A study on the use of the word “like” in literature.
I thought it would be interesting to go back and read some of my favourite books, and note how writers utilise analogy/simile.
“Sputnik Sweetheart” by Haruki Murakami
1. (…)studying literature in college is like biting down on the bitter end of a cucumber.
2. Sumire wanted to be like a character in a Kerouac novel—wild, cool, dissolute. She’d stand around, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets, her hair an uncombed mess, staring vacantly at the sky through her black plastic-framed Dizzy Gillespie glasses, which she wore despite her 20/20 vision. She was invariably decked out in an oversized herringbone coat from a second-hand shop and a pair of rough work boots. If she’d been able to grow a beard, I’m sure she would have.
3. She was short, and even in a good mood she talked like she was half a step away from picking a fight.
4. A nostalgic, intimate smile, like a treasured old possession pulled out of the back of a drawer.
5. “My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff I want to write about,” she said. “Images, scenes, snatches of words … in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! They shout at me. A great new story is about to be born I can feel it. It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once I sit at my desk and put them all down on paper, I realize something vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize—no crystals, just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.”
6. His mere presence lent the place a flamboyant atmosphere. Like cut flowers in a large vase or a jet-black stretch limousine.
7. Like the sound of a velvet curtain being drawn aside on a peaceful morning to let in the sunlight to wake someone very special to you.
8. I know I shouldn’t be calling you this late. I’m really sorry. The time of night when the roosters haven’t even started crowing. When this pitiful moon is hanging there in a corner of the eastern sky like a used-up kidney.
9. “You know,” said Sumire, and let a delicate pause intervene—like an old gatekeeper closing the railway-crossing gate with a clatter just after the train bound for St. Petersburg has passed by—“it’s really silly to say this, but I’m in love.”
10. Her voice sounded like it was somebody else’s coming from another room.
andulkaphoto
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