There is another angle to analogies that I did not get into in this post. Sometimes, analogies run the risk of becoming dated.
Know anyone who is as strong as an ox? I do - in fact, reader, I'm as strong as an ox (editor's note: this is factually incorrect). But I've never seen an ox (editor's note: this is factually correct).
Luckily, I'm still able to understand the idea. It is possible, though, that someday - perhaps when global warming wipes out the ox species through a series of destructive events on their natural habitat - this analogy will make no sense to anybody (1).
I'm not sure the pizza delivery analogy from Sam Quinones's Dreamland will suffer the same fate. Pizza delivery is pretty fast now and should get faster in the future. (Skeptical, reader? Just wait until Amazon buys Domino's Pizza...)
But I concede that a lot has changed since I was a kid. Even a decade ago, if I wanted to watch a TV show I could not catch live, setting my VCR was a completely reasonable option. In a few years, I bet a VCR will be something you pay $30 to see in the science museum.
So, with the way technology is disrupting so many aspects of daily life, it could be the case that someday in the future no one will remember what a pizza delivery looked like. And this, in turn, will make an otherwise outstanding and important book just a litter harder to comprehend.
Footnotes / other analogies
1. This post is as boring as hell...
The life expectancy of the 'strong as an ox' analogy is undoubtedly extended due to the helpful construction of the expression - to say someone is 'as strong as' implies that the person in question is, if anything, strong.
