From the Past

Right now I am reading the book "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D Salinger.  This book takes place in 1949, and is about sixteen-year-old student Holden Caulfield from New York City.  In this book, Holden has flunked out of many advance schools, because he never "applies himself to his school work". Holden tells this story in from after it takes place.  I think that this is really interesting.  Many stories are told in the present tense, so as you read it, the same thing is happening to the characters in the moment.  I think the fact that this book is written as the past, it gives it a special point of view.

Since this book is written from the future, the narrator already knows what is going to happen.  Because of this, the narrator can hint at something that is going to happen, but not actually tell the whole story.  I think this is interesting for the reader because it makes you really curious about the events that are going to come.  It also makes the reader guess or predict about the little hints that are given.  

Another reason that I think it is interesting for a book to be written from the future is that the narrator/ main character already knows the whole story, so they can reflect on it.  As the story goes on, they know how each decision and event is going to affect the rest of the story.  They know if the things they do were good ideas, or bad, and they know what they are going to regret.  This is very different from books written in the present, because the main character doesn't yet know the affects of his actions.