Janis Einfelds Sep 18 '06    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music The Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1 by The Prodigy From $11 Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 The Bottom Line This is an essay I am currently writing, please read and post any comments you have on it, i appreciate all feedback Janis Einfelds If you enjoy writing full of metaphors Janis Einfelds is an author you would enjoy. In every story he writes Janis Einfelds uses unique, original and interesting metaphors to bring several meanings to a single sentence or whole story. Janis Einfelds writing is also full of personification. Whether it be fate as a man who comes to your window or a teddy bear in a child’s room. The first story that I read by this author that caught my attention was, “Etude With a Bullet”, has a metaphor right in it’s title because etude is defined as a piece of music played for the practice of some technique. The story tells of a man fighting in Afghanistan for his God. The story begins almost instantly with a metaphor comparing the young man’s weapon to a fiddle and proceeding to speak of the firefight in which the man is killed to him playing a song. “The fiddler played and received a bullet in his chest”. (Etude 1) The story continues mentioning about how other men cursed him and his playing. The story carries on with Janis writing about how the insects “attend” to the dead man as though they were taking care of him like a mortician might. The metaphors continue with the flash of a mortar being compared to lightning, “..nearby a mortar roars and flashes it’s lightning.” (Etude 1) Another story by Janis Einfelds full of metaphors is the short story entitled “The Wonderful Bird”. The story is about a child in elementary school who is picked on because of his strange looks. The children at school nickname him The Pterodactyl and it is from this nickname that Janis Einfelds brings the stories metaphors. The children make fun of him for the way he “flutters” around the playground. Time passes and the children all grow older and the pterodactyl is able to “fly away” while the others are covered by the grey snow of the Ice Age. (Bird 2) The entire story this time is a metaphor. The pterodactyl being able to fly was very different from normal dinosaurs. The strange looking young boy is compared to a pterodactyl and in the beginning this is seen as a bad thing. The other children are compared to other “normal” dinosaurs. In the end however the world changes and the pterodactyl with his metaphorical ability to fly is able to survive while the other dinosaurs are wiped out by the changing world A.K.A. the coming ice age. So through the use of metaphors Janis tells several stories, one of dinosaurs who die out and another of how being different is not always a bad thing to be. Janis Einfelds doesn’t work his writing magic with just metaphors however. He is almost a master of personification. The best example of his use of personification is in his short story “Fate”. In this story a young man is told about Fate by his grandma and warned not to let Fate carry him piggy back. The story then tells of how Fate would come to the young boy’s window in ragged clothing and scare him. As he grew older though the boy became less afraid of fate and began to follow him around allowing Fate to lead him off on errant adventures. In the end Fate gets the young man killed. His personification of Fate allows you to imagine that the young man is out with an actual person and allows himself to be led by fate rather than leading his own life and in the end this gets the man killed. How many stories have you read where the author makes the idea of fate into a real person? This is a prime example of how masterful a writer Mr. Einfelds is with personification. Etude with a bullet also contains personification. Janis writes of a teddy bear that fights with toy weapons and sweet pea bullets. He personifies the teddy bear and metaphoricly describes the war being fought as a food fight all within the same story. His excellent use of metaphors and personification are the prime reasons you should read the stories by Janis Einfelds.

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