Present perfect

Tara Bahrampour writes her memoir in present tense, a technique employed by Elizabeth Gilbert in “Eat, Pray, Love” and who knows how many other brilliant wizards of non-fiction craft. I think I want to write my final paper on this approach and its myriad benefits for both writer and reader. I only wish I’d been aware of it sooner, or I would have applied it to my own writing. The present tense is perfect for so many reasons!

But to focus on “To See and See Again” specifically, Bahrampour is unique in the scope of her story because she literally writes from first memory up to present day adulthood (presumably–who knows how old she was when the memoir was published?) In order to write herself at every age, she had to capture her childhood sense of things, her angsty adolescent voice, the burgeoning self-awareness that college brings, all the way up to the revelatory wisdom of adulthood. I think the present tense aided her immensely in keeping these voices clear, distinct, and authentic.

Not only is she able to write moments without concerning herself or the reader about everything else (some of which she inserts later—like, “oh yeah, I spent **years** living abroad in college), but it keeps the linear nature of her life’s progression  organized by what is happening right now, instead of how it fell in the time line of the distant past. Because everything is told to us as it happens, we experience the stories almost like we piggybacking Tara through her life. There is no distance between her understanding and our understanding. This then impacts her ability to relate the political, cultural, and social intricacies and permutations of Iranian life without it getting confusing or condescending in its explanations. In a brilliant manifestation of “seeing and seeing again”, Bahrampour relates her understanding of Iran’s political situation from her childhood perspective, collegiate understanding, and then a first-hand homeland excavation. At each point, the sophistication and depth of the revelation matches her age and voice. This works because we are reading it in the now. Her voice and her dicoveries are not tainted by hindsight; past understanding is not muddied by current understanding.

The present tense has an interesting effect on the pacing of the story. For me, it slowed it waaaay down. Each moment/story/glimpse is stacked upon each other, building the days, weeks and years of a life. Her writing is not abstract or intricate, but striaghtforward and fairly literal when compared to some of the other memoir writing we have studied. We as the readers are along for the ride, and it is an even, measured walk. Very rarely are we cantering, or even galloping, in this book. And that is utterly okay. The beauty of this story isn’t in high drama and hijinks. Instead, we are witnessing the unfolding of understanding, of considering and reconsidering, of arriving at a middle place of identity and self-awareness. And I have  to say, my attachment to and understanding of Tara is increased exponentionally by the enforced experiencing of everything right alongside her character/narrator. I don’t know how this book would work if written in the past tense, but I have a funny feeling it wouldn’t.