The death of everything living – plants, trees, creatures and most other human beings – is evoked through the bleakness and ‘deadness’ of the language.
"The road was empty. Below in the little valley the still gray serpentine of a river. Motionless and precise. Along the shore a burden of dead reeds. Are you okay?"
"Sketched upon the pall of soot downstream the outline of a burnt city like a black paper scrim."
There is a powerfully poetic effect in the simplicity of the language. By avoiding rhetorical flourishes and elaborate language the writer makes a stronger impact.
"Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast."
"Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again."
Avoiding emotional language and keeping it simple makes the narrative all the more emotionally engaging.
"She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift."
"When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again."
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