Point of View

The novel is told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator who guides the reader through a night in Tokyo. The narrator never refers to himself as “I.” He refers to himself, and us, the reader, always together as a consistent “we” throughout the novel. This, combined with the present tense of the novel, puts the reader right in the midst of the story. But the narrator makes sure that we know our role: “Our point of view, as an imaginary camera, picks up and lingers over things like this in the room. We are invisible, anonymous intruders. We look. We listen. We note odors. But we are not physically present in the place, and we leave behind no traces. We follow the same rules, so to speak, as orthodox time travelers. We observe but we do not intervene" (33). Of course, rules are...