Point of View

The novel is told in a close third-person perspective that stays tightly tethered to Cyril Bagger’s perceptions, so the reader experiences the war first as a set of sensations, calculations, and evasions rather than as an objective history. The opening line frames survival through Bagger’s own self-myth, insisting that “and Cyril Bagger considers himself lucky” even as shells and bodies define the landscape (1). That proximity makes tone inseparable from character: Bagger’s reflex to treat catastrophe like odds shapes how the reader interprets danger, courage, and guilt, because the narration often tracks what he notices first, what he refuses to notice, and what he tries to talk himself out of feeling.

This point of view also turns other figures into tests of Bagger’s moral vision. Major General Reis is introduced through Bagger’s wary attention to power and humiliation, and Reis’s...