Point of View

The point of view is third person, and follows the thoughts and perceptions of almost every character in the book, at one point or another, sometimes going so far as to swtich points of view in the middle of a chapter. This form of narration is usually difficult to follow, but Barker is a skilled writer who embeds subtle but effective cues into the narrative shifts that make them work splendidly for the most part. The narrative does remove itself from all character point of view several times in order to describe larger forces at play, and these are often the most stunning passages in the work, though they do tend to condense large periods of time. This technique works well, as the story is somewhat complicated and depends on the interactions between all kinds of characters and situations, and would have been far more difficult...