Point of View

The novel is told in a first person perspective or point-of-view. Olga describes external events, frequently confessing her inner thoughts and imaginings. While she does this, however, her style of storytelling lacks passion or emotion, thus suggesting the psychological numbness that she feels at the time of the novel’s telling. The advantage of this lack of warmth is that it allows Olga to reflect upon her own faults and weaknesses, giving a perspective that might be more similar to a third-person limited point-of-view. Sometimes her account even devolves into self-denigration. This critical stance seeps into Olga’s descriptions of the people surrounding her, and her pessimism never shifts into a more positive space, even after she discovers Carrano’s gifts and begins a new relationship with him.

An outgrowth of Olga’s first-person perspective is not only that we get a close account of...