Point of View

The novel is written from the third person point of view. Throughout the novel, this third person narrative vantage vacillates between the universal and the specific. In the early pages of Part One, the narrator assumes an omniscient tone, focusing on metaphysical notions regarding beauty and the divine, art and artistry, love and intimacy. In one passage, the narrator wonders about God’s relationship to the universe he created, saying, “God is most proud of creation as an aesthetic thing. You have only to look at the exquisite harmony of sky and trees and moon and stars to see what a good job God did, aesthetically . . . Perhaps God shouldn’t conceive of creation as an artwork, the next time around; then he will do a better job with the qualities of fairness and intimacy in our living” (6). This passage exemplifies the scope and range of...