s manual – a more illuminating and witty way of saying it comes from Charlie Brown, creation of Charles Schulz of “Peanuts” fame: “In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.”

We have been using a statement that runs like this: “It is not the number of years that you place in your life, but the life you place in your years.” Vary it this time with Seneca’s aphorism – which runs, “Life is like a play: It’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.”

On marriage, when couples get tired with each other, this one may express their ennui better: “Getting married is a lot like getting into a tub of hot water. After you get used to it, it ain’t so hot.” Blame author Minnie Pearl for telling a naked truth.

Do something different. You will surely resent advice from a boss who says “Try something new.” But when Ralph Waldo Emerson tells you, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”  You say, “Wow!” and, before you know it, you are packing your bag to look for a “new horizon” – a tired or tried cliché, but metaphorical nonetheless.

Novelist Andre Gide stresses the need to take risks in life’s journey. He says: “One does not discover new continents without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

I recall a statement that has been the favorite quote of my friend Jun Yasay, former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which runs: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are for!” You venture into mid-sea where there is turbulence, then calm, and then you see an entirely new horizon (my paraphrase).

Wit and, sometimes, insult. The book has something to offer in terms of wit – which actually says more than what it is stated – by the power of metaphor.

Consider this: “A bikini is like a barbed-wire fence. It protects the property without the disturbing the view.” I recall a lament of an inner wear in relation to model in yesteryears, Twiggy. “The brassiere is suing Twiggy for lack of support.”

Winston Churchill is known for insults that are metaphorical and a masterpiece of indirection. Yet the one included in this collection is this statement of the famous leader and orator on the clumsiness of former American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was not spared by Churchill’s acid tongue: “He is the only bull that brings his own china shop with him.” He means that Dulles is “an accident waiting to happen.”

What I like best, though, is a repartee Churchill dished out in an exchange with Lady Astor. Lady Astor, his hate object said: “If you are my husband, I’ll put poison in your coffee.”

The reply of Churchill was a classic: “If you are my wife, I’ll drink it.” Of course in our Filipino chronicle of repartees, we remember Miss Tapia, scared of marrying a guy she despised: “Magpapatuka na ako sa ahas.” (I prefer being bitten by a snake!)

Readers, this book on metaphors, similes and analogical thinking will serve as your oasis in the desert of heavy traffic. Find this book in the shelves of our book stores, carry it in your car, in a taxi cab or in a bus through traffic snarls – and you will get refreshed. ([email protected])