The Great War has concussed the world.
Transamerica, by Colum McCann
It’s a simple sentence, and so emotionally powerful.
Countless books have been written about the two world wars, so the challenge for the writer is to make it fresh. That means syntax and diction move forcefully to the foreground, and here, one word-- “concussed”-- makes the sentence come alive.
McCann’s sentence puts us under the spell of metaphor and also a subset of metaphor, personification. Both metaphor and personification follow the implicit equation A=B. With personification, the “A” is an inanimate object and “B” is human qualities or abilities.
The technique holds great power because it’s a way to see the world anew again. You unleash again the child-like wonder and awe. It also invites more emotion, making the abstract concrete. Gertrude Stein once wrote about the hardship of writing in a period of late language, by which she meant that people are so used to the meanings of words that they take them for granted; the emotion is squeezed out. A fresh metaphor is an answer to the problem of late language. For me, there is an emotional response to viewing the world as concussed. The suffering, the damage, is not only to human life but all life.
In McCann’s sentence, there are two instances of metaphor.
The Great War (A) is compared to something that can cause a hard blow (B). B might be a ball or a fall off a bike or a punch to the head.
The world (A) is compared to a human head (B) and because it’s been hit, it suffers an injury to its brain.
The key, then, to McCann’s sentence is the verb. Most likely along the road of your writing life, you’ve heard that verbs add energy to the page. Instead of passive verbs, so the advice goes, use active ones. (There are exceptions to such advice. There are always exceptions). I keep lists of verbs, so I don’t return to the same old ones. It’s a nerdy thing to do, but I’ve always been a collector—of sentences, images, gestures, and verbs.
The Making
Start with your subject and choose something inanimate. Here it’s the “Great War.”
Now comes your verb. Think of attributes and abilities associated with being human. Walking, running, jumping, taking, touching, pulling, pushing, on and on. Choose a verb that captures one of those attributes and make sure it’s a transitive verb—that is, it needs a direct object.
A direct object answers the question what? Or whom? What did the Great War concuss? In McCann’s sentence the direct object is the world.
Try it!
Let me know how it goes!
As an avid history fan who's dived deep into WW1, this sentence is pitch perfect. Concussed as the verb is brilliant. You survive a concussion, but the effects linger...