On the merely narrative level, flashback in Pincher Martin is the natural result of Martin's isolation and illness, and is the process by which he is gradually brought to his ghastly self-knowledge. This process is quite distinct from the flashbacks' effect on the reader, who sees each memory both in relation to all the other memories presented in the book, and in relation to the physical circumstances of Martin's life on the rock. Neither relation is simple: they constitute the main device by which the writer characteristically obliges his reader to pay more than casual attention.

In Free Fall and The Pyramid this control of attention is achieved by the use of flashback in an elaborate time-structure. In Pincher Martin, however, events in flashback are not precisely dated, as in The Pyramid, or even clearly placed in a sequential biography, as in Free Fall: we have to struggle...