TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER THREE
to find themselves alienated from friends and famil¥ who
have not shared the experience of the war.
The diarist
writes, "Vojnik sam, 0, ni,ko ne zna, Ita to zna~i"
("I
am a soldier, oh, no-one knows what that means" 7).
Other than the reference to "last ¥ear" on the first
pa&e, there is no other indication of when the diar¥ was
written.
Since his return home his mother has died, and
he has married and separated from Maca.
There is nothin& to Sa¥ if the diar¥ was written
with lon& intervals of time between the separate
entries, or over what period of time it was written.
It
ia not divided into dated entriea. but into a aeriea ot
episodes taken from memor¥.
The episodes are divided in
the ,text bv blank lines.
Sometimes the blank lines
indicate a chan&e in subject and a jump in time, for
example the jump from childhood to war (8), from his
unhapp¥ marria&e to his sta¥ in hospital and
relationship with the nurSe (9).
Sometimes the jump in
time is from a memor¥ to his preoccupation with writin&
his diar¥, for example one episode concernin& the war is
followed b¥ another which ,opens "Kome ja ovo pilem-,"
(ttWho am I writn& this for'?" 10).
At other times. the
blank lines indicate that the followin& episode is a
pro&ression from what ~as just been related. There is a
&roup of episodes which refer to the diarist's memorv of
his first love. framed at beeinnine and end bV the' wordS
"u primorju jesad prole6e" ("ori the coast it is now
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