The above description of how the novel is split into two Times, one of which is further subdivided shows how, at an organizational level, the novel is an experiment of presentation and how a novel can be presented. Adnan's writings specifically go on to dramatize the contradictions between West and East, West and East Beirut, Muslim and Christian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian and how each of these sets of variables work together to spur on the civil war.[1]