"The sound of rain filled the room—rain fell on the streets, on the roofs, on the tin shed across the parking lot like the distant detonations of firecrackers. Everything smelled of wet leaves." (p.4)
Le often uses weather imagery to give life to his settings and underscore the tone of his stories. This quote is an example of Le using weather imagery to set the tone at the beginning of "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice." Le blends figurative language (comparing the sound of the rain to distant firecrackers) with sensory details (the list of things the rain makes noise on, the smell of wet leaves) to put the reader in the main character's shoes as he wakes up.
"We pass buildings made of brick, of cement blocks, of wood and plastic. Faces of people merge back into the material of their houses. Street kids scavenge for food by the roadside, some of them inhaling the pale yellow sacol from supermarket bags..." (p.32)
The story "Cartagena" is full of vivid descriptions of life in the slums of Colombia, such as this imagery that describes the tigurio. "Cartagena" is the second story in The Boat, following "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," which was a semi-autobiographical account of Le's experience at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Because "Cartagena" is the first story in the collection that has a fictional plot in a country where Le has never spent considerable time, Le makes sure to provide ample details to create the setting. This shows Le's prowess at creating realism in settings and lifestyles that he has not experienced himself.
"Someone lifts my right buttock, then from the locus of my rosebud the cold-hot pain flares again through the grid of my body. I can't breathe." (p.72)
Le is quite graphic at times with his descriptions of characters' physical experiences. This quote is from the story "Meeting Elise" when Henry is given a colonoscopy by a doctor. It is clear from Le's vivid and descriptive language that Henry is experiencing intense pain. Le pays particular attention to how the pain travels and manifests in different parts of the body, traveling from Henry's colon throughout his body and causing him to have trouble breathing. Similar graphic physical descriptions appear in the story "The Boat" as well as "Halflead Bay." These descriptions allow readers to empathize with the characters' experiences and create vivid images that the reader will likely remember after finishing the story.
"As they climbed, the sun absorbed itself into her body: calves, hamstrings, the belt of skin above her skirt, the backs of her golden arms." (p.112)
Rather than merely telling the reader about Jamie's sexual attraction Alison, Le artfully uses imagery to show Jamie's heightened focus on her body. The reader can vividly imagine Jaime scanning his eyes over Alison's body as she walks ahead of him, starting at her legs and traveling upwards. In this quote, Le also provides imagery about the setting by describing how the sun interacts with Alison's body. This adds to the reader's perception that focusing on the setting of the story is very important to understanding Jamie's complex feelings.
