Word: metaphoritis
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Domini's main strengths lie in violent, unconventional metaphor and involved plotting--so involved, in fact, that bristling complexities, few of which are ever resolved, end by frustrating or intimidating the reader. A favorite theme seems to be the middle-aged protagonist grappling with the leftover complications of long-ago some adventure that ripped the fabric of a conventional life: a successful businessman, whom the CIA drugged with LSD 20 years ago as a random experiment, throws himself into the public eye by suing the government for his life's subsequent turmoil; a Vietnam veteran, past 30, goes to Florida...
...William Buckley, who lapses into a worldly archness when someone on his side gets into trouble. "What is truly astonishing," Buckley wrote, "is that there should be such an astonishment" about Stockman's words; he had been guilty, at worst, only of using "here and there an unfortunate metaphor...
...ADDITION to his considerable talents as a budget-cutter, David Stockman seems to have a gift for metaphor as well. By calling Ronald Reagan's supply-side economics program a "Trojan Horse" for the age-old trickle-down theory, he neatly captured its essential dishonesty and unworkability. But since Stockman also happened to be one of the chief purveyors of that program, the metaphor, however elegant, was bound to land him in a heap of trouble. Trouble came last week, in the form of a firm scolding by the president: the 34-year-old director of OMB barely escaped with...
...have been better to drop the horse and concentrate solely on mythology? At Michigan State University, Mr. Stockman switched majors from agriculture to history, and is no farm boy when it comes to the humanities. But the humanities can let you down too. He might have used the metaphor of Odysseus concealing himself under the rams in order to deceive the Cyclops, for example, but the purpose of that deception was escape, not gain. He might also have used the metaphor of Leda and the swan, Zeus taking the form of a swan in order to seduce Leda. In this...
...turns his figure of speech against himself, contending that it is he who has assumed the role of the "wooden beast without a brain." But the image is inappropriate again. Mr. Stockman is far from brainless, and hardly a beast. He has simply risked his kingdom for a metaphor...