Point of View

The novel is written in a third person free indirect point of view. This means that throughout the novel, the third person narrator shifts behind the three main characters’ consciousnesses interchangeably. When she is inhabiting Trian’s, Cormac’s, or Artt’s particular lens, the narrator will adopt their mode of seeing and processing, and describe the narrative world accordingly. For example, in the novel’s opening chapter, “Monastery,” when the narrator has a close psychic distance with Trian, she describes a moment from the beginning scene, saying: “Too little air in this stifling hall. Trian feels sick, thinking of how greedily he gulped down his own portion of swan, and still longs for more” (5). The narrator describes the banquet hall as claustrophobic because it feels this way to Trian. The narrator says that Trian ate in a gluttonous manner, because Trian feels guilty for...