 The General in His Labyrinth also confronts the methods of official historians by using an oral style of narration . The narration can be considered an oral account in that it is woven from the verbal interactions of everyday people . Alvarez Borland explains that the advantage of this technique , as discussed by Walter <unk> , is that " the <unk> of any given culture , residing in the unwritten tales of its peoples , possesses a spontaneity and <unk> which is lost once this culture commits its tales to writing . " The oral style of narration therefore provides a <unk> which official history lacks . Alvarez Borland concludes that The General in His Labyrinth suggests new ways of writing the past ; it takes account of voices that were never written down as part of official history . 
