Always somewhat suspicious as to the viability of second-person narration, I came to the conclusion that it was not a good idea on reading Quilt by the Eng Lit academic, Nicholas Royle a couple of years ago. This is an experimental (and interesting) novel so it is perhaps not surprising that some elements seemed a little contrived. The use of second person caused a particular problem – it was irritating never to be quite sure until too far into a passage whether you = I (i.e. the author addressing himself instead of using first person), you = me (i.e. me, the reader), you = one (i.e. people in general) or you = her (another character lurking in the background of the story).

I thought at the time that it was the inevitable ambiguity of second person that had turned me against it but now I’ve just read A L Kennedy’s The Blue Book (2011) which has succeeded in changing my mind. Her second person narration has all the ambiguities – does her you mean the narrator, the reader, everyone, the other character, etc.? – but somehow she manages the shift between them by transitions instead of presenting random chunks with a different meaning of you. There can still be moments of puzzlement for the reader but they fascinate rather than annoy.

I strongly recommend The Blue Book by the way. In content it has echoes of Mantel’s Beyond Black but the style is totally different and ALK’s approach is incredibly clever (in the best sense of the word).

Does anybody have any thoughts about this question of the ambiguity of you? It would be interesting to know whether anybody has used second-person narration and felt that it had worked out as intended.

I'm using it in my current short story (Look at me) uploaded on CWG
Not sure if it reads as contrived, I hope not - but I had to write it that way in order for the message to work

Interesting.

I'd have said it couldn't be done, or at least not done well, but Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light is at least half second-person, and it's fabulous. Feels incredibly natural.

Somewhere I've got a list of novels written in second person - not just If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, which everyone knows.

I've just tried to google that list, but have been so horrified to see a blog called "The Writer's Craft" actually calling it "second person point of view" that I've come all over faint and must go and have a lie down.

Does Hilary Mantel use it in Wolf Hall?

No, it's all very, very close Third.

Eve

Not sure if it reads as contrived, I hope not

Quite the opposite. It doesn't come across as contrived at all (I've just read it on CWG) and using 'you' as the recipient of the MC's diatribe has allowed it to be much more forceful than would have been the case with any other approach.

Emma

horrified to see a blog called "The Writer's Craft" actually calling it "second person point of view"

Your post compelled me to find the blog which, in the same post, revealed a wondrous illustration of mixed first, second and third person prepositions.

It reminds us that we are only reading a story, when really, you want your reader to be lost in the story and forget that he/she is reading.

We/She/He/You of The Writer's Craft clearly has/have a personal problem here.

I often find I've done that kind of thing - in that to some extent, in addressing writers, I'm representing the reader, but I'm also speaking as a fellow writer, seeing readers as "other".

And 'you' is always slippery, because it can be addressing the particular other person, or "generic you", which we read as being about "one" - us as well as them...

You can fix it by making 'reader' plural, and saying 'we', instead of 'he/she'.

It reminds us that we are only reading a story, when really, you want your readers to be lost in the story and forget that we are reading.

But "first person point of view" is unforgiveable in a blog about writing.

Interesting...

Am I right in thinking that Bright Lights, Big City by Brett Easton Ellis was also written in 2nd p?

And Joshua Ferris's highly acclaimed And Then We Came to the End? I really didn;t like the latter but was largely alone in that opinion, I think!