A body
What do our bodies tell about us? Quite a lot! Let’s have a look at the one of the protagonists, Lenny. He is “a slight man with a gray, sunken battleship of a face.” The man has “curious wet eyes, a giant gleaming forehead on which a dozen cavemen could have painted something nice.” His “sickle of a nose” was “perched atop a tiny puckered mouth,” and from the back there was “a growing bald spot whose shape perfectly replicated the great state of Ohio.” His body “at chronological age of thirty-nine” racked with “too much LDL cholesterol, too much ATCH hormone, too much of everything” that doomed “the heart”. This imagery evokes a feeling of pity, for it is clear that Lenny is growing old and it causes him a lot of discomfort.
The lounge
“The Eternity Lounge” was crammed full of “young people checking” their devices or “leaning back on couches with their faces up to the ceiling, de-stressing, breathing right.” There was “even, nutty aroma of brewing green tea.” That place used to be “the synagogue’s banqueting hall.” It had taken them “three years” to get “the brisket smell” out. There was hardly a place «to squeeze in.” This imagery evokes a strange feeling of uneasiness, for it demonstrates how much and how quickly the world changes.
Gross but kind
Eunice Park had met a man of her dreams but couldn’t stop thinking about Lenny. She knew that he was “gross physically,” but there was “something sweet about him.” She felt “safe with him”, for he was not her “ideal”. She wanted to help him “to be less of a dork” and be cared for in return. Lenny was “so earnest in the way he needed to tell” her things that it was not difficult to believe that he was genuinely in love with you. This imagery evokes a rather sad feeling, for it describes a burden of unrequited love.
