“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Thus Shakespeare, in Sonnet 18. No, Shakespeare answers; that comparison won’t do: “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
The poet’s complaint is that sometimes he just can’t think of a sufficient metaphor. Of course, his complaint is merely a pretence, merely a way of starting a poem. Shakespeare could never be at a loss for imagery.
Well, I can be. Especially now.
What a season we live in! Its dullness exceeds all normal human powers of simile and metaphor.
A ship runs into a sandbar and takes on water. A handful of its 4,000 passengers and crew perish. So dull are our times that this event, the “sinking” of the Costa Concordia, is heralded throughout the world as a “Titanic-like tragedy.” But look, the ship didn’t even sink. It’s there right now, more than halfway out of the water. If it wasn’t for the Italian coast guard, picnickers could be frolicking there today. To what shall we compare the public reaction to this non-event?
The big political news in California is that our Democratic governor wants to raise taxes. What a surprise! Also that he and the Democratic leadership of the state House and Senate want to keep financing a 400-mile “high-speed” rail project that wouldn’t even be high-speed, at a cost only five times as great as that authorized by voters when they foolishly, but predictably, authorized it, several moons ago. Shall we compare this to a summer’s day? Is it worthwhile even to hunt for metaphors?
Now turn and survey the Republican primary context. How many “debates” have these people had? 15? 18? 95? And it’s barely election year. Shall I compare this to a winter’s sludge? And look at the candidates. Look at their “issues.” Exempting Ron Paul, who actually has radical things to say (although, ahem, you and I have heard them many times before, because we are libertarians), what the hell do these people have to say that’s worth saying at the length they’ve already taken? Shall we compare them to snails, bewitched by their progress across a 10-foot sidewalk? To mice steadily eating their breadloaf house? To a nest of blind mole rats? To a wall from which all brickbats bounce?
But you see how far one has to reach for imagery. It’s hopeless, truly hopeless. I won’t even try finding metaphors and similes for the current president. Now there is one dull fellow. Imagine a book entitled The Wit and Wisdom of Barack Obama. You see my point.
In Richard III, someone mentions “the winter of our discontent.” Shakespeare, thou shouldst be living at this hour! Then you could write about the ice age of our boredom.
