Point of View

The point of view of this novel is third person omniscient. The author uses Gogol and Ashima as narrative characters most often. However, the novel is written heavily in exposition, or descriptive passages, which allows the author's own voice to come through almost as often as those of her characters. The author uses this technique in order to cover a great deal of time in a short number of pages. This technique also allows her to tell her story tightly and with great control without the added richness of dialogue and a multitude of dramatic scenes.

The point of view works well because the author is careful to denote changes in narrator with chapter breaks or paragraph breaks. The author is also cautious when allowing her own voice to shine through, rarely making outright statements. This keeps down the confusion that can happen with such a...