TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER THREE
return to dwell on the same preoooupations.
The motifs and repetitions in the text provide a
level of ooherenoe above that of the aotion.
Time in
the text is not measured b¥ the diarist's prosression
from one aotion to another.
Xn faot. on the linsuistic
and narrative level the link between aotion and time is
disrupted. and reformulated in relation to the diarist.
The important temporal relationship is between the time
of writins and the disparate times reoalled in memor¥.
The relationship between the time of events and the time
of their narration is also a distinotive feature in the
orsanisation of material in the two later novels. Druca
knjila seoba and Roman 0 Londonu.
Althoush it does
Pl&¥ a part in the seoond novel. 8eobe. there are
other distinotive features associated with this novel.
Given that the orsanisation of the temporal soheme
in the diar¥ is the produot of the diarist's own
oonsoiousness and his aot of writins. we oan isolate a
sroup of sisnifioant phrases whioh reour in the text.
The first is a comment on the passace of time. "8ve to
nije valno. jer je pro.lo" ("All that is not important.
for it has passed" 28), repeated a few paces later as,
"8ve je to davno pro.lo i sve mi se ~ini
tako sme.no"
("All that passed lons aco and ever¥thins seems so
absurd to me" 29).
The comment that what has passed is
unimportant or absUrd is & ps¥oholosioal defenoe which
relesates events over which the diarist has lost control
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