Point of View

This novel delves into the forgotten nooks of a person's brain; it crawls into spaces long forgotten by the narrator, who tells his life story through a first-person limited point of view. The entire novel is told from the perspective of the unnamed narrator, who provides every piece of personal information one would think is possible, except for his name. He is a cynical, antisocial yet lonely man who seeks the comfort of feeling loved and accepted, and he stumbles around Sofia desperately trying to learn how to love himself.

Language and Meaning

This novel features long, lingering sentences filled with dazzling descriptions and vivid imagery. Even the sentence structure is lingering, filled with clauses, commas, and semicolons. For example, the narrator observes Mitko as he leaves his apartment, stating that, “He had always been alone, I thought, gazing at a world in which he...