Person and Point of View are two related topics that make regular appearances in the Technique Forum. People are usually questioning the merits of using this or that Person, the desirability of changing Person (I, you, he, she, etc) or Point of View within the story or novel and how and when the switch might be best executed. Having been giving this some thought myself in connection with Novel 2, I was interested to chance upon two works, both of them deliberately and admittedly experimental, that illustrate some of the possibilities rather well.

The first was Las Babas del Diablo (The Droolings of the Devil), a short story by Julio Cortazar, which was used by Antonioni as the basis for Blow-Up. It’s about a photographer taking a single picture without the authorisation of its subjects. It oscillates, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, between First and Third Person, between ‘I’ and ‘Michel’ but what becomes apparent is that the First Person sections are Michel’s fictions, his conjectures about the people in the photograph and his subjective view of other events and people in his own life, while the Third Person sections consist of the objective observation of him and his fictions by, as it were, the camera. The first time the switch is made causes a moment of confusion. Thereafter it’s perfectly clear what is happening. Interestingly, the whole story follows only Michel (i.e. in a way his is the almost-POV throughout) but the switch from First to Third allows him to be expressing himself subjectively and to be observed objectively without interruption to the narrative. It’s very clever and it works.

The point I’ve drawn from this is that, if one is going to use more than one Person, it shouldn’t just be for the sake of variety. There needs to be a reason for the use of the different Persons – a change of point of view, a switch between unreliable and reliable narrator (subjective and objective in this case), or whatever.

The second was Quilt by Nicholas Royle, another self-confessed literary experiment which works pretty well and is certainly worth reading. I mention it because it is the first novel to use Second Person narration (‘You’) that I haven’t given up on. It’s not all in Second Person by the way. What I found particularly interesting was that, on the few occasions when I’ve idly thought about using it myself, I had assumed that the reader being addressed as ‘you’ would feel much more as if he/she were actually taking part in the proceedings as that character. In practice, what I found was that I was not seeing myself so much as visualising the ‘other’ who was addressing me as ‘you’. What I was hearing was ‘their’ thoughts as they spoke to me, distracting my attention from the character to the observer. Rather than making me part of the action, it actually had the opposite effect. The thoughts of an author writing in First of Third person would have been far less intrusive.

I have concluded that Second Person is dangerous territory, for my own purposes at any rate, and that, unless one wishes to draw attention to the individual (or author) addressing the reader rather than to the reader who is supposed to be performing the action of the narrative, it’s probably best avoided. As regards First and Third Person, it’s not a problem if you’re switching between points of view of different characters. If it’s a single character though, it needs to be handled very skilfully indeed.

It would be interesting to read people’s thoughts about this one. Has anybody tried switching from First to Third about a single character? Or produced anything in Second Person? And how do people feel about the relative merits of the options?

Chris

Have you read Sister by Rosamund Lupton? It's a crime/thriller written in the Second Person, but the pov main character is addressing her missing sister, rather than the reader.
She's since written Afterwards, also in the 2nd person.
Tbh, the 2nd person is a bit of a gimmick, but it is one of the very few 2nd person novels to reach the bestseller lists.


- NaomiM

Do you know, I'm not sure that there is any such thing as a novel in the second person; isn't it simply a novel in the first person in which the narrator makes explicit that they are talking to someone specific? So, with Sister, the story is simply a conventional first person narrative which frequently uses the vocative?

Much of Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light is in second person, the "you" which is the informal form of "one", rather than the vocative "you". Fantastic book - it seems completely natural...

Emma

Robert Coover's 'Noir' is also in the second person and works really well.

Naomi

I've not come across Sister but may take a look. I must say though that I can't see myself feeling motivated to use Second Person.

Saturday

isn't it simply a novel in the first person in which the narrator makes explicit that they are talking to someone specific?

That's one scenario, I agree, and I also rather agree with your assessment of it, but I was really thinking about a different use of the technique whereby the author addresses the reader, making the reader the character carrying out the action in the narrative. The author is telling you, the reader, what you did or are doing. In this case I think it is genuine Second Person narration but I fear there will always be something artificial about it.

Chris

Hi Chris

This is exactly what Coover does in his novel.

Regards

Richard

Richard

Prompted by your posts, I've looked at the reviews of Noir and Coover's other work (neither of which I was aware of) and I think I'd better read it!

Emma

Not aware of this either but I've looked at the reviews. Presumably the 'you' is used by Molly addressing John Synge. I was fortunate to see his Well of the Saints at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin a few years ago - powerful stuff! So Ghost Light is another I must add to the reading list.

Chris

Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler is written with alternate chapters in the second person with 'you' (the reader) the main character in the action. I think he brings it off absolutely brilliantly. But then Calvino is a Master (in my opinion). I wouldn't try the same trick myself. Lorrie Moore's short stories also comes to mind for using second person frequently. I'm thinking of stories like 'How to become a writer' I love its opening so much, so I'm going to indulge myself by quoting it:

"First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age - say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire..."

Emma's post has reminded me of my intention to read Ghost Light. My 'to read' list is getting so out of control at the moment.

isn't it simply a novel in the first person in which the narrator makes explicit that they are talking to someone specific?

Good point. I think it's about as far an author would get to writing 2nd person in Commercial Fiction. I doubt a true work in the 2nd person would get published unless it was Literary Fiction

Coover's 'Noir' was marketed as a crime novel and indeed it is, though it's more literary than other crime fiction that I've read.

Richard

Chris, the "you" in Ghost Light is really Molly's internal dialogue - the "you" which hovers somewhere between "I" and "one", although she does talk to Synge in her head as well, if that makes sense. It works quite beautifully - you're not really aware of the technical doing of it at all. A fabulous book, brilliantly structured, and writing to die for.

Emma