Point of View

The novel is told in past tense, third person, with an omniscient narrator. However, the omniscient narrator in this instance is not a neutral or objective figure, as can often be the case with the use of this technique. Instead, the omniscient narrator is undeniably the voice of the author himself: Álvaro Enrigue. On the one hand, the novel conforms to the convention of the third person omniscient narrator by relating events in a way that make it clear that the narrative voice knows everything that has happened and will happen to these characters, whereas the characters themselves do not. This is shown early on in the novel through reference to what will become of the Duke of Osuna in his later years: “In time the duke, the poet’s linesman, would become the Spanish statesman his title gave him right to be, but by...