Metaphors We Live By
Ratings12
Average rating3.7
As a philosophy nerd, language-lover, and literary geek, this book converges in all the right places for me. The authors explore how metaphors are not merely literary constructs, but rather entire conceptual frameworks that govern our understanding of the world. Example: good is up, bad is down: “I'm feeling down today,” “my spirits are up” etc – these kinds of phrases are so rote, we fail to recognize they are metaphorical, and that the up/down spatial metaphor applies to so much more. I would extrapolate, but then why would you read the book? (She says, realizing most people will not want to read this book).
If you do read it, I would only recommend the first 15 or so chapters; after that, the argument is reiterative and less compelling.
The book is structured as really a series of essays, which leads to a lot of repetition; I think it could be edited down to ¼ of its size. Still, worth the read!
Did not finish.
Why did I pick it?
This book is about metaphors we (subconsciously) use in our language. I find it a very intriguing topic and after I had it recommended multiple times decided to pick it up from the local library.
The book
As I said it's about metaphors that we use in our everyday language. One interesting example is how we use the metaphor of war for arguing: he won the argument, that argument is weak, etc.
Breaking from this specific example means an argument can become a moment to learn from one another, and collectively seek the truth, rather than win a possibly invalid argument.
The book is structured in quite a few short chapters. Maybe on average 6-10 pages. These are structured around a statement the authors want to explain. It's a very structured way of bringing their idea across and easy to skip some info or dive into a certain topic.
My recommendation
As much as I was interested in the topic, I did not really like the book and decided not to finish it. It has a really informational/scientific way of bringing the information, while I had expected (/hoped) for a more entertaining read.
For me each chapter is a small essay/paper on a certain hypothesis that the writers want to argue for. It goes really deep into the matter and the nitty-gritty of language construction.
I would therefore recommend the book for people who use language in their profession to get a deeper/broader understanding of how to construct complex structures.
For the casual reader I would skip to something else...