The novel’s impressionistic form and narrative style evoke the way memory preserves some things and disposes of others, or the way an incorrect memory can feel very real. Since the narrator a very young child, the story is disjointed, skipping in time and missing pieces; the characters bear Lenny’s childish nicknames rather than their own names; and dates and ages are sparse. There are bits of historical context that Lenny remembers hearing, but many things remain unexplained, like the cause of Mother’s fight with Father, Oldhusband’s reference to stabbing eyes, and the circumstances of Masseur’s death.

Still, while Lenny’s imperfect memory can be frustrating at times, the novel implies that her version of the story may be more psychologically honest than ideologically biased historical accounts, especially when they describe contentious events like the partitioning of India. The violence comes from all sides, and all parties see their side’s actions as righteous responses to the other side’s atrocities. For instance, after Ice-candy-man sees the train full of murdered Muslims, he begins leading the violent mobs seeking retribution. His version of events would begin with this train vision—and would conveniently leave out his raping and terrorizing zookeeper’s family, for example.