What is "Doom Eager"?

Lorrie Moore, from "Better and Sicker"
"Martha Graham speaks of the Icelandic term "doom eager" to denote that ordeal of isolation, restlessness, caughtness and artistic experiences when he or she is sick with an idea. When a writer is doom eager, the writing won't be sludge on the page; it will give readers -- and the writer, of course, is the very first reader -- an experience they've never had before, or perhaps a little and at last the words for an experience they have."

Thursday, September 2, 2010

on metaphors

"The really good metaphors are always the same. I mean you compare time to a road, death to sleeping, life to dreaming, and those are the great metaphors in literature because they correspond to something essential. If you invent metaphors, they are apt to be surprising during the fraction of a second, but they strike no deep emotion whatever." - Jorge Luis Borges


Classic Metaphors That Come to Mind:

Chasing the white whale/the big fish
The Tree of Life
The Great Flood
The growing of gardens & the time of harvesting
The acts of cooking & eating
Metamorphosis & mutation (turning into a bug/butterfly/wolf/X-men)
The carnival/freak show
Rivers flowing
The game of chance/gambling
The office space & work
Eagles/hawks soaring & the power of flight
On-coming trains
Couching lions/tigers/dragons
Aliens
Fear of technology

What classic metaphors come to mind for you?
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