Hawkes once remarked "that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting, and theme" and that "totality of vision or structure was really all that remained." Like each of his novels, The Lime Twig reflects this concern with structure and, as though the novel were a canvas, with capturing a haunting impression to evoke a complete vision. While the sequence of events follows a fairly chronological unfolding, the organization of the chapters is less conventional. The first section, what one might expect to be chapter one, receives no chapter designation at all, but functions as a kind of first-person "preface" to the following narrative proper. The second section of the novel, after Hencher's monologue, begins with a numeral one and announces the main narrative which, cast in a third-person point of view, shifts occasionally to the various characters.

Although critics have not come to any agreement...