Point of View

The novel is written from an unnamed narrator's first person point of view. The narrator is a writer, a teacher, and a translator. During her relationship with the young lover, she is in her mid-thirties. At various other points in the novel, she is in her late thirties, and early forties. Over the course of the novel, the narrator's voice and tone act as the driving source of narrative tension and propulsion. Indeed, the substance of the novel is located inside the narrator's mind and body, as she struggles to translate her experience with the lover into fiction. However, though the narrator is the main character of the novel, and although she rarely includes the dialogue or language of others, the narrator resists describing her own appearance or character. Therefore, the reader must rely upon the way the narrator renders the world around her, and...