Point of View

The author writes Disappearing Earth from a third person free indirect point of view. This narrative vantage allows her to move closely into the lives and experiences of each her many characters. While each section introduces a new set of characters and circumstances, the narrator acts as a common voice. The third person allows the narrator to also play the role of guide for the reader as she moves through the world of Kamchatka and its inhabitants. While the linguistic patterns vary slightly depending on which woman the narrator is following, the point of view remains equally assured throughout. This steady vantage grants the reader a sense of narrative stability and reliable patterning in a geographic and structural reality defined by the unknown.

If the author had chosen to write the novel from a collection of first person vantage points, she might have been less...