Point of View

The novel is narrated in past tense from the point-of-view of a Japanese man in his mid-20s who goes unnamed except for a single instance in which he is referred to as “K” by his friend Sumire. Though K is the first-person narrator, the plot revolves primarily around Sumire, with whom K is in love. First, he is preoccupied with the circumstances of the love triangle—the fact that he is in love with Sumire and Sumire is in love with Miu. Then, when Sumire goes missing from the Greek island in Chapter 7, the focus shifts to K and Miu's search for her.

What the reader learns of K and his life and past is revealed gradually, and chiefly to explain why his friendship with Sumire is so significant to him. K provides very little information about his own background and circumstances until Chapter...