Sara

Although each of the book’s five parts has its own central character (including Part 5, with its focus on Sara), and although each of those central characters appears in the other four narratives, one of the characters plays a more significant, more defining role in the overall narrative – Sara.

There are three main reasons for making this claim. First, there is a sense, throughout the book, that Sara’s presence is of significant importance in the lives and narratives of the other four characters. She is an important motivator and/or contributor to change in the lives of two of the other characters (Fia and Ivik); she is a primary obstacle in the life and experience of a third (Arnaq); and her influence is a primary motivator of the self-destructive anger of the last (Inuk). Secondly, she is a touchstone against which thematically-related developments in the other characters...