Point of View

This novel is written using a third-person omniscient narrator, with the narrative perspective frequently and fluidly shifting between the interior lives of the human characters, and also the interior lives of the goat characters. There are in fact many examples throughout the novel of the goat characters having more vivid and detailed interior lives than some of the human characters. For example, when the old woman goes to wait in the line in order to register Poonachi and the two other kids, the many other people in line are effectively not described or detailed whatsoever. Here is how the narration describes the huge line of people “As time went by, the queue grew longer and longer. The office compound was in a state of permanent uproar with the bleating of goats and the endless chatter of those waiting. There was a hullaballoo when some people...