Narrating an entire novel through the eyes of an unsympathetic character is an interesting move. In a world of pound-shop psychoanalysis, it’s easy to assume that an unsympathetic narrator is a reflection of an unsympathetic novelist. Can a kind-hearted novelist sustain such a voice for such a long time without getting the ick? Without any deliberate signals to the reader, can we trust that the novelist is self-conscious enough to recognise that other people think differently to him? What does it mean to get to the end of a novel and find that the unsympathetic character comes out on top?