Point of View

The story is told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. The stories have been collected and structured in such a way as to form a coherent whole but who exactly wrote down the tales is unknown. Each story is told as if the author is speaking to a room full of men in the same manner as Arkad did at the Temple of Learning.

The only departures from this point of view come in chapters nine and eleven. In chapter nine a set of letters from one professor to another relates the story of Dabasir's rise from poverty to wealth. In this instance the professor's letter draws the reader out of the past and into the present. The professor has translated tablets inscribed by Dabasir and used Dabasir's experiences to alter his own financial situation for the better. The professor writes to his...