The present tense as a narrative tense in the third person singular can be used in one novel The effect of an objectifying camera view unfolds: We see the characters very precisely in what they do and say, almost like a surveillance camera, but we cannot know what the characters feel. Just like the British writer David Szalay, born in 1974, uses the present tense in his new novel, which won the Booker Prize What cannot be said It is a strong aesthetic stylistic device: beneath it, the scenery in every paragraph appears to be illuminated by cold neon light. You won’t be able to make yourself comfortable in it.