The Greenlanders follows the structural pattern of the Scandinavian epic chronicle novel as practiced by writers such as Knut Hamsun or Sigrid Undset.

Covering a half century, TheGreenlanders combines detailed accounts of seasonal activities such as seal and reindeer hunts, crucial religious celebrations, trials at the annual Thing, feuds, courtships, starvation, epidemics, and tale-telling with sketchy accounts that cover several years in a few sentences.

Consequently, as the novel progresses Smiley can use less detail for repetitive events because of the incremental growth of the reader's frame of reference.

Point of view shifts repeatedly from character to character before returning to Gunnar Asgeirsson, with the result that the reader knows more than any of the characters what is transpiring. This means the reader realizes both how one or more characters have experienced an event and how each understands the others' experience.

Diction plays an important role in creating...