The novel embraces a mythical const

The novel embraces a mythical construction of time by being organized into “times” rather than chapters. Each section of the novel is called “The Time of . . .,” with the times belonging to various places, persons, or things. Such a construction permits Tokarczuk to differentiate between the historical, linearly narrated ruptures of the twentieth century (as I will explain below) and what J. Hillis Miller calls “the subjective experience of lived time” as created by language in a literary text.For example, there is “The Time of Misia” and “The Time of Cornspike.” There is even “The Time of God,” which posits God as an everlasting, but temporal being, eternal yet existing in the here-and-now. This notion of “times” rather than “chapters” affects the perception of chronology in the text by underscoring the simultaneity of lives presented in the novel and giving preference to subjective, lived human time over a constructed linear narrative. Time in the novel is “possessed” not only by multiple persons but also by things, places, and even God. Such a presentation of time interrupts notions of linearity within the narrative and allows each section to be read as a mini-narrative, as well as part of a whole. With many of the characters and events overlapping between the “times,” the text provides multiple, subjective points of view on each event or character presented.