Point of View

The novel is written in the past tense and the first person, and it has a single narrator. However, the novel actually has a complicated perspectival structure. Specifically, although there is only one narrator, the narrator frequently recounts other people’s memories in addition to his own. Thus, he not only has firsthand accounts of his own experiences, but he also relays secondhand accounts of experiences that were told to him by other people. In this way, the novel not only explores individual perspectives, but it also explores the process of trying to understand and synthesize the collective experiences of a community or society. The narrator appears to be interested in other people’s personal lives because he views the collection of memory as vital to understanding people as a whole.

By extension of these ideas, the novel and the narrator demonstrate an interest in...