"Gradually it had become the place where we sounded like each other, through some erosion of wind or water on a self not nearly as firm as stone."

— Lockwood, Patricia


Date
February 21, 2019
Metaphor
"Gradually it had become the place where we sounded like each other, through some erosion of wind or water on a self not nearly as firm as stone."
Metaphor in Context
The mind we were in was obsessive, perseverant. It swam with superstition and half-remembered facts, pertaining to how many spiders we ate a year and the rate at which dentists killed themselves. One hemisphere had never been to college, the other hemisphere had attended one of those institutions that is only ever referred to as a bubble, though not beautiful. At times it disintegrated into lists of diseases. But worth remembering: the mind had been, in its childhood, a place of play.

It had also once been the place where you sounded like yourself. Gradually it had become the place where we sounded like each other, through some erosion of wind or water on a self not nearly as firm as stone.
(p. 12)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Patrica Lockwood, "The Communal Mind," London Review of Books 41:4 (February 21, 2019): 11-14. <Link to www.lrb.co.uk>
Date of Entry
02/22/2019

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.