present tense

I always struggle with this, am always a little confused. First-person singular past – I made tea for the octopus – that makes sense to me: someone is telling me a story about their past. And a third-person narrator can be invisible – Jimmy opened the fridge – or a raconteur – Now, the fun, if...

I'm reading The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré (and thoroughly enjoying it), and I've been struck by his use of tense changes. He does things like the following, where the book is mostly in past but occasionally switches to present: Dressing quickly, though with his customary care, Pendel...

As a newcomer to Litopia I'm advised to join in discussions. I can't find any recent topics which I want to comment on, so I'm going to pitch in at the deep end with something I would very much like to get some reaction to: the use of the present tense in fiction. The so-called 'historic...