Blog assignment - post paragraph from story and critique it the way you want to be critiqued

Paragraph from short story, Reasons For and the Advantages of Breathing, p. 362:

Anticipation

When I knock, the herpetologist flings open his door and beams at me, ushering me in. [1]The tiny room is tropically warm, one wall lined with aquariums that glow with ultraviolet light. This is my office, he says proudly, and these are my anoles[2]. He is wearing battered khakis and sandals with socks, as if he has just come in from a jungle expedition.[3] The anoles[4] give the room a frantic energy. They puff and posture, do push-ups, circle one another warily. Their bodies are sharp and lizard-like, the dulled green and brown of sea glass, and fans of bright colored skin hang from their chins: red, purple, blue. Do you want to hold one? the herpetologist asks excitedly. When I step closer, their faces seem wise and irascible, and as they swivel their eyes I get the sense that they are judging me. But the herpetologist has already pulled the mesh cover off one of the tanks and is watching me expectantly. I reach in and make a half-hearted show of trying to catch one, my hand sending streaks of panic through the tank[5]. I look at him and shrug. Like this, he says, and I see his hand slip in like a stealthy animal. Suddenly an anole is clasped in his fingers, its head between his thumb and forefinger, tongue flickering, as startling as a bright scarf in a magic trick. I gasp and find I’ve been holding my breath. You’ve got to anticipate, he says, grinning.

Notes: This paragraph works so well because the style supports the scene Adjectives are actually pretty sparse; the verbs and adverbs move the action – like they’re supposed to, but still, this is a good example of how that happens. The anoles eyes swivel. “They puff and posture, do push-ups, circle one another warily. “

The herpetologist’s final comment gets a lot of weight at the end of the scene. It seems like it means more than just catching a lizard… the narrator didn’t anticipate getting dumped, the advice seems late…her husband left as fast as an anole.

Appreciate the way writer sets up the scene and lets readers give it any kind of meaning they can draw from it.

I could not think of any way this could be better, so figured best to think about why it works, and say so.

Was the writer alluding to Lolita? See footnote 2. I suspected the herp was a perp, and now wonder if I supplied that because of Lolita, or if writer deliberately imitated the structure of the quote, just to toy with readers, give suspense.

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[1] Verbs move reader into the scene: knock, flings, beams, ushering.

[2] “That was my Lo,” she said, “and these are my lilies.” Lolita, Nabokov, Chapter 1, section ten

[3] Clothes reflect occupation, room temperature. “jungle expedition” – humorous – professor lives in his own world.

[4] Anoles – I like the gift of a new word. Looked it up, saw pictures. Great – a herpetologist would call lizards by their science names. Economy. One word reinforces character, makes him credible.

[5] Great picture created with verb: “streaks of panic”. Easy to see.