Comments on: You're going to be looking for stories written in the 2nd person

Question: You're going to be looking for stories written in the 2nd person

twine42 — Fri, 07 May 2004 03:46:35 -0800

The 2nd Man. Can anyone think of any examples of literature which is written in the second person? We've had a think in this office and can't think of any 2nd person stuff that is pornographic. Surely there must be something?

By: iconomy

iconomy — Fri, 07 May 2004 03:59:55 -0800

The Bride Stripped Bare (title taken from the Duchamp piece The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors) is written in the second person, and it's pretty sexy. It's written by everyone's favorite author, Anonymous.

By: twine42

twine42 — Fri, 07 May 2004 04:01:59 -0800

Oopsie...

"can't think of any 2nd person stuff that isn't pornographic"

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 07 May 2004 04:05:11 -0800

A lot of EC Comics from the 1950s are in the second person:

You're driving up a dark road, with your father, who's gone insane since the murder of your mother...

...things like that. They're comics, though, so I don't know if that's what you're looking for.

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Fri, 07 May 2004 04:34:31 -0800

A Song of Stone by Iain Banks.
As usual, the second person narration makes for some near unreadable prose. Personally I find that it tends to come over like a particularly pedantic dungeon master in an uninterseting dungeons and dragons game.
I think there are good reasons for not using second person narration.
Here's a list of some other fiction that uses it.

By: sebas

sebas — Fri, 07 May 2004 04:36:27 -0800

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney is written like that.

An enjoying, if short, read.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Fri, 07 May 2004 04:37:57 -0800

"can't think of any 2nd person stuff that isn't pornographic"

I figured that was a typo ;) The Bride Stripped Bare isn't porn. It's got its risque moments, though. Does Amazon sell porn?

By: creeky

creeky — Fri, 07 May 2004 04:54:15 -0800

Choose your own adventure!

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Fri, 07 May 2004 05:18:04 -0800

Life's Lottery and Freewill come to mind.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Fri, 07 May 2004 05:22:57 -0800

By: NekulturnY

NekulturnY — Fri, 07 May 2004 05:31:49 -0800

Suddenly remembering the word "pornographic", visions of USENET and Nerve begin to flicker
in your head. And that Anonymous person... did s/he really write all those stories in the first and third? You pause for a moment to reflect on this...

Sounds a bit like that Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker" text game that was on MeFi a while ago.

"...and suddenly you realise that the yellow bulldozer outside the window is about to demolish your house! What do you do?"
- "Panic!"
- "Don't panic".

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 07 May 2004 08:38:53 -0800

This lady did a giant bibliographty of second-person narrative books. Many of these just use second-person for part of the text, not as a whole. Selected ones that people might have heard of:

Vox, by Nicholson Baker [in parts]
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
If On a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
Running Dog by Don Delillo [opening part]

Some of Gravity's Rainbow was written like this. The McInerny book is the one I think of when I think of second-person narrative structures in books that actually worked and did not seem gimicky.

By: Capn

Capn — Fri, 07 May 2004 08:48:46 -0800

How could you ignore those pillars of the literary canon, the Choose Your Own Adventure series?

If you want to enter Smelly Pete's tent to look at the evidence, go to page 256.

If you want to go to Jagged Breakneck Cliff with Suzy instead, go to page 45.

By: acridrabbit

acridrabbit — Fri, 07 May 2004 08:54:46 -0800

Molly Zero, by Keith Roberts. I liked it so much, I took the name as a pseudonym. Bonus: it's a dystopian novel.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Fri, 07 May 2004 08:59:20 -0800

Ron Butlin's The Sound Of My Voice is a masterpiece of 2nd person, truly. And the voice provides a beautiful twist at the end. Really, superbly done look at alcoholism.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Fri, 07 May 2004 08:59:41 -0800

Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas is in second-person, present tense. It shouldn't work, but it does. If you like Robbins, anyway.

By: grum@work

grum@work — Fri, 07 May 2004 09:10:07 -0800

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 07 May 2004 09:16:30 -0800

Damn You acidrabbit... That was going to be my answer.

By: lazaruslong

lazaruslong — Fri, 07 May 2004 10:00:06 -0800

I am Jack's raging colon.

By: sauril

sauril — Fri, 07 May 2004 10:00:15 -0800

Tom Robbins' Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas is written in the second person. And I was going to mention Iain Banks, but I see it's been done.

Both of these authors are favourites of mine, and both these books two of my least favourite by them

By: _sirmissalot_

_sirmissalot_ — Fri, 07 May 2004 10:01:47 -0800

The short story, "How to be the Other Woman" by Lorrie Moore. From her great book, "Self-Help."

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 07 May 2004 10:25:50 -0800

Flaubert's Parrot? WTF? This link should show the first page, and you can see that it's not second-person at all. ("Not a watch, as I first thought, or a tattoo...")

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Fri, 07 May 2004 10:30:14 -0800

A Man Asleep (Un Homme Qui Dort) by Georges Perec, is a short novel written entirely in the 2nd person.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Fri, 07 May 2004 11:05:53 -0800

I could have sworn there was an Agatha Christie murder mystery that was written in the 2nd person. The big ending is that the narrator is the murderer.

Oh wait. Maybe it was written in 1st person. I can't remember any more.

It's the first person. I won't mention the title, as that could be a bit of a spoiler (though the book is fairly famous for this device).

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Fri, 07 May 2004 11:08:44 -0800

(Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas is also highly recommended for monkeys and friends of monkeys.)

By: drobot

drobot — Fri, 07 May 2004 12:10:59 -0800

Frederick Barthelme has a couple of short stories in 2nd person - Shopgirls is the only one whose title I remember.

I think they are listed in the bibliography that Jessamyn linked to above.

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Fri, 07 May 2004 12:51:57 -0800

I'm pretty sure Roger Zelazny's The Great Book of Amber is written in the second person, but I don't have my copy on me to verify.

By: Slimemonster

Slimemonster — Fri, 07 May 2004 14:24:04 -0800

Large portions of Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates are written in 2nd person. It just came out last year and its a really good and fast read. It's not pornographic in the way i think of the word.

By: filmgeek

filmgeek — Fri, 07 May 2004 20:32:38 -0800

jmd82-

Zelazny's Amber books are all 1st person. Great, but first person.