Leaving the unexplainable unexplained

Dao Erdeng's "Talking for Seven Days" is the third book of his career, following last year's "Good Chinese Man" and "The Glass Ceiling" from the 1990s. Online commentary has termed it a novel, but I have known Dao for nearly thirty years and understand his concept of the novel. If he wants to brand himself as a novelist, it seems he would not have allowed his characters to talk this way: