Point of View

The novel is written in the first person from the perspective of Harry August. The most significant element of the use of Point of View in the novel is that the narrative is being written by Harry as he is dying from radiation poisoning at the end of his fifteenth life and the story is being addressed to Vincent as a way of informing him that he has lost and that Harry will ensure that he is never born again after the end of this life. This use of Point of View adds drama and emotional resonance to the final chapter in which Harry pours out his feelings to Vincent, but raises numerous questions about the logic of the narrative which preceded this revelation. What, for example, is the reader to make of the revelation in Chapter 45 that the scientist Vitali Karpenko and Vincent Rankis...