Point of View

Since David Rakoff has chosen to write the Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish in rhymed verse, the point of view is third person omniscient. Using a narrator works well because there are several components that could not be revealed otherwise. Only third person omniscient would allow the reader to follow and understand the activities of all of the characters, as well as their interwoven lives over a seventy-year time-span.

Language and Meaning

Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel is written in rhymed verses. As such, the phrasing and sentence structure are not the usual prose. While the vocabulary is not complex, the syntax takes awhile to synthesize.

Another challenge is that the stories span almost seventy years. Rakoff does not give an exact time period for many of the stories; but, he offers clues to the reader that might help to pinpoint...