But art and love are a matter of mouths open in cinnabar, of blackness and redness turned to velvet by assiduous grinding, of understanding the colours that benefit from being rubbed softly one into the other: the least that the practice will make you is skillful: beyond which there’s originality itself, which is what practice is really about in the end and already I had a name for originality, undeniable, and to this name I had a responsibility far beyond the answering of the needs of any friend.
How to be both, by Ali Smith
Last week, I taught a class about making metaphors to a writing club, and now I have metaphors on the brain, which is my definition of happiness. If part of the task of a writer is to upset the conventional representation of experience, metaphors brilliantly do that. Comparing one thing to another to subvert the reflexive knowing so the reader recovers the sensation of life is the project of the metaphor.
Smith uses an extended metaphor, comparing love and art to mouths open in cinnabar. In the parlance of teaching metaphor, the “target(s),” or what is being described, is love and art. The “source,” or the image to which the target is being compared, is “mouths open in cinnabar.” The larger the gap between the target and source, the more original and surprising the metaphor. One more step to this approach is finding the commonalities between the target and source; if there is no common ground, the metaphor fails.
Cinnabar is a brick-red crystalline form of mercuric sulfide and formed (says Wikipedia) from volcanic activity and cooling of the solutions: both hot and cool. According to its etymology in the 14th to 17th century, it was believed to be a mixture of dragon’s and elephant’s blood: both fantastical and concrete.
Smith’s sentence captures the quality of a combination “of blackness and redness.” The colors are turned to velvet through assiduous grinding. Within this extended metaphor, she has included another form of metaphor: synesthesia, one sensory perception expressed in a different sense. Color is compared to texture.
The adjective “assiduous,” which means showing great care, attention, and effort, leaps off the page because it’s combined with “grinding,” the opposite of care. Now we have an oxymoron, the juxtaposition of concepts with opposite meanings. It begins to feel to me that Smith’s extended metaphor is moving love and art to the ineffable.
“Mouths open in cinnabar” is a phrasing with many interpretations. One possibility is that “open” means receptive. The mouth is an opening, too, the way of taking in sustenance.
The next phrase expands on “assiduous” by adding that the colors of blackness and redness benefit from “being rubbed softly one into the other.” The image easily leads us back to love and art.
The process of making cinnabar leads associatively to the word “practice.” Practice means to carry out something repeatedly to gain proficiency. “The least that the practice will make you is skillful: beyond which there’s originality itself, which is what practice is really about in the end.”
The making of “cinnabar " tells us more about the targets, “love and art.” They involve a practice that can lead to originality. (As the philosopher Alain Badiou says, love is not a mere passive emotion but “an existential project,” a series of activities.)
And as for art and writing, practice—what we’re doing here—makes you more facile with all the wild and wonderful things sentences can do and maybe more adept at creating something original.
Your Turn
Let’s focus on the extended metaphor:
Think of your target. What do you want to talk about? Now, think of your source: what image do you want to compare it to? Smith’s targets are love and art. Her source: cinnabar.
Add two phrases that expand and give more details about your source. Can you add synesthesia? An oxymoron?
Add a colon. Now select an aspect of the source and add an independent clause that gives details about this facet.
Add another colon and elaborate further on that aspect. Smith uses two relative clauses, both beginning with “which.”
Try it!
How did it go?
Please send me stunning sentences!
About Me:
I’ve taught “Style in Fiction,” “Word for Word” and “Cultivating Your Prose” at the University of San Francisco and Stanford Continuing Studies since 2007.
Please visit my website to find all my books: ninaschuyler.com, including my novel Afterword, How to Write Stunning Sentences, and Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal.
Preorder My Award-Winning Short Story Collection:
I’m so happy that my short story collection, In This Ravishing World, will be published in July 2024. The collection won the W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections and The Prism Prize for Climate Literature.
Here’s what the Judge for The Prism Prize for Climate Literature said about the collection:
“Three pages into reading this fascinating book, I knew it was the clear winner of the third annual Prism Prize for Climate Literature that I sponsor through Homebound Publications. Not only does it cover every facet of the climate issue and the ongoing efforts at dealing with or denying/undermining what needs to be done, Nature’s presence embraces the entire narrative and lends a sense of enchantment. Rivetted, I could barely put it down for the three days it took to read the compelling stories of a diverse cast of characters: there is someone in these pages for every reader to relate to.”—Gail Collins-Ranadive, author of Dinosaur Dreaming, Our Climate Moment.
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"Now I have metaphors on the brain, which is my definition of happiness." YES!
You're welcome. I had to give you that sentence because it's truly stunning, isn't it?