Permanently Deleted
The phrase “My imagination doesn’t activate while reading” is gonna haunt me till the end of days.
There’s a whole bunch of other reasons a writer might use some kind of metaphorical language in describing something aside from just helping the reader visualize the thing.
Your own example in the op specifically brings to mind an old house that isn’t just past its prime but now probably ought to be knocked down or completely rebuilt from the foundation up. It also makes the reader consider either the elderly through their utility or objects as if they had some ideal essence or soul. Depending on the surrounding writing, one of these may serve to reenforce the tone of the work. Combining the imagery of the elderly and winter has a buttressing effect where the reader thinks now of the personified season, old man winter, as well. Finally, using winter and the elderly when describing an object conjures the cycle of death and rebirth.
So you ended up doing so much more than describing an old house. And when writers use a bunch of crazy descriptions and metaphor that’s what they’re trying to do too. There are lots of bad writers who do it laboriously or with awful prose, but there’s more to it than just making sure you have the right image of a dilapidated house in your head.
It’s just a storytelling tool. Whether or not it’s good is a function of how the author uses it. Evocative imagery is good for conveying mood or action or demeanor.
OP’s not complaining about too much detail. They specifically complained about overuse of metaphor and simile shutting down their imagination, which I kinda get.
In their example, the second half of the sentence is kinda visually confusing. It’s ambiguous if you’re supposed to see a house, or an old guy, or an old guy’s memories, or a blizzard.
Contrast it with @femicrat’s Tolkein quote, which is mostly concrete details stated with simple language, despite the poetic feeling you get from it. There’s only one simile, “Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight,” and it’s pretty unambiguous and easy to imagine. You know you’re supposed to see stones in the ground and not someone’s actual mouth and teeth.
you know to imagine stones in the ground and not someone’s actual mouth and teeth.
Tolkien was an Englishman
No wonder he chose that simile
No I like it
This take is giving major STEM-lord energy
