"Sixteen Metaphors" by Tony Tulathimutte in One Sentence
How to build an emotional vibe out of nothing but mixed metaphors
Anyone who has had long, meaningful conversations with me has probably noticed that I speak a lot in metaphors. Sometimes very elaborate, very extended, very mixed metaphors that I cling to because I feel they express emotional truths more accurately than any strictly factual language ever could.
I would like to think this is a promising attribute for a fiction writer, because so many excellent literary stories tend to incorporate visual and thematic metaphors in playful ways. Whether or not the authors were thinking about it in exactly this way, a strong metaphor can help nail down a very particular emotional vibe.
For example, Emma Cline’s novel The Guest and Marne Litfin’s story “Daisies” both use visual metaphors of their characters in the ocean in a way that’s self-similar to the emotional tone of the rest of the work.
Cline’s protagonist Alex is pulled farther out to sea than she realized while relaxing in the ocean and must, after her attempts to swim directly back to shore are ineffective, remain calm and swim parallel until she regains the solid sand of a Hamptons beach under her feet. My superstructure sentence for the whole novel is: A destitute, attractive young woman who thrills at violating boundaries (the undercurrent pulling her out to sea) must keep exploiting all the trust the Hamptons afford her (swimming) until, she believes, she can move permanently into this world (reach the shore).
Litfin’s narrator is swept under the surface of the ocean by a wave, and for a time can’t figure out which way is up, panicking because everything is “murky and brown and liquid” and there is “nothing to hold onto.” When they do find the bottom moments later and stand up, their close friend Miller is “a few feet away, already upright, floating like a beacon.” Throughout the story, the narrator is tumbling through murky confusion about their likely-failing romantic relationships and fears about going on T. Miller — who has been on T for a long time and boasts a mustache that wriggles like the underside of a caterpillar, not to mention an enviable marriage to a hot, competent, attentive woman — floats like a beacon of what their life could be the whole time.
In Elif Batuman’s “The Board,” an absurdly inaccessible basement apartment sets the stage for an even more absurdly inaccessible interview with a condo board.
My superstructure sentence for Elizabeth McCracken’s “Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark” is: At a German-themed Texas waterpark, an older gay man must overcome fears and let go of his past to give his young partner and son the thrills they desire most. The epiphany in which Bruno is swept away with love for his partner occurs as he overcomes his literal fear of drowning by taking his son on a literal thrill ride called the Torrent River.
Examples abound. A strong metaphor, cleverly integrated, can do a lot to deepen the emotional effect of a story.
This is why I’m drawn to take a closer look at how metaphors are functioning in a short, experimental story (“is it even a story?” is something we could probably debate) from Tony Tulathimutte’s recent book Rejection. It’s called “Sixteen Metaphors” and I’ll give you one guess as to what its form is.
Sixteen metaphors for what? Rejection of course, the seething and stewy and bitter and incredibly rich emotional terrain the rest of the book also explores from various vantage points. This story, as well as several of the others, centers on romantic rejection.
I found myself wondering if even this story (?) has an identifiable superstructure — whose head we’re in, what they’re doing / want, and why it matters — that binds the sixteen metaphors, and captures how each is a different way of excavating the same emotional vibes.
In a way, the answer has to be “yes” because finding a superstructure is like drawing a line of best fit through a scatterplot. Every story will answer to these variables in some unique and signature way that defines its overall emotional DNA.
So, let’s go through the story metaphor-by-metaphor and unpack this. Assuming there is one, I’ll take my best stab at a superstructure sentence at the end.
How to Build an Emotional Vibe Out of Nothing But Mixed Metaphors
(I’ve added the numbers to each metaphor.)
You catch a fish, and it throws you back.
Tulathimutte begins by twisting a dating metaphor so cliché it needs no set up. Finding someone to love is like catching a fish. If one “gets away,” don’t worry: “there are plenty of fish in the sea.”
The absurdity of this banal metaphor, which is even the name of a dating service, does become apparent the moment one begins to press on it. The fish has a say in whether or not it would like to be caught by you. In actual fishing, it’s pretty much up to the fisher whether to keep or throw back any fish they catch. In dating, in the world of this story, the fish has the power to throw you back.
Whose head are we in? “You,” though in this context “you” are a fictional character in a story world built entirely of metaphors. What is the nature of the journey? You are being rejected, repeatedly. What does the “you” want / what is at stake? Love, to catch a romantic partner.
Roughly speaking, the superstructure behind this metaphor is: Trying to catch a romantic partner, you are rejected.
You throw a ball, she catches. Then walks away and gives it to some other guy, who even you agree would be better at catch.
Okay, okay, we know dating is not one-sided and, for it to work, two people have to want to play ball. It is more of a give and take, a game of catch, if you will.
We know a little more about “you” as well: a guy.
The journey has a little more detail in this one: the romantic partner you desire does want to play ball — she catches it, after all. Just not with you.
The rough superstructure of this one is: Trying to play ball with a prospective romantic partner, you are rejected in favor of a better partner.
You fall, and shout for help. Someone standing right beside you could’ve easily caught you, but they remain resolutely still, and tell you, as you lose consciousness, how terrible they feel about it.
This one deepens the stakes. Love, it seems to be saying, is a sort of basic, primal human need that everyone would want fulfilled in some way or other. Enough to cry out when we do need it. Enough to suffer physically if we don’t get it.
At the same time, no one is obligated to provide it. Most people probably would catch a nearby person falling and shouting for help if they could easily do so, since there’s little opportunity cost in this metaphorical scenario.
But not so in love, where you can be in a comparable state of need and expressing it, and that isn’t necessarily going to prompt someone who knows about it to love you, though they might feel bad about it (their feelings being yet another thing at stake for you, if you don’t want them to feel bad).
The rough superstructure of this one feels to me like: You are denied a primal need, even by someone close enough to understand it and feel bad for not meeting it.
Note the closeness of your close — but not romantic — relationships also being at stake here.
You’re an apple, and nothing’s wrong with you, you think. You look, taste, and cost the same as the others. If something were wrong with you, the FDA would’ve caught it. Nonetheless because of your placement, or for some other reason, or no reason at all, no grocery shopper will touch you, and by the time you’re finally noticed, you’re as rotten as you always knew you were.
In this one, the “you” is passive, completely lacking in agency, but exists to be chosen, touched.
The journey is being skipped over for incomprehensible reasons while peers, presumably, are chosen.
At stake is also limited time. None of us have forever. And the experience of not being chosen for so long can rot one from the inside, this metaphor seems to say.
I would rough out the superstructure of this as: You remain untouched while your peers are chosen, your time runs down, and you become less and less (or perhaps entirely un-) desirable.
I doubt anyone wants to see me spell out the literal interpretation of twelve more metaphors, nor do I want to reproduce the entire text of Tulathimutte’s story. So for the remaining ones, I will just in a single sentence note the biggest things I think each is adding to our understanding of the “you” character, the contours of the romantic rejection journey, and/or the stakes of romantic rejection. Then, I’ll pull together the most overarching or intense of these into my best attempt at an emotional superstructure sentence for this story, and a verdict on the effectiveness of a jumble of mixed metaphors to capture an emotional experience.
If you’re enjoying spending time wallowing in the messy yet deeply human and relatable emotional terrain of rejection, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Rejection because Tulathimutte delivers a lot more where this came from.
How do the remaining metaphors build character, journey, and stakes?
There are plenty of desirable partners out there, but you’re not one of them, you just want one.
You’re bearing the costs of this system while its benefits go entirely to other people.
She makes a move and you respond, but she really wanted someone else, so you cede the territory and let the two other people be happy and leave you behind.
A stranger catches your eye and you imagine it going really well, only to have made them uncomfortable and eager to get away in the process.
You weren’t really looking for love but catch feelings for someone anyway, and they still don’t want you.
Someone’s rock bottom dating partner is awful, but he still got her and you didn’t, so he is still above you.
Your friends who are more successful in this realm bond over it and you’re forgotten because you have nothing to contribute, and you don’t want to make them feel bad about this.
The metaphors begin to mix absurdly, yet any other beings in it will still pair up and leave you behind.
You judge someone else for being especially abject and lonely, but you’re exactly the same.
You try everything you can think of, there are so many good people out there, you want this so much, but what you want matters the least.
You might briefly think you’re succeeding, but there’s always a catch.
This last one is more of a metafictive gesture in which Tulathimutte himself evaluates the appropriateness of mixed metaphors as metaphors for rejection.
The Emotional Superstructure of “Sixteen Metaphors”
Though you have a primal need for love and there are so many potential partners and you try everything and most others succeed, you are never chosen and nobody cares.
(Or, if they do care, they feel bad, but that is all.)
My verdict is that this story demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to hit a strong, unified emotional vibe using nothing but a jumble of mixed metaphors, as long as they are all building out our sense of a central character, their journey, and its stakes.
Rather than being overly formulaic, having this strong current running throughout a text opens up possibilities to tell the story in playful and inventive forms that might capture more emotional truth than sticking strictly to the language of reality ever could.
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