哈金新小说中的英语问题，请大家评论

最近在纽约客（New Yorker) 上读到一篇哈金新出版的小说《Free Life》的书评，作者是 John Updike，本人也是大大有名的小说家。
文章中谈到哈金小说中的一些英语方面的问题，看了后不太懂，贴出来请大家讨论：
下面一段是那篇书评的摘录：
Reaching to encompass the American scene, Ha Jin’s English in “A Free Life” shows more small solecisms than in his Chinese novels. We get a character “licking his compressed teeth,” a tennis court “studded with yellow balls,” “a giant disk [the sun] flaming a good part of the eastern sky,” “the lobby was swarmed with people,” a victim of violence “booted half to death,” eyes that “shone with a stiff light like a crazed man’s,” a “hilly gravel road filled with doglegs,” a swimmer “crawl-stroking to the shore.” Complicated facial maneuvers challenge our ability to visualize: “Unconsciously she combed her upper lip with her teeth”; “His eyebrows were tilting as he kept pushing his flat nose with his knuckle”; “His eyes turned rhomboidal and his face nearly purple.” Metaphorical overload can occur: “In his arms, she was like a meatball with love handles.”

solecisms就是语法上的问题。他列出的有
1.licking his compressed teeth
2.a tennis court “studded with yellow balls”
3.a giant disk [the sun] flaming a good part of the eastern sky,
4.the lobby was swarmed with people
5.a victim of violence “booted half to death”
6.eyes that “shone with a stiff light like a crazed man’s,”
7.a “hilly gravel road filled with doglegs,”
8.a swimmer “crawl-stroking to the shore.”

Complicated facial maneuvers challenge our ability to visualize:
9.Unconsciously she combed her upper lip with her teeth
10.His eyebrows were tilting as he kept pushing his flat nose with his knuckle
11.His eyes turned rhomboidal and his face nearly purple.
12.Metaphorical overload can occur: “In his arms, she was like a meatball with love handles.”

后面几个可能是修辞的问题，前八个问题错在哪，亨利真的是没看出来。希望朋友们发表意见。

小说中还有一个细节，很有意思:
...recommendation by my former bawss . . . . My bawss was sacked, so we got laid all together.”
“You got what?” Don asked with a start. A young secretary at another desk tittered and turned her pallid face toward the two men.
Realizing he’d left out the adverb “off,” Nan amended, “Sorry, sorry, they used anozzer company, so we all got laid off.”

注意这里的get laid 与 get laid off的区别，也是一字之差，就差之千里了。get laid 是上床，难怪边上小秘要偷着乐。get laid off才是被下岗（课）的意思。