"It was as if I were looking into an enormous grotto, at the bottom of which lay a pool filled with red liquid. Sometimes water came splashing in from the right, as if from a huge hose. I had never seen anything like it, for the walls of this grotto were so obviously alive, made of living tissue."
— Knausgaard, Karl Ove (b. 1968)
Date
December 30, 2015
Metaphor
"It was as if I were looking into an enormous grotto, at the bottom of which lay a pool filled with red liquid. Sometimes water came splashing in from the right, as if from a huge hose. I had never seen anything like it, for the walls of this grotto were so obviously alive, made of living tissue."
Metaphor in Context
He stepped back, and I bent over the microscope again. The view this time was quite different. It was as if I were looking into an enormous grotto, at the bottom of which lay a pool filled with red liquid. Sometimes water came splashing in from the right, as if from a huge hose. I had never seen anything like it, for the walls of this grotto were so obviously alive, made of living tissue. Along the edges of the pool, above the red surface, the walls were ragged. Behind the innermost wall, seeming to swell out slightly, like a balloon about to burst, I glimpsed something purple.
(p. 40)
(p. 40)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Reading print edition, text from online. See Karl Ove Knausgaard, "The Terrible Beauty of Brain Surgery," New York Times Magazine (January 3, 2016). <Link to NYTimes.com>
Date of Entry
01/05/2016
