There is the perspective of both the child and the old man looking back at his life as a child. Although there is a lot of tangible detail and recognisable characters the book has a mythic quality. The events in a small community in the windswept Atlantic ocean being recorded by the writer in his room, his tower at the edge of the world, have a larger than life feel. Torshavn and his childhood are used to tell the history of the world and of creation.