“In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.”

The book's opening lines indicate that the tale that follows will be a kind of origin story, the genesis of a nation. The words echo biblical scripture—“In the beginning”—and serve to personify the river and the road. These objects are both linked in their significance—they could be considered characters in their own right—and juxtaposed by what they actually are. The river is an occurrence of nature, while the road is a construct of humankind.

“Apart from a mark on my palm I had managed to avoid being discovered. It may simply have been that I had grown tired of coming and going. It is terrible to forever remain in-between.”

Azaro reveals his identity as a spirit-child, someone with a foot in two worlds, the material world and the spirit realm. It, too, resonates with Christian ideology: Azaro is marked by a stigmata on his palm; it is a mark both of his difference and, possibly, of his divinity—or, at least, of his potentially divine powers. As a liminal figure, Azaro has access to knowledge from both worlds; he can see and understand more than the other characters.

“The clearing was the beginning of an expressway. Building companies had levelled the trees. In places the earth was red. We passed a tree that had been felled. Red liquid dripped from its stump as if the tree had been a murdered giant whose blood wouldn’t stop flowing.”

One of several instances wherein nature is personified, the tree here is bleeding as if it had been murdered in the service of the building of the road. This exemplifies the tension explored throughout the novel between the natural world and human-driven development. The notion of whether or not this is “progress”—paving roads, bringing electricity—is called into question.