Nick the Dog and "Moloch"

I've mentioned the story before--but you really must read it to place these marvelous passages in context.

from "Moloch"
in The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts
J. M. G. Le Clézio

Nick's hunger is different; it's a hunger that he doesn't recognize anymore, a hunger nothing can satisfy. His hunger is like the loneliness at the mouth of the dry river, where he dusty winds whip around the farmhouses. His hunger is a pain, like the pain of his steady gaze, of his constantly straining ears. It gnaws at his insides and makes a fever. Hunger amplifies everything.

*****

Liana stands there in front of the mobile home without moving and the light envelops her, penetrates her. She is all alone on the dusty earth, far from the trees, the houses, with nothing to lean against, to shelter her. The sun beats down in the center of the sky, throbbing out in painful waves. There are rings swimming before her eyes, and off in the distance there are fleeting silhouettes, shadows, maybe children or dogs or cars; it's hard to tell. There are swarms of invisible insects thickening the air, wasps, june bugs. Light is whirling about her like the wind, the light of silence, loneliness weighing down upon her like the heavy body of a stranger.