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20.2 - You read
Read a book written in second person, a narrative mode in which the protagonist or another main character is referred to by employment of second-person personal pronouns, for example the English second-person pronoun "you". Examples can be found .

As against others who are finding the 20.3 task difficult, I'm finding very few titles for this one. However, I have selected to read The Night Country : A Novel. It seems appropriate to the season.

Also, I found this Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ list:

Novels in the Second Person

The wiki list in the first post has several dozen titles.

If I can find a good place for The Tin Drum, I am planning on reading Cat and Mouse by Günter Grass.

I have not been successful at finding one that I already own, so if I get to this task I may try to get Absalom, Absalom! from my library.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Denae wrote: "I started listening to Snowdrops yesterday. I didn't realize it before, but it is written in the form of a letter addressed to someone, relating the story. It seems like it would cou..."

Sorry to be so long in responding, Denae. I got interrupted and then forgot to look. From what I can tell, this does not have enough 2nd person narrative to qualify for 20.2. "

I actually want to question this, based on some of the items on the list given in the task. For instance, The Things They Carried is on there. Only parts of two chapters in the book are this voice. The entirety of Snowdrops is addressed to a person off-stage. Could you clarify why it does not count?

When I looked at it online, the passages shown weren't written in the 2nd person. It looks to be written in the first person.

"You're always saying that I never talk about my time in Moscow or why I left. You're right, I've always made excuses and soon you'll understand why."

"In Russia they don't go in so much for the phoney self-restraint, the sham waiting and feints, the whole dating war that you and I played in London"

"If I was being blunt with you, I guess I might call it 'falling in love'"

"I've never found what people like my brother had, what my sister thought she had until she didn't, what you and me are signing up for now"

"In England, before you, I'd only ever had one thing with a woman that you might seriously call a relationship. You know about her, I think"

Those are some of several examples from the first two chapters. The book is written in the first person as a story being related to his fiancee.

I'll take a stab at this explanation:

The example from Snowdrops is first person and the "you" and "your" is used to address some one other than the main character writing as "I".

In second person, there is no "I" in the narrative and the "you" and "your" is the main character. From You:

"You run your finger down the list of homeroom assignments until you spot your name."

The main character is talking about himself with "you" instead of "I".

Yes, it's written in the first person. 20.2 is for a book written in the second person.

Here are a few sentences from A Prayer for the Dying

Not that you mind earning your money, but when folks need you it's someone's misfortune one way or the other. The undertaking is easy; being a constable is hard. When you put them together it can be too much, though that's only happened once since you've been back. And you got through that fine, did the Soderholms proud.

I haven't read more than this, finding it online, but I'm pretty sure that narrator is talking to himself, that the you is the narrator, not some other person.

Liz M wrote: "20.2 - You read
Read a book written in second person, a narrative mode in which the narrator refers to one of the characters as "you". Examples can be found here."

Is this explanation incorrect then?

I'm also completely perplexed as to the inclusion of The Things They Carried, because the sections that could possibly qualify it are most certainly addressed to the reader.

I know that the explanation is wrong for actual second-person narration, but I mean for the purposes of this task.

The work needs to be written in the 2nd person, not the first person.

Can you update the task to correctly reflect the definition and possibly make a list of which books on the wikipedia list actually qualify, based both on the required percentage and actually being written in second-voice, rather than the more loose interpretation mentioned in the task and apparently used to create the list?

That's a good question, Denae. I don't think the "you" has to be the main character and I think it's still a different feeling than the example from Snowdrops, but I don't have a copy of The Things They Carried to look through here at home.

I think the description works. It asks for a book to be written in the second person. Some of the examples given are short stories, it's true. In your example of Snowdrops, the book is written in the first person and that's why it doesn't work for this task.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I think the description works. It asks for a book to be written in the second person. Some of the examples given are short stories, it's true. In your example of Snowdrops, the book is written in t..."

The description does not say that "you" requires that it refer to the person narrating the book. It specifically states "a narrative mode in which the narrator refers to one of the characters as "you"" which implies an expanded definition.

Karen GHHS wrote: "That's a good question, Denae. I don't think the "you" has to be the main character and I think it's still a different feeling than the example from Snowdrops, but I don't have a copy of The Things..."

The sections in The Things They Carried that are second-person are directed towards the reader, whereas those in Snowdrops are directed towards another character. They have a different feel, but they are both one person addressing another in the second-person. In The Things They Carried the author is addressing the reader and in Snowdrops the narrating character is addressing another character.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I think the description works. It asks for a book to be written in the second person. Some of the examples given are short stories, it's true. In your example of Snowdrops, the book is written in t..."

Actually, Denae is right in saying the description was wrong; the perils of depending too much on wiki. The incorrect task description was too loose -- if it just involves a narrator addressing another character as "you", any book with a section of written dialogue would qualify. That was not the intent.

Hopefully, the revised version is better and does not make everything even more confusing?

I don't think the description makes things more confusing, although perhaps include that it could be a protagonist, main character, or the reader, since that is apparently the way that list was created?

Can you clarify where this book belongs? The whole book is a letter and the you is used throughout to address the "captor". It's not a series of letters so I don't think it qualifies as epistolary. I think it would be the same as Snowdrops that we were discussing earlier, but I wasn't sure what was actually decided after re-reading the discussion.

Stolen

Rebekah wrote: "Does the You Read narrative mean that the reader is addressed by the narrator, or another unseen chracter? Or does it make the reader the unseen chracter? I've been trying to read some examples to find out but I'm confused"

See message #10 above. The problem with The Lightning Thief is that a lot of it appears to be written in the first person. It isn't so much whether another character or the reader is addressed as "you" as that the second person is the primary narrative.

From Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney:

"You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak of Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where 2 AM changes to 6 AM. You know the moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings...."


There is no use of "I" or "we". The narrator is not describing what "she" "he" or "they" did and does not detail the thoughts of I, we, s/he, or they.

Liz M wrote: "From Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney:

"You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that th..."

I think I kind of get it but to be sure, I'm getting this book, Bright Lights, Big City at the library this week.