Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
In business, psychology, science and politics, successful metaphors should be as common as one-liners at a comedy convention, as numerous as drunks at a tailgate party, as bountiful as bribes in Chicago politics.
In advertising, GEICO, the insurance company, has successfully grabbed attention with its use of metaphor (or it’s close cousin, the analogy) in its “Happier Than” campaign.
Continue reading “I Is an Other (5): Metaphors at Work”
We can’t help but think and speak in metaphors. A hot temperature is the “high” for the day and a cold temperature is the “low.” The future is “ahead” and the past “behind.”
As James Geary says in I Is an Other, virtually the only way to understand something new is in reference to the old. When the theory of plate tectonics was first used to explain continental drift in the 1960s, the earth was compared to rice pudding–hard on the surface but pliable and liquid underneath (pp. 174-75). And electromagnetic fields were compared to two absolutely still corks floating separately in a bowl of water. Push one and the other moves. Not a perfect analogy, but helpful.
Yet not every metaphor works. Greary gives several examples. Here’s a headline from the Tulsa World:
Continue reading “I Is an Other (4): When Metaphors Strike Out”
In the current election cycle, America is once again finding out the power of metaphor. Mitt Romney got some points out of “trickle-down government” in the first presidential debate. Barack Obama failed to counter with one of his own. While the principle famously guiding the Clinton campaign in 1992 was, “It’s the economy, stupid,” perhaps the better piece of wisdom would be, “It’s the Metaphors, Stupid.”
Continue reading “I Is an Other (3): It’s the Metaphors, Stupid!”
Metaphors aren’t just clever comparisons. Metaphors are the way we think.
In I Is an Other James Greary (see previous blog here) demonstrates this by considering Rebecca. When she reads a headline that says, “Belt Tightening Lies Ahead,” or if someone says, “I’ll show you the ropes,” she has no idea what either means. She doesn’t wear a belt, and no one showed her any ropes. Rebecca is an extremely intelligent person who has Asperger’s syndrome. Her brain is virtually incapable of processing metaphors. She only understands what is literal (or metaphors whose meaning she has memorized).
Continue reading “I Is an Other (2): Wired for Metaphor”
Louise, my mother-in-law who died a few years ago at age ninety-one, grew up in southern Illinois with her siblings, including Bertha. The two of them did not get along well, finding various ways to be at odds with each other over the years. Even some time after Bertha died Louise commented to me, “Why, Bertha had a tongue that could sit on the front porch and pick grapes in the back yard!”
Continue reading “I Is an Other (1): Awash in Metaphors”
A friend asked, “How do I know if I’m called to write?” He’d just read my summary of what J. I. Packer had to say to writers. He was responding to Packer’s last point: “Don’t attempt to be a writer unless you have got things to say which must be put on paper and are being called by God to do it. Being a writer is as vocational as being a preacher.”
Continue reading “A Call”
J. I. Packer, best known as author of Knowing God, has some sage counsel for writers. In the following video, we get a bit of classic Packer as he offers some clear, straightforward counsel.
Continue reading “Advice for Writers from Packer”
When I was new to the editing game, just a green, wide-eyed youth, my already grizzled boss, Jim Sire, told me, “When editing something, you can almost always improve it by throwing away the first three paragraphs.” It’s a bit of wisdom I’ve carried with me and applied many times for over thirty-five years.
Continue reading “Wisdom from a Grizzled Editor”
Our good friend and beloved IVP author, Calvin Miller, died on August 19. The Singer, published in 1975, became his best-known work. Here, in its entirety, is the preface he wrote to the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, in which he tells the story of the genesis of what Philip Yancey called “a groundbreaking book.”
savior made his appearance in New York. Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell opened on Broadway. Before long these musicals had entered common culture all across America. The tunes were memorable, and here and there the lyrics touched the New Testament account of Christ. Still, to me the Broadway Jesus seemed a pale imitation of the New Testament Christ. Someone, I thought, ought to write a creative account of the Christ of St. Matthew that St. Matthew would recognize. It was then that the chilling notion occurred to me: perhaps I was the one to do it.
Continue reading “How “The Singer” Was Born”
Calvin Miller, best known as author of The Singer from IVP, died August 19. He was a prolific writer, having authored dozens of books, for many of which I worked with him as editor. IVP was proud to have put Calvin on the map of the publishing world with his surprisingly successful “mythic retelling” of the gospel story, a book that went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
Continue reading “Remembering Calvin Miller”