Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Chan-Seung Lee]

[Mister Micawber]

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Well, the quote is quite normal. 'Now' is a relative 'now', a narrative 'now', rather than an absolute 'now'.

That's the best explanation I can manage.
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"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
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Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's

[CP]

Stories are told in the past tense, so it is correct as written. If you were talking about someone you know, telling your friend about her, you might say, "Now that her father is dead, she has to give up the idea of going on to college." But telling it in a story, unless you are quoting someone speaking (as I just did), you have to put it in the past tense, because everything you write must have occurred before you could write it.

Five hundred years ago, French and English stories were written in a careless mishmash of present tense and past tense, with no real rules about when to use which. They are hard for the modern reader to follow. Eventually, the use of the past tense won out, probably because switching back and forth was confusing and sticking with the present tense is too hard.
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb