Robinson has selected structure, point of view, and voicing that is inseparable from the novel’s theme. This is a book about everyone, about the impact of the world on everyone, and every person’s participation in its healing or destruction. By presenting us with a new voice practically every chapter, Robinson makes us feel, at a primal level, the multiplicity and interconnectedness of humanity. The only two major continuing characters are carefully selected, and their experiences and their interaction with each other mirror the larger action of the book.
Of course this is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful one. Things are bad, things are going to get worse, efforts to save ourselves will fail and fail before they succeed, and there are many of us who will fight our salvation with everything they have. Ultimately he does not seem optimistic that the world can be saved completely without resort to violence, and this clearly grieves him. He also believes that the existing social, political, economic, and cultural orders are incapable of saving the world or allowing it to be saved, such that preventing our own extinction requires altering who we are at a fundamental level.
All in all, this is another towering accomplishment by Mr. Robinson.
In the audiobook itself, the decision to use multiple actors to read the various chapters highlighted the multiplicity I mentioned earlier.