Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Formal
The narrator of The Returning uses several different tones over the course of this book, but throughout everything he or she is always formal. This isn't a chummy, chatty, nudge-you-in-the-ribs kind of narrator—instead everything in the book seems to be spoken with grave, calm, even stiff formality. We see this in the characters as well as in the narrator as they stick to their traditions and customs over everything else.
Take Pin's women's ceremony, for example. We're told:
Each time she checked on Pin, she brought something with her: a warm brick to replace the cooled one, which she took away to reheat; another tea for the pain; little plates of food— sugared slices of apple, a fresh crust of bread with soft cheese, chicken soup. (14.6)
It's as though we're reading a report about what was served to Pin on the day. But this is no menu—it's the novel—but by reading like one in this passage, the formal tone is maintained. We are in the polite land of facts, even if the topic is menstruation.