[stylist] Past Simple and Perfect Usage

[Neil Butters]

Hello All,

I have  a question about using the past simple and past perfect. I know that when a story is told in the past simple, flashbacks or anything else that took place previously use the past perfect. But I have read many stories told in the past simple that abandon that rule in flashback paragraphs. Typically, the author switches from the perfect to simple in the same paragraph even though the whole thing describes a past event. Here is an example from The Last Great Clown Hunt, a story told in the past simple:

I had glimpsed the stilt dancers only once. Billy Boy and I were watching them through a gap in the big top when the shaman caught us. He ran me off; he allowed Billy Boy to stay. I still had a hard time picturing Billy Boy as one of them. To me he'd always seemed like a clown wannabe.

So why is the past perfect used in the first sentence, "I had glimpsed," but not in subsequenbt sentences? Why not "Billy Boy and I had watched...?" Or "he had allowed...?"

Thanks for the help.

Neil