The State of Affairs (2017)
Rethinking Infidelity
by Esther Perel
I think this is a must-read for anyone who wants to be in a long-term relationship. It is an orientation on marriage and monogamy that considers selfhood, individuality, intimacy, desire, needs, trauma, tradition, power, betrayal, and so on. Do yourself a favor.
It’s also written well. It’s mildly funny and full of
well-coordinated metaphorshow to coordinate metaphors
It’s important to keep your metaphors from bumping into one another. Take this passage from Oliver Burkeman’s book
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals:
…most of us were raised [to] prioritize future benefits over current enjoyments. But ultimately it backfires. It wrenches us out of the present, leading to a life spent leaning into the future, worrying about whether things will work out…
If we are wrenched out of the present, how are we only leaning into the future? Wouldn’t we be thrown into it?
To coordinate these two metaphors, we need to change the word wrenches or the word leaning. (Or both.) The image of being wrenched out of the present is vivid, but I find the image of leaning into the future more precise.
Burkeman could’ve chosen a word other than wrenches to lead better into the image of leaning. Possibilities include: pushes, nudges, tips, pulls, shifts. We are not limited to physicality, either: action words like coaxes and lures are also viable.
We can’t use leads because that would clash with leading in the second part of the sentence. (Although, if we really liked leads as a replacement for wrenches, we could
revise the sentenceto accomodate it.)
To pick a solution, test it against the problem. You know you’ve found a solution when the two images flow into each other or click into place like neighboring puzzle pieces.
If you enjoy analyzing sentences closely like this, check out the last section of
Several Short Sentences About Writing, where Klinkenborg considers “Some Practical Problems” with sentences written by his students.
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