Ruby Soames's Blog - Posts Tagged "literary-devices"
Hey, you!
I wanted to write about the sudden rise of the second-person narrative. Have you noticed it or am I imagining things?
‘We Need to Talk about Kevin’ was the first book that I was really conscious of as having been written in the second person narrative. The novel is presented as a letter from a mother to her husband after the horrifying event of their son’s high-school killing spree. 'We Need to Talk About Kevin’ had such a polemic, shocking and emotive subject matter that the story overtook the book itself – and that’s not bad – Lionel Shriver is now a household name and the book is a film – but I believe this book marked a new way of writing.
Shriver’s writing makes implicit the evolving relationship between the reader and the writer. The modern reader is no longer able to swallow the idea of an omniscient narrator, even a first person narrative can get tiresome, and now telling the story is demanding more sophisticated literary devices.
Over the books I’ve read this year, so many have been 'told' in the second person – as letters, diaries, confessions. One can’t ignore the author’s awareness and need to hold the attention of its audience, so much so, the actual stories are addressed ‘you’.
Last year, ‘Sister’ by Rosamund Lupton, a psychological thriller which did eerily well, about a ‘dead’ sister whose murder is investigated by the living sister. The story is told in the first person and is written to ‘you’. Rosamund Lupton’s disappointing follow up, ‘Afterwards’ was also written to ‘you’ – the main character is in limbo having been through a fatal fire – accidental or on purpose and by whom? is the question of the story. The book is written from the POV of the wife to her living husband – the ‘you’. (Yes, she’s a ghost and if you haven’t read it, don’t bother.)
I’ve just finished Snowdrops by A D Miller which I really enjoyed but couldn’t help notice that this too, was written to a ‘you’. The ‘You’ is not really explained but inferred to be the woman the protagonist later married. He is finally telling her/you the story so that she can understand his past, and him. It’s a completely unnecessary device, neither adding or taking away from the story. So why’d he do it?
Of course, I’m interested in the ‘You’ because my novel was also written to a ‘you’. ‘Seven Days to Tell You’ is written to Kate’s husband who returns after three years of being ‘missing’.
Kate had married a wild, sexy Frenchman and thought she had the perfect marriage until he went out one day and didn’t come back. Three years later, she wakes with him in her bed - he asks for her forgiveness and gives her a week to decide if she still loves him. During that week, she describes her love for him directly to him.
And isn’t that the way one thinks when one’s in love? The other person is a ‘you’ and everything we do relates to the lovers’ personal narrative. So for me, a story about love could only be written directly to the beloved. Like most love songs.
I'd like to put forward the theory that in novels today, the standard genres are breaking down so much that there’s a place for the second-person narrative, the ‘you’. It’s almost like the book won’t work anymore, it has to feel like a personal letter, a journal, a piece of reality TV.
It’s just a thought, how about you?
Seven Days to Tell YouWe Need to Talk About Kevin
‘We Need to Talk about Kevin’ was the first book that I was really conscious of as having been written in the second person narrative. The novel is presented as a letter from a mother to her husband after the horrifying event of their son’s high-school killing spree. 'We Need to Talk About Kevin’ had such a polemic, shocking and emotive subject matter that the story overtook the book itself – and that’s not bad – Lionel Shriver is now a household name and the book is a film – but I believe this book marked a new way of writing.
Shriver’s writing makes implicit the evolving relationship between the reader and the writer. The modern reader is no longer able to swallow the idea of an omniscient narrator, even a first person narrative can get tiresome, and now telling the story is demanding more sophisticated literary devices.
Over the books I’ve read this year, so many have been 'told' in the second person – as letters, diaries, confessions. One can’t ignore the author’s awareness and need to hold the attention of its audience, so much so, the actual stories are addressed ‘you’.
Last year, ‘Sister’ by Rosamund Lupton, a psychological thriller which did eerily well, about a ‘dead’ sister whose murder is investigated by the living sister. The story is told in the first person and is written to ‘you’. Rosamund Lupton’s disappointing follow up, ‘Afterwards’ was also written to ‘you’ – the main character is in limbo having been through a fatal fire – accidental or on purpose and by whom? is the question of the story. The book is written from the POV of the wife to her living husband – the ‘you’. (Yes, she’s a ghost and if you haven’t read it, don’t bother.)
I’ve just finished Snowdrops by A D Miller which I really enjoyed but couldn’t help notice that this too, was written to a ‘you’. The ‘You’ is not really explained but inferred to be the woman the protagonist later married. He is finally telling her/you the story so that she can understand his past, and him. It’s a completely unnecessary device, neither adding or taking away from the story. So why’d he do it?
Of course, I’m interested in the ‘You’ because my novel was also written to a ‘you’. ‘Seven Days to Tell You’ is written to Kate’s husband who returns after three years of being ‘missing’.
Kate had married a wild, sexy Frenchman and thought she had the perfect marriage until he went out one day and didn’t come back. Three years later, she wakes with him in her bed - he asks for her forgiveness and gives her a week to decide if she still loves him. During that week, she describes her love for him directly to him.
And isn’t that the way one thinks when one’s in love? The other person is a ‘you’ and everything we do relates to the lovers’ personal narrative. So for me, a story about love could only be written directly to the beloved. Like most love songs.
I'd like to put forward the theory that in novels today, the standard genres are breaking down so much that there’s a place for the second-person narrative, the ‘you’. It’s almost like the book won’t work anymore, it has to feel like a personal letter, a journal, a piece of reality TV.
It’s just a thought, how about you?
Seven Days to Tell YouWe Need to Talk About Kevin
