Point of View

The novel is related technically from the first-person, limited, point of view but narrative projection is constant—that is, the interior thoughts of other characters are not known, per se, but are certainly presented as if factual. In addition, the novel makes frequent digressions into the third-person point of view where the direct and principle object of the third-person analysis is the first-person narrator. For example, consider the novel's concluding paragraph's statement "He phoned her. It's me. She recognized him at once from the voice" (p. 116). This first-person/third-person merge is interesting and emotionally powerful but it does lead, from time to time, in a certain crafted ambiguity of exactly which character is being considered. It allows the narrator to be simultaneously the direct object and indirect object of many scenes.

The narrator is present in virtually every scene of the novel and is the...