Point of View

The novel is written from the unique perspective of a nonhuman spherical object made of plastic. Throughout the narrative, this object is referred to as either “the ball” or “Kazumasa’s ball.” To the ball, all human behaviors and activities throughout this novel seem slightly strange. By writing from a nonhuman perspective, the author encourages the reader to think about the oddities and absurdities of their own behaviors and activities. At the same time, because everything is strange to Kazumasa’s ball, in another sense nothing is strange at all. For example, Kazumasa’s ball does not seem to find J.B.’s three arms or Michelle Mabelle’s three breasts particularly strange. In fact, the ball seems to accept these details as matters of fact. Therefore, the ball becomes a literary device that the author uses to encourage the reader to accept and absorb...