When I first started reading "How To Be An Expatriate" my first thought was, 'is this a Lorrie Moore' story? As I read it, it became clear to me that it wasn't (different subject matter/themes), but then I began to wonder what it was that made it seem so similar to a Lorrie Moore story. Was it just the use of second person and the way "the word 'you' conflates the character who is being addressed with the reader who is also being addressed" (100), meaning I'm conflating myself with the characters of Moore's and Davies' stories and thus they seem similar to me because I'm still the same 'you' when I read both stories (but then I wonder, doesn't some of this conflation also happen with first person)? Does second person somehow force some sort of conformity of tone or voice? Was it the fact that this is a "how to" story, like Lorrie Moore writes in /Self Help/? If, as Wachtel argues, the first functions of voice are "presence and immediacy" (55), then isn't it a bad thing if I'm immediately reminded of another author, another voice right when I begin reading a story?
Dang. That's a lot of questions... think I'll stop now.
Miner claims that the second person "you" can be several things, not just the listener/reader. I wonder, though, if the author doesn't make it clear that that "you" is someone specific, like his lover, or her daddy, or Booker T. Washington, must we assume that "you" is indeed the ostensible reader? I'm leaning toward Yes, but I might be wrong like Thom Yorke. That's my first question.
My second question/concern is with this claim that second person "admits readers directly into the story," "puts the reader on the spot," or "achieves a kind of intimacy unavailable in most trad. 3rd p. historical (or not) fiction." But when we read a second-person story, do we really believe we are the protagonist? When reading Bright Lights Big Shitty do we really go, "Oh my God, I woke up at two in the afternoon with a killer hangover and snorted three lines of fine Bolivian marching powder"? Of course we don't. A reader will naturally put him/herself into a 1st-/3rd-person protagonist's shoes. The 2nd person seems to force this (if used improperly); it seems overly artificial. Like, sure, A, B, and C can happen to a 2nd-person "you" and a reader can think "Damn, what if that DID happen to me??" but as soon as that "you" makes a choice that the reader wouldn't make, the gig is up. The intimacy fades and a disconnect arises.
"Expatriate" doesn't force the reader to be that "you," really, but it sacrifices a lot to make the 2nd-person voice work. It seems . . . I dunno, it seems a bit light to me. Kind of cute. I wrote "high artifice" in the margins (next to the time jump in the last full graph on p.76 e.g.). I was bothered by how it spent most of its time telling "you" what to do, and then would say something like "and get offered a Ph.D place and a full ride." Well, that's beyond the "you"'s control, isn't it, so what's the reader to make of that statement? There are also those disconcerting tense slips, like when "someone asks if you'll take citizenship. Say no." When do they ask me this, exactly? I thought this was all speculative. Shouldn't it be "When someone asks if you'll take citizenship, say no."? The last paragraph of the story was super disconcerting, because suddenly it's not telling me what to do, but telling me what I do do. And that's when I'm like, OK, but no, I don't lie awake in my old bed yadda. The "you" in this story is not a real person, there is no characterization happening here, and I wonder if that's something that 2nd person allows for, to totally sidestep characterization and just run with that kind of blank-slate "you," and to still have an interesting character. Would this story work in third person, or would we be screaming "Who is this person? What's his favorite ice cream? What color hair?" I don't hear anyone screaming that as is, so. Maybe that's what 2nd person gives you. Let's discuss it in class maybe. If there's time.
Even after reading the essay on second person, the effects of writing in second person still remain nebulous to me. As Paul mentioned, the three effects listed, "admits readers directly into the story," "puts the reader on the spot," or "achieves a kind of intimacy unavailable in most traditional 3rd person fiction," don't hit the mark for me. "How to Be an Expatriate" clearly tells the story of someone who neither me nor the narrator, and in fact tells the story of third person, pun intended. Why isn't this story written in the third person? Would it be different if it were and how so? "Orientation" is another 2nd person we read this semester, and I have to admit I don't think it would have been as funny if it were told in 3rd or 1st, but why is that true? Never once did either of these stories invoke one of the three effects the essay discusses, yet there is an effect I just can't quite place my finger on. Can the faded intimacy and disconnect that Paul mentioned be desirable? Is the sheer absurdity of addressing the reader as the character charming in some way?
I think good second person allows us to slip into the role of protagonist but doesn't necessarily make us the protagonist. In Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Travelor as a reader I am placed into the you of the protagonist, Calvino is addressing me, a very general me that could be you, but later I find out that I as protagonist am chasing this woman, trying to win her over. This is where a reader who has no interest in chasing this woman can say, ok, this is not me in the you, but I can imagine myself going along for the ride. I think second person that asks me to be a certain person that is too specific, fails. I don't agree that second person has an advantage over first or third in placing me in a story, but what it comes down to is the writing; good writing can make us believe anything. The advantage of second person is that it allows the author to directly address the reader in a hey look at me I'm the author and I'm talking to you sort of way. This can help to establish more intimacy in the writing. So does second person really put the reader more on the spot? I don't think so. Unless you are writing an instruction manual on how to wire a light socket. Writing needs to draw a reader into the story and if you are choosing second person only for the sake of putting readers on the spot, well, I think that is what Carver calls a cheap trick.
There is something very fascinating and magical about the writer never being "fully concealed." And that, "the voice is the one thing that can cross the border between the real world and the world of art." I believe this is true for all genres and what makes our art form so special. Even if the story isn't about us per se, we are always in it. I agree with Wachtel in that I think our spirit, our essence is inextricable from the words we chose to put on paper. I don't really have a question here...unless others disagree?
Keeping this brief as I'm rushing off to the airport. In Watchel's essay on voice, he states, in response to the Gass excerpt: "...he is addressing our part, as readers, in the act of creation. We feel that we, too are making up the sentences like fresh pies." I know we've discussed this in class, our consideration of the reader. But more specifically, I'd like to know how you consider your reader when he/she is "hearing" the voice of your writing. We know (hopefully) how our writing "sounds," or how want it to-- how directive are you when thinking of how you want your reader to "hear" your work? In "Farewell Navigator," I feel that Zumas is really trying to "sound" in a very specific way, one that is a little elusive, a little jarring on the page at times. ("I report to Blue: Green." (p.13) I feel the author there, which I would imagine Zumas anticipates, and yet I find myself making meaning from that line--it almost sounds like a nonsense sentence, and given that the parents are blind, colors are somewhat nonsensical, or at least, perhaps, inconsequential. It's a small moment, sure, but I do sense what here what Watchel is talking about, the act of the reader making up sentences like "fresh pies."
I found that the voice of the narrator in "People Like That Are the Only People Here" worked to layer meaning. This story isn't just about cancer, or motherhood, but about creating fiction. On one hand, it is an extremely believable and lifelike story about a mother's experience, and on another hand it is about the Mother as author recreating that experience. This was working well for me until the ending--"There are the notes. Now where is the money?" That last line brought another layer to the entire story, and I wasn't sure if it cheapened everything that had come before or if it helped add to the voice and thematic elements of this story. How did the voice in this story work for other people? Is the presence of the author overbearing? Adding meaning and/or complexity? Is it justified?
I am struck by the mystical almost spiritual manner in which Wachtel presents the idea of Voice. 'Language has the quality of light, because it gathers light into itself. And that light is the only manifestation of God the living can perceive.' He says, 'one of the first functions, and first mysteries.' This idea of MYSTERY...The idea that voice is 'simultaneously real and metaphoric...' I am working on my NF thesis and these words seem to apply to the bubble I am in with that. I have to rear back and STRETCH to 'see' how it applies to fiction as well. (Though of course it does...!) This idea of seeing the room first, when we walk in, but then gradually focusing in on what's going on in the room...'Voice...seems to decrease in presence as the characters and their conflict, the ideas and composition, begin to organize themselves into a purely conceived yet dynamic world.' I love the idea of Voice existing separate almost of human endeavor...It just 'is' as light 'is.' And yet, within this 'isness' craft has to come into play...
On page 66 of the Wachtel essay he writes, "Assuming the novelist is good, we are kindly imprisoned in his or her words. Fiction doesn't answer questions; it prevents them from coming up," and I wonder how valid that statement is. I can't think of a book that didn't pose some questions so I wonder if people think that fiction directs readers to answers the questions created by an author?
I was intrigued by the idea Wachtel posits regarding a writer's choice to magnify the essential of a story, to exaggerate the essential and leave the obvious vague. "As fiction writers we conceive a world and its people, enter it, and make decisions to what is essential and what is obvious."
Like Lesley, I found the narrative voice (and the writing itself) of Zumas' Farewell Navigator a bit jangly, a bit dislocating, but at the same time, I think that's why it worked for me, how it kept surprising me, on a sheer sentence level, with oddities and inexplicable imagery that would surface out of left field. I was quite moved in the end, and never thought about the "artifice" of the story, intrigued by this somewhat elusive narrative voice.
So, then, what is NOT being said in Farewell Navigator, what is consciously being left out (is there an obvious here?) and what elements are being magnified, and to what effect?
I was also thinking about the second person essay, particularly the bit about Western fiction resisting this type of writing, and I think some of this resistance is in the ambiguity of the "you" and how it can be almost anyone. I find particularly in poetry that this sort of it could be me, you, or the garbage man just makes my brain hurt. In prose, on the other hand, it seems like the second person stories that work best are precisely those which are incredibly ambiguous: I could very well be the "you" in Orientation, but am obviously not the "you" in How to be An Expatriate. I am wondering, then, how people have used the second person, and what effect they were going for. Similarly, I am wondering about the "taboo" of the second person-do people resist using or reading it?
Second person is something that appears to be very present in poetry and point of view I seldom encounter in fiction, perhaps only as instances when the speaker is being rhetorical. Or, perhaps I have not been cognizant of its usage. I didn’t find it terribly surprising that they first two examples given were of poems given that I employ ‘you’ in my poems pretty often, and in most cases to employ a sense of intimacy with the reader. For my portfolio piece, I’ve been using second person as a means of story telling, but finding it difficult to characterize the person speaking, who becomes a character in the larger plot. How do you utilize the second person, if at all in your stories? Does the ‘you’ feel forced or alienating to you?
Voice is something I’m always aware of when I write poetry. Often, I find that poems can sustain themselves, that is to say cohere and captivate, predominantly through voice. In fiction, I feel like story and character and subject matter can make up for an absence of voice. For instance, Brokeback I feel the voice of the narrator got out of the way of the story through it’s passiveness. In Antichrist, I felt like the apathy and characterless-ness of the voice made the piece very boring to me. In pieces like Testing, the voice (along with the listing device) really drove the story. I feel like Lolita would be perfect example of how voice and all of the other elements of the novel work synergistically to tell a compelling story. In my writing, I feel like I some times compromise a stronger writing voice to be more truthful to the story. Do you consciously engage notions of the voice when writing? Do you find it stifling or productive to do so? How do you negotiate or balance the drives of beautiful language, characterization and maintaining a compelling voice when writing?
I agree with you Lindsey, throughout most of "People like that are the only people here" I kept writing in the margins "author coming through" as she works through in the piece what writing means to her. I was a bit confused by the end of the story though because it seemed to go against everything she had been fight for throughout the piece, in which art seemed to fit, for her, in a more detached and escapist realm.. yet i wonder it that ending was character changing and if it should be taken as the "revelation," like that writing had to become more then just something she did recreationally but that she needed it to sell too? I am not sure though...
I also had a question about something i came across in the Wachtel article when he says "Silence is a much its instrument as word and their sounds." I completely agree with this but i think actually doing this is harder then it looks. I am wondering what people think about this and if, when choosing to use silence as a way of communicating something, you as writers choose to start with it all there on the page and then slowly chip away or if you start with minimal then add little by little until you are satisfied?
Since second-person narratives seem to be the current hot topic, I'll chime in on that.
Both Paul and Ian mentioned what the essay says second-person voice does for the story, but I have to say, I feel a certain amount of skepticism about it all. In particular, saying that this style of voice "admits readers directly into the story," is baffling to me. I've never heard of a story having to admit readers; stories not concerts, where you do not get in without a ticket, nor clubs, where you must be on the list or else ready to bribe the bouncer. By virtue of them picking up the book and reading the pages, they are admitted to the story.
Now, we've heard before about how stories have to hook their reader; after all, if you can't grab their interest and hold on to it, you can't expect them to give you the benefit of the doubt and put up with your rambling out of the goodness of their heart. If one of the advantages of second-person is that it does this out of a sort of novelty, is that just what Carver and Tobe called a cheap trick?
"[Putting] the reader on the spot" strikes me as a similar cheap trick; we've all read pieces of writing that suggest culpability on the reader's part, that sort of sense of being guilty of perpetuating some injustice just by reading and thinking about it. It's not necessary to flat out out tell them that YOU are responsible for this, I don't think.
You know, I could go on and on, but that's basically my gripe: in fiction, an entirely second-person narrative generally seems unnecessary, like a cheap trick (please note, this is not meant to apply to poetry and non-fiction writing.) It seems like a construct that reminds the reader that they're reading something written, and at that point, haven't story and plot and character all fallen by the wayside? If the reader's actively aware of the artifice of it all, then why are they reading? To see how clever we, as authors, can be?
Okay, that might be too negative, so let me rephrase it as a question. Is it possible to write a second-person narrative that doesn't draw attention to itself in a way that reminds the reader that they're reading? I submit that it is not, but I'm open to different ideas.
I like putting ice cream on my naked arm... oops sorry I forgot which blog I was commenting on. I took the essays and stories and cut them all up- creating a sort of uber reading experience- I'm not sure but I think the Baby moved to America where he taught college students and a blind topless woman that "voice is the one that can cross the border between the real world and the world of art." I have no idea what any of this means. I was voted "most likely to fail at trying to articulate ideas on a blog"- sad but true.
In this conversation about 2nd person, I find it interesting that the first place a lot of people go to (and logically so) is to consider the 'you' as a direct address to the reader, whereas I tend to have an easier time thinking of the 'you' as something like a more exterior character addressing the author-expy character, as in /testing/, or, I'd argue, /Orientation/, where the 'you' feels close to the reader not because we're meant to understand that it is the reader, but rather that it's the kind of character that might be a 1st person we would relate to closely, but is given a layer of distance, in the case of these stories, perhaps to make the characters appear victimised or antagonised without a whiny, maudlin 'I'.
This is probably something that poetry has trained me to do, since, as Robert said, we encounter a lot of 'you's there and have a much easier time resolving them between the reader and the speaker; it’s possible to imagine in a lot of poems, for example, that a ‘you’ is the speaker addressing him or herself, which is what I want to do with /How To Be An Expatriate/. However, I'm having a harder time making this perspective work for me here. I feel like the ‘you’ is doing the opposite of what I just described above -- rather than feeling close to the ‘you’ like I would, say, a 1st person narrator, I feel like I’m listening to the sensible voice in the ‘you’s head berate the ‘you’ for the way it’s lived. I suspect the other two stories work partially because the experience of getting yelled at by a parent or of starting a terrifyingly boring job where all of your coworkers seem miserable and probably secretly deranged both feel pretty universally relatable, and this is probably due in part to the fact that both stories relate a single incident, whereas the experience of /Expatriate/ is an accrual of very specific events over a long period of time. To me, the 'you' in this story seems unnecessarily alienating; the close biographical detail of the story makes it impossible for me to assume that I'm supposed to be the 'you,' but thinking of it in the way I described above hasn’t helped me feel closer to it either. Does this perspective help anyone else, or is it just further unnecessary distancing?
I have to argue for the benefits of second person in certain situations. Although I don't think I would enjoy reading a novel length work in the second person, I do think it can work effectively in shorter pieces.
If you guys want to check out a really good story written in the second person, please read David Foster Wallace's "Forever Overhead" and if you think this is not a successful second person story please tell me why.
I think second person can be effective to place a reader really close to a character. It eliminates reflection/explanation that you would need in a first person story because it puts you right there in the moment. And in response to Paul's post when I read "How to Be An Expatriate" I don't think I *am* that guy--but I'm really close to that narrative. In DFW's "Forever Overhead" I, as the reader, am not the 13 year old boy, but I'm really close to the story--"in the moment" so to speak through each of his actions and observations.
But, like I said above, it would be challenging to sustain the second person in a long work of fiction or it might get old say if you try to read 8 second person, Lorrie Moore, stories in a row.
I disagree that second person is a cheap trick. I just think it's really challenging. But like anything really challenging, it's awesome when you can pull it off.
I have yet to take a stab at the second person. Hmm, maybe that will be my next little project.
When reading "How to be an Expatriate," I was able to see the narrator pop out a few times in the piece. It started by enforcing belief in the narrator (himself) to suggesting how people view him to the adaption of a new home. In "Farewell Navigator," the narrator pops out indefinitely on page 14 when talking to the counselor: "Where they kind of need me, I point out. They're fucking disabled in case you forgot."
Sometimes when the narrator (instead of the character) comes off the page, it can take away from the flow of the piece. However, for me, it worked in that piece. I think that's the difficulty with the second person. It can be tough to create the successful intimacy between narrator and the reader. There is the danger of the author instead of the narrator coming off the page too strongly.
In defense of Lorrie Moore, I love love love the ending line, the kicker, as you will. Love it. It gets me every time I read this story (admittedly, only twice). I'm trying to figure out why it works for me, and I think part of it is that the author/narrator acknowledges that what she has done is to display, to commodify a horrible, wrenching experience. I read that last line as a little wink (or maybe a nod) at the reader that let's me feel like, yeah, she knows that what she's done here is both awful and necessary on multiple levels. That, for me, deepens the impact of the whole story. Now it's not just a story about an awful thing that happened to someone, but it's about how authors cannabalize their own awful experiences and display them to make money, to create art, to process the experience. And isn't that just a little bit fucked up? That's what that last line says to me. Isn't it wrong that someone (The Husband) would suggest that there is money to be made from this horrible experience, and isn't it even worse that the author wrote it and I as a reader participated in it? But the line is darkly funny too, and so it helps make it OK, like when you laugh because if you don't you'll cry and that's worse.
Well said, Erin. The last two lines: "There are the notes. Now where is the money?" still evoke an emotional response in me too, even though I've read the story about five times (not exactly for fun, this is the third class I've had where this story has been assigned). Moore didn't want to write the story, but did. Those last two lines make the story more real.
It seems second person has been popular lately as I've been reading it in workshop and experimented with it last week myself. One of the issues that we discussed in second person was how long it could be sustained, especially in something longer than a short story. I think in "How To Be An Expatriate" the kind of directional "you" like, "You follow it with interest," or "When people ask you where you're from, start to say, 'Originally?'" is what I sensed as the writer's presence that Wachtel touched upon. It gave the "you" voice a little more reflection that held my attention and also still felt distinctly the narrator's. What Watchtel describes as, and I'm paraphrasing here, uniting into a single remembered impression, the life of the story and its meaning, though presented in separate breaths. Those two separate breaths are important I think for this piece, in sustaining the second person without confusing or boring the reader. By the end, the voice still felt distinctly the narrators, but guided decisively by the author. I'm just not sure, in a much longer work, if that could still be achieved, unless a very skilled author knew how to navigate such a story.
Again, I am the caboose on this blog train, but I wanted to add a comment to Erin's -- there is a terrific speech in a play I just saw called "A Seagull in the Hamptons" in which a tormented writer describes the hell of, well, thinking like a writer. He narrates his life and looks for things around him that he can cannibalize in his writing. Instead of engaging, he makes notes. I loved this speech. Wish I had the script so I could read it again. I too, appreciated the Lorrie Moore story, and not just because I can vouch for her verisimilitude(four months with a baby in intensive care, but have never been able to write about it with the clarity I wish to. It's a nightmare boat, for sure). I saw it as a real sock-in-the-gut piece -- too close (for me) to be read as fiction, even though the author intends it to be read that way. I wonder how others responded to the last two lines as well.
In case anyone was in huge suspense about it (I had a hunch and meant to check before class today but forgot), the line 'farðu í rassgat' from 'Farewell Navigator' is Icelandic.
Which is kind of strange because, while Icelandic is certainly a language almost no one in the US speaks, I've been led to believe that most Icelandic... people (Icelanders?) have a reasonable, at least passable grasp of English. I suppose this could be a generational thing, however (travelling in Scandinavia, it seemed like people closer to my age spoke slightly more fluent, or at least colloquial, English than people my mother's age).
At any rate, that might lend more or less authenticity to the voice for some people. Or it might just be me missing my days as a wannabe linguist and nerding out on obscure little bits of orthography.
When I first started reading "How To Be An Expatriate" my first thought was, 'is this a Lorrie Moore' story? As I read it, it became clear to me that it wasn't (different subject matter/themes), but then I began to wonder what it was that made it seem so similar to a Lorrie Moore story. Was it just the use of second person and the way "the word 'you' conflates the character who is being addressed with the reader who is also being addressed" (100), meaning I'm conflating myself with the characters of Moore's and Davies' stories and thus they seem similar to me because I'm still the same 'you' when I read both stories (but then I wonder, doesn't some of this conflation also happen with first person)? Does second person somehow force some sort of conformity of tone or voice? Was it the fact that this is a "how to" story, like Lorrie Moore writes in /Self Help/? If, as Wachtel argues, the first functions of voice are "presence and immediacy" (55), then isn't it a bad thing if I'm immediately reminded of another author, another voice right when I begin reading a story?
ReplyDeleteDang. That's a lot of questions... think I'll stop now.
Miner claims that the second person "you" can be several things, not just the listener/reader. I wonder, though, if the author doesn't make it clear that that "you" is someone specific, like his lover, or her daddy, or Booker T. Washington, must we assume that "you" is indeed the ostensible reader? I'm leaning toward Yes, but I might be wrong like Thom Yorke. That's my first question.
ReplyDeleteMy second question/concern is with this claim that second person "admits readers directly into the story," "puts the reader on the spot," or "achieves a kind of intimacy unavailable in most trad. 3rd p. historical (or not) fiction." But when we read a second-person story, do we really believe we are the protagonist? When reading Bright Lights Big Shitty do we really go, "Oh my God, I woke up at two in the afternoon with a killer hangover and snorted three lines of fine Bolivian marching powder"? Of course we don't. A reader will naturally put him/herself into a 1st-/3rd-person protagonist's shoes. The 2nd person seems to force this (if used improperly); it seems overly artificial. Like, sure, A, B, and C can happen to a 2nd-person "you" and a reader can think "Damn, what if that DID happen to me??" but as soon as that "you" makes a choice that the reader wouldn't make, the gig is up. The intimacy fades and a disconnect arises.
"Expatriate" doesn't force the reader to be that "you," really, but it sacrifices a lot to make the 2nd-person voice work. It seems . . . I dunno, it seems a bit light to me. Kind of cute. I wrote "high artifice" in the margins (next to the time jump in the last full graph on p.76 e.g.). I was bothered by how it spent most of its time telling "you" what to do, and then would say something like "and get offered a Ph.D place and a full ride." Well, that's beyond the "you"'s control, isn't it, so what's the reader to make of that statement? There are also those disconcerting tense slips, like when "someone asks if you'll take citizenship. Say no." When do they ask me this, exactly? I thought this was all speculative. Shouldn't it be "When someone asks if you'll take citizenship, say no."? The last paragraph of the story was super disconcerting, because suddenly it's not telling me what to do, but telling me what I do do. And that's when I'm like, OK, but no, I don't lie awake in my old bed yadda. The "you" in this story is not a real person, there is no characterization happening here, and I wonder if that's something that 2nd person allows for, to totally sidestep characterization and just run with that kind of blank-slate "you," and to still have an interesting character. Would this story work in third person, or would we be screaming "Who is this person? What's his favorite ice cream? What color hair?" I don't hear anyone screaming that as is, so. Maybe that's what 2nd person gives you. Let's discuss it in class maybe. If there's time.
Hoppy Easter you guys. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Love,
Paul
Even after reading the essay on second person, the effects of writing in second person still remain nebulous to me. As Paul mentioned, the three effects listed, "admits readers directly into the story," "puts the reader on the spot," or "achieves a kind of intimacy unavailable in most traditional 3rd person fiction," don't hit the mark for me. "How to Be an Expatriate" clearly tells the story of someone who neither me nor the narrator, and in fact tells the story of third person, pun intended. Why isn't this story written in the third person? Would it be different if it were and how so? "Orientation" is another 2nd person we read this semester, and I have to admit I don't think it would have been as funny if it were told in 3rd or 1st, but why is that true? Never once did either of these stories invoke one of the three effects the essay discusses, yet there is an effect I just can't quite place my finger on. Can the faded intimacy and disconnect that Paul mentioned be desirable? Is the sheer absurdity of addressing the reader as the character charming in some way?
ReplyDelete-ian.
I think good second person allows us to slip into the role of protagonist but doesn't necessarily make us the protagonist. In Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Travelor as a reader I am placed into the you of the protagonist, Calvino is addressing me, a very general me that could be you, but later I find out that I as protagonist am chasing this woman, trying to win her over. This is where a reader who has no interest in chasing this woman can say, ok, this is not me in the you, but I can imagine myself going along for the ride. I think second person that asks me to be a certain person that is too specific, fails. I don't agree that second person has an advantage over first or third in placing me in a story, but what it comes down to is the writing; good writing can make us believe anything. The advantage of second person is that it allows the author to directly address the reader in a hey look at me I'm the author and I'm talking to you sort of way. This can help to establish more intimacy in the writing. So does second person really put the reader more on the spot? I don't think so. Unless you are writing an instruction manual on how to wire a light socket. Writing needs to draw a reader into the story and if you are choosing second person only for the sake of putting readers on the spot, well, I think that is what Carver calls a cheap trick.
ReplyDeleteBEHIND THE MASK
ReplyDeleteThere is something very fascinating and magical about the writer never being "fully concealed." And that, "the voice is the one thing that can cross the border between the real world and the world of art." I believe this is true for all genres and what makes our art form so special. Even if the story isn't about us per se, we are always in it. I agree with Wachtel in that I think our spirit, our essence is inextricable from the words we chose to put on paper. I don't really have a question here...unless others disagree?
I just wanted to note what I thought to be a lovely connection in the readings:
ReplyDeletePage 78 of HOW TO BE AN EXPATRIATE:
"Say you had to leave to really understand your home." I feel this is the main push and guts of this story.
...and such a fitting sentence for our narrator in FAREWELL NAVIGATOR.
I almost feel the narrator in FAREWELL NAVIGATOR could BE the narrator in EXPATRIATE if he decided to move away to another country and aged 15 years.
Keeping this brief as I'm rushing off to the airport. In Watchel's essay on voice, he states, in response to the Gass excerpt: "...he is addressing our part, as readers, in the act of creation. We feel that we, too are making up the sentences like fresh pies." I know we've discussed this in class, our consideration of the reader. But more specifically, I'd like to know how you consider your reader when he/she is "hearing" the voice of your writing. We know (hopefully) how our writing "sounds," or how want it to-- how directive are you when thinking of how you want your reader to "hear" your work? In "Farewell Navigator," I feel that Zumas is really trying to "sound" in a very specific way, one that is a little elusive, a little jarring on the page at times. ("I report to Blue: Green." (p.13) I feel the author there, which I would imagine Zumas anticipates, and yet I find myself making meaning from that line--it almost sounds like a nonsense sentence, and given that the parents are blind, colors are somewhat nonsensical, or at least, perhaps, inconsequential. It's a small moment, sure, but I do sense what here what Watchel is talking about, the act of the reader making up sentences like "fresh pies."
ReplyDeleteI found that the voice of the narrator in "People Like That Are the Only People Here" worked to layer meaning. This story isn't just about cancer, or motherhood, but about creating fiction. On one hand, it is an extremely believable and lifelike story about a mother's experience, and on another hand it is about the Mother as author recreating that experience. This was working well for me until the ending--"There are the notes. Now where is the money?" That last line brought another layer to the entire story, and I wasn't sure if it cheapened everything that had come before or if it helped add to the voice and thematic elements of this story. How did the voice in this story work for other people? Is the presence of the author overbearing? Adding meaning and/or complexity? Is it justified?
ReplyDeleteI am struck by the mystical almost spiritual manner in which Wachtel presents the idea of Voice. 'Language has the quality of light, because it gathers light into itself. And that light is the only manifestation of God the living can perceive.' He says, 'one of the first functions, and first mysteries.' This idea of MYSTERY...The idea that voice is 'simultaneously real and metaphoric...' I am working on my NF thesis and these words seem to apply to the bubble I am in with that. I have to rear back and STRETCH to 'see' how it applies to fiction as well. (Though of course it does...!) This idea of seeing the room first, when we walk in, but then gradually focusing in on what's going on in the room...'Voice...seems to decrease in presence as the characters and their conflict, the ideas and composition, begin to organize themselves into a purely conceived yet dynamic world.' I love the idea of Voice existing separate almost of human endeavor...It just 'is' as light 'is.' And yet, within this 'isness' craft has to come into play...
ReplyDeleteOn page 66 of the Wachtel essay he writes, "Assuming the novelist is good, we are kindly imprisoned in his or her words. Fiction doesn't answer questions; it prevents them from coming up," and I wonder how valid that statement is. I can't think of a book that didn't pose some questions so I wonder if people think that fiction directs readers to answers the questions created by an author?
ReplyDeleteoh yeah...and I totally thought the last lines of the Moore story killed it...what's the deal with that?
ReplyDeleteI was intrigued by the idea Wachtel posits regarding a writer's choice to magnify the essential of a story, to exaggerate the essential and leave the obvious vague. "As fiction writers we conceive a world and its people, enter it, and make decisions to what is essential and what is obvious."
ReplyDeleteLike Lesley, I found the narrative voice (and the writing itself) of Zumas' Farewell Navigator a bit jangly, a bit dislocating, but at the same time, I think that's why it worked for me, how it kept surprising me, on a sheer sentence level, with oddities and inexplicable imagery that would surface out of left field. I was quite moved in the end, and never thought about the "artifice" of the story, intrigued by this somewhat elusive narrative voice.
So, then, what is NOT being said in Farewell Navigator, what is consciously being left out (is there an obvious here?) and what elements are being magnified, and to what effect?
I was also thinking about the second person essay, particularly the bit about Western fiction resisting this type of writing, and I think some of this resistance is in the ambiguity of the "you" and how it can be almost anyone. I find particularly in poetry that this sort of it could be me, you, or the garbage man just makes my brain hurt. In prose, on the other hand, it seems like the second person stories that work best are precisely those which are incredibly ambiguous: I could very well be the "you" in Orientation, but am obviously not the "you" in How to be An Expatriate. I am wondering, then, how people have used the second person, and what effect they were going for. Similarly, I am wondering about the "taboo" of the second person-do people resist using or reading it?
ReplyDeleteSecond person is something that appears to be very present in poetry and point of view I seldom encounter in fiction, perhaps only as instances when the speaker is being rhetorical. Or, perhaps I have not been cognizant of its usage. I didn’t find it terribly surprising that they first two examples given were of poems given that I employ ‘you’ in my poems pretty often, and in most cases to employ a sense of intimacy with the reader. For my portfolio piece, I’ve been using second person as a means of story telling, but finding it difficult to characterize the person speaking, who becomes a character in the larger plot. How do you utilize the second person, if at all in your stories? Does the ‘you’ feel forced or alienating to you?
ReplyDeleteVoice is something I’m always aware of when I write poetry. Often, I find that poems can sustain themselves, that is to say cohere and captivate, predominantly through voice. In fiction, I feel like story and character and subject matter can make up for an absence of voice. For instance, Brokeback I feel the voice of the narrator got out of the way of the story through it’s passiveness. In Antichrist, I felt like the apathy and characterless-ness of the voice made the piece very boring to me. In pieces like Testing, the voice (along with the listing device) really drove the story. I feel like Lolita would be perfect example of how voice and all of the other elements of the novel work synergistically to tell a compelling story. In my writing, I feel like I some times compromise a stronger writing voice to be more truthful to the story. Do you consciously engage notions of the voice when writing? Do you find it stifling or productive to do so? How do you negotiate or balance the drives of beautiful language, characterization and maintaining a compelling voice when writing?
I agree with you Lindsey, throughout most of "People like that are the only people here" I kept writing in the margins "author coming through" as she works through in the piece what writing means to her. I was a bit confused by the end of the story though because it seemed to go against everything she had been fight for throughout the piece, in which art seemed to fit, for her, in a more detached and escapist realm.. yet i wonder it that ending was character changing and if it should be taken as the "revelation," like that writing had to become more then just something she did recreationally but that she needed it to sell too? I am not sure though...
ReplyDeleteI also had a question about something i came across in the Wachtel article when he says "Silence is a much its instrument as word and their sounds." I completely agree with this but i think actually doing this is harder then it looks. I am wondering what people think about this and if, when choosing to use silence as a way of communicating something, you as writers choose to start with it all there on the page and then slowly chip away or if you start with minimal then add little by little until you are satisfied?
i this thing working? I just tried to post a comment and its not showing up... this is a test
ReplyDeleteSince second-person narratives seem to be the current hot topic, I'll chime in on that.
ReplyDeleteBoth Paul and Ian mentioned what the essay says second-person voice does for the story, but I have to say, I feel a certain amount of skepticism about it all. In particular, saying that this style of voice "admits readers directly into the story," is baffling to me. I've never heard of a story having to admit readers; stories not concerts, where you do not get in without a ticket, nor clubs, where you must be on the list or else ready to bribe the bouncer. By virtue of them picking up the book and reading the pages, they are admitted to the story.
Now, we've heard before about how stories have to hook their reader; after all, if you can't grab their interest and hold on to it, you can't expect them to give you the benefit of the doubt and put up with your rambling out of the goodness of their heart. If one of the advantages of second-person is that it does this out of a sort of novelty, is that just what Carver and Tobe called a cheap trick?
"[Putting] the reader on the spot" strikes me as a similar cheap trick; we've all read pieces of writing that suggest culpability on the reader's part, that sort of sense of being guilty of perpetuating some injustice just by reading and thinking about it. It's not necessary to flat out out tell them that YOU are responsible for this, I don't think.
You know, I could go on and on, but that's basically my gripe: in fiction, an entirely second-person narrative generally seems unnecessary, like a cheap trick (please note, this is not meant to apply to poetry and non-fiction writing.) It seems like a construct that reminds the reader that they're reading something written, and at that point, haven't story and plot and character all fallen by the wayside? If the reader's actively aware of the artifice of it all, then why are they reading? To see how clever we, as authors, can be?
Okay, that might be too negative, so let me rephrase it as a question. Is it possible to write a second-person narrative that doesn't draw attention to itself in a way that reminds the reader that they're reading? I submit that it is not, but I'm open to different ideas.
I like putting ice cream on my naked arm... oops sorry I forgot which blog I was commenting on. I took the essays and stories and cut them all up- creating a sort of uber reading experience- I'm not sure but I think the Baby moved to America where he taught college students and a blind topless woman that "voice is the one that can cross the border between the real world and the world of art." I have no idea what any of this means. I was voted "most likely to fail at trying to articulate ideas on a blog"- sad but true.
ReplyDeleteIn this conversation about 2nd person, I find it interesting that the first place a lot of people go to (and logically so) is to consider the 'you' as a direct address to the reader, whereas I tend to have an easier time thinking of the 'you' as something like a more exterior character addressing the author-expy character, as in /testing/, or, I'd argue, /Orientation/, where the 'you' feels close to the reader not because we're meant to understand that it is the reader, but rather that it's the kind of character that might be a 1st person we would relate to closely, but is given a layer of distance, in the case of these stories, perhaps to make the characters appear victimised or antagonised without a whiny, maudlin 'I'.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably something that poetry has trained me to do, since, as Robert said, we encounter a lot of 'you's there and have a much easier time resolving them between the reader and the speaker; it’s possible to imagine in a lot of poems, for example, that a ‘you’ is the speaker addressing him or herself, which is what I want to do with /How To Be An Expatriate/. However, I'm having a harder time making this perspective work for me here. I feel like the ‘you’ is doing the opposite of what I just described above -- rather than feeling close to the ‘you’ like I would, say, a 1st person narrator, I feel like I’m listening to the sensible voice in the ‘you’s head berate the ‘you’ for the way it’s lived. I suspect the other two stories work partially because the experience of getting yelled at by a parent or of starting a terrifyingly boring job where all of your coworkers seem miserable and probably secretly deranged both feel pretty universally relatable, and this is probably due in part to the fact that both stories relate a single incident, whereas the experience of /Expatriate/ is an accrual of very specific events over a long period of time. To me, the 'you' in this story seems unnecessarily alienating; the close biographical detail of the story makes it impossible for me to assume that I'm supposed to be the 'you,' but thinking of it in the way I described above hasn’t helped me feel closer to it either. Does this perspective help anyone else, or is it just further unnecessary distancing?
I have to argue for the benefits of second person in certain situations. Although I don't think I would enjoy reading a novel length work in the second person, I do think it can work effectively in shorter pieces.
ReplyDeleteIf you guys want to check out a really good story written in the second person, please read David Foster Wallace's "Forever Overhead" and if you think this is not a successful second person story please tell me why.
I think second person can be effective to place a reader really close to a character. It eliminates reflection/explanation that you would need in a first person story because it puts you right there in the moment. And in response to Paul's post when I read "How to Be An Expatriate" I don't think I *am* that guy--but I'm really close to that narrative. In DFW's "Forever Overhead" I, as the reader, am not the 13 year old boy, but I'm really close to the story--"in the moment" so to speak through each of his actions and observations.
But, like I said above, it would be challenging to sustain the second person in a long work of fiction or it might get old say if you try to read 8 second person, Lorrie Moore, stories in a row.
I disagree that second person is a cheap trick. I just think it's really challenging. But like anything really challenging, it's awesome when you can pull it off.
Thus ends my argument for second person.
I have yet to take a stab at the second person. Hmm, maybe that will be my next little project.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading "How to be an Expatriate," I was able to see the narrator pop out a few times in the piece. It started by enforcing belief in the narrator (himself) to suggesting how people view him to the adaption of a new home. In "Farewell Navigator," the narrator pops out indefinitely on page 14 when talking to the counselor: "Where they kind of need me, I point out. They're fucking disabled in case you forgot."
Sometimes when the narrator (instead of the character) comes off the page, it can take away from the flow of the piece. However, for me, it worked in that piece. I think that's the difficulty with the second person. It can be tough to create the successful intimacy between narrator and the reader. There is the danger of the author instead of the narrator coming off the page too strongly.
Like Linsay..my post didn't "publish." This is only a test :P
ReplyDeleteIn defense of Lorrie Moore, I love love love the ending line, the kicker, as you will. Love it. It gets me every time I read this story (admittedly, only twice). I'm trying to figure out why it works for me, and I think part of it is that the author/narrator acknowledges that what she has done is to display, to commodify a horrible, wrenching experience. I read that last line as a little wink (or maybe a nod) at the reader that let's me feel like, yeah, she knows that what she's done here is both awful and necessary on multiple levels. That, for me, deepens the impact of the whole story. Now it's not just a story about an awful thing that happened to someone, but it's about how authors cannabalize their own awful experiences and display them to make money, to create art, to process the experience. And isn't that just a little bit fucked up? That's what that last line says to me. Isn't it wrong that someone (The Husband) would suggest that there is money to be made from this horrible experience, and isn't it even worse that the author wrote it and I as a reader participated in it? But the line is darkly funny too, and so it helps make it OK, like when you laugh because if you don't you'll cry and that's worse.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Erin. The last two lines: "There are the notes. Now where is the money?" still evoke an emotional response in me too, even though I've read the story about five times (not exactly for fun, this is the third class I've had where this story has been assigned). Moore didn't want to write the story, but did. Those last two lines make the story more real.
ReplyDeleteIt seems second person has been popular lately as I've been reading it in workshop and experimented with it last week myself. One of the issues that we discussed in second person was how long it could be sustained, especially in something longer than a short story. I think in "How To Be An Expatriate" the kind of directional "you" like, "You follow it with interest," or "When people ask you where you're from, start to say, 'Originally?'" is what I sensed as the writer's presence that Wachtel touched upon. It gave the "you" voice a little more reflection that held my attention and also still felt distinctly the narrator's. What Watchtel describes as, and I'm paraphrasing here, uniting into a single remembered impression, the life of the story and its meaning, though presented in separate breaths. Those two separate breaths are important I think for this piece, in sustaining the second person without confusing or boring the reader. By the end, the voice still felt distinctly the narrators, but guided decisively by the author. I'm just not sure, in a much longer work, if that could still be achieved, unless a very skilled author knew how to navigate such a story.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I am the caboose on this blog train, but I wanted to add a comment to Erin's -- there is a terrific speech in a play I just saw called "A Seagull in the Hamptons" in which a tormented writer describes the hell of, well, thinking like a writer. He narrates his life and looks for things around him that he can cannibalize in his writing. Instead of engaging, he makes notes. I loved this speech. Wish I had the script so I could read it again. I too, appreciated the Lorrie Moore story, and not just because I can vouch for her verisimilitude(four months with a baby in intensive care, but have never been able to write about it with the clarity I wish to. It's a nightmare boat, for sure). I saw it as a real sock-in-the-gut piece -- too close (for me) to be read as fiction, even though the author intends it to be read that way. I wonder how others responded to the last two lines as well.
ReplyDeleteall work and no play makes Juan a dull boy
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone was in huge suspense about it (I had a hunch and meant to check before class today but forgot), the line 'farðu í rassgat' from 'Farewell Navigator' is Icelandic.
ReplyDeleteWhich is kind of strange because, while Icelandic is certainly a language almost no one in the US speaks, I've been led to believe that most Icelandic... people (Icelanders?) have a reasonable, at least passable grasp of English. I suppose this could be a generational thing, however (travelling in Scandinavia, it seemed like people closer to my age spoke slightly more fluent, or at least colloquial, English than people my mother's age).
At any rate, that might lend more or less authenticity to the voice for some people. Or it might just be me missing my days as a wannabe linguist and nerding out on obscure little bits of orthography.