How does Louis de Bernieres use imagery in Corelli's Mandolin?

Examples of Imagery:

"St Gerasimos, withered and blackened, sealed inside his domed and gilded sarcophagus by the reredos of his own monastery, dead for five centuries, rose up at night." Chapter 12, p. 70

"How like a woman is a mandolin, how gracious and how lovely. in the evening when the dogs howl and the crickets chirr, and the huge moon hoists above the hills, and in Argostoli the searchlights search for false alarms, I take my sweet Antonia." Chapter 42, p. 248