The Expansion of Tense

A Day’s Time: The One-Day Novel and the Temporality of the Everyday

“…He argues that this model of narrative, as anticipatory retrospect, has the "potential to define distinctly contemporary temporal structures of the novel," as well as being a characteristic of narrative in general. 48 Evidence for Currie's argument can readily be found in If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, a contemporary novel strikingly concerned with the temporal position of anticipatory retrospect. There are numerous instances within the text, from the boy at number eighteen who calls himself an "archaeologist of the present," 49 taking polaroids of everything he sees around him and making artworks out of discarded syringes and broken car windows, to the old couple who, when newly married, repeatedly told each other the story of how they met "the way you'll tell our children when they ask," to a young woman's wondering "whether you can feel nostalgic for something before it's in the past."…”