How does Teju Cole use imagery in Open City: A Novel?

Imagery:

“Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks.”

"The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float.”