Point of View

The primary narrator is the grandson of Urbain Martien, who discovers his grandfather's memoirs and undertakes a journey to better understand the man. He talks in the present, reflecting on his childhood and providing background information on Urbain, and what he remembers about him as a grandfather figure early in his life. On occasion, there is more direct interaction with Urbain's story, where a younger Urbain becomes the primary character, his events being narrated through a third-person point of view, which allows for a broader understanding of the social and political conditions of the time. This provides immediacy to the events that the narrator has read in Urbain's memoir, which he only uses briefly as a primary tool of narrative voice, inserting directly a portion of the memoir.

In the second part of the novel, however, Urbain becomes the primary narrator, telling his own story...