The Old Man Who Read Love Stories

“The sky was a donkey’s swollen paunch, hanging threateningly low overhead.”

The author uses metaphor throughout the novel, including here, the first line of the book. By using the image of the donkey—an important work animal before the industrial revolution—he builds up anticipation for the rainy season. The image is visceral, with the “swollen paunch” a visual clue to the novel’s tone, as the impending rain suggests destruction, darkness, and change.

“Every Monday—he was obsessed with Mondays—they watched him raise the flag on a pole on the quay, until a storm swept the tattered cloth into the jungle, and with it the Monday ritual that nobody could care less about.”

The image of the flag being ripped to shreds by the storm (i.e., the unstoppable force of the jungle), like so much garbage, symbolizes the jungle’s strength over human notions of ownership. In the end, the jungle always wins. The image also demonstrates that the only person who cares about such rituals is the mayor, a puppet of the government.

“A grief-crazed Ocelot is more dangerous than twenty murderers put together.”

This quote asserts the ocelot’s lethal strength, but it also speaks to grief’s power to cause suffering and even death.