Vargas Llosa uses a variety of techniques to render as graphically and objectively as possible the surroundings that affect each character's actions.

To achieve a surface portrayal of reality he often resorts to cinematic devices such as an omniscient "camera eye" that registers details and objects in a given setting. The multilayered structure is achieved mainly through montage (another simulated film device), which serves not only to juxtapose time frames but also to contrast the past and present of a character's existence in different settings.

Vargas Llosa also employs a device referred to by critics as the telescoping of dialogues, one which juxtaposes the dialogues of different characters (on the same incident) from different points in time. The dialogues encompass the immediate present, an immediate past and a more remote past.

They telescope distance in time, moving from the present to the past, from the past to the...