Imagination

Through both the first person narrator and Soot's reliance upon their imaginations, the author explores imagination as a means of escape and survival. After both main characters suffer profound trauma during their childhoods, they drift into their imaginary worlds in order to free themselves from the pain of their loss. However, at the start of the novel, neither character understands the connection between their imaginary world and their reality. In the early pages of the narrative, the first person narrator says, "Basically I'm a daydreamer. But my daydreams tend to persist longer and more intensely than most people's do . . . The end result of it is that reality is a very fluid thing in my world. It's probably the reason I got into . . . writing" (19). At this juncture of the story, the narrator has yet to truly confront the inspiration for his overactive imagination. He sees it as...