Point of View

The novel’s narration is written in the third person and the past tense. Robert appears to technically be the novel’s sole point-of-view character, because even when the narration slips into recounting Patrick’s experiences, these recounting are actually Robert’s slightly fictionalized written accounts of events. In other words, after Robert listens to Patrick’s personal anecdotes—which Robert personally does not believe are true—Robert writes down those experiences on his own, altering details as he sees fit in order to artistically shape the narrative according to his own creative whims. These layers of perspective allow the book to explore ways in which conscious and unconscious narrativization affect people’s views of external information.

Additionally, if the reader simply focuses on Robert’s own individual perspective, the novel uses dynamics and changes within that perspective to explore how one’s internal life...