The title refers to what Judith Caesar of the American University of Sharjah stated as "the assent of those who know better to the voice of convention and their failure to assent to what they know to be the truth."[6] This theme appears in both novellas.[6] Caesar stated that in both novellas "the meaning is not conveyed through rounded characterization, but by what all the relatively flat characters taken together suggest by their actions or inaction."[2] Caesar stated that the Theroux translations were "beautifully written, the language spare, pared-down, precise."[6]