This essay argues that the second-person address of the interactive adventure gamebook generates a mode of identification between reader (player) and character that functions not through immersion or presence but through an estranging logic that arises from the particular affordances of the print form. It begins by situating the gamebook, an influential but short-lived genre that enjoyed its heyday in the 1980s and early 1990s, in relation to other forms of second-person narrative as well as Interactive Fiction and video games, before turning to a consideration of the points at which the forms diverge. Taking Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982) as its example, the essay then examines the ways in which the gamebook’s highly-demanding print form undermines notions of transparency, arguing that identification with the gamebook you is specific to, and reliant upon, the material properties of the print text.

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Life and Death in the Second Person: Identification, Empathy, and Antipathy in the Adventure Gamebook

This essay argues that the second-person address of the interactive gamebook generates a mode of identification between reader (player) and character that functions not through immersion or presence but through an estranging logic that arises from the particular affordances of the print form. It begins by situating the gamebook, an influential but short-lived genre that enjoyed its heyday in the 1980s and early 1990s, in relation to other forms of second-person narrative as well as Interactive Fiction and video games, before turning to a consideration of the points at which the forms diverge. Taking Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982) as its example, the essay then examines the ways in which the gamebook’s highly-demanding print form undermines notions of transparency, arguing that identification with the gamebook you is specific to, and reliant upon, the material properties of the print text.

Life and death in the second person: Identification, empathy and antipathy in the gamebook

This article considers how postcolonial narratives written partly in the firstperson plural collective voice reflect recent critical developments in postcolonial studies rather than echoing the outmoded “writing back” paradigm. Even colonial texts such as Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the “Narcissus,” according to narratologists the earliest example of extensive we-narration to which postcolonial authors respond, dramatize the inherent multiplicity of the self rather than writing into being an opposition between a colonial “we” and a colonized “other.” Early postcolonial we-narratives such as Ngũgı̃ wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat, this essay suggests, also display a narrative “we” that transgresses the conventional postcolonial center/periphery paradigm. Here the first-person plural voice becomes a marker of multidirectional inclusions and demarcations, equally highlighting the internal fragmentation of the

(Post)Colonial We-Narratives and the “Writing Back” Paradigm: Joseph Conrad's The Nigger of the “Narcissus” and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat

Abstract For a century, the disorienting effects of second-person narration have seemed peculiarly well suited to representing the experiential confusions and political contradictions of inhabiting a female body in times of national crisis. This essay examines such effects in Edna O’Brien’s A pagan place and Jennifer Egan’s “Black box,” very different narratives that similarly exploit the deictic and ontological uncertainties of second-person address. Second person in O’Brien’s novel participates in its depiction of a sexually naïve rural Irish girl confronting the conflicting pressures of enforced chastity and reproductive futurism in the name of the Irish State. Emphasis is placed on the narrative’s unusual use of past-tense second-person narration and its intriguing overlap with O’Brien’s nonfictional writings. In Egan’s story, the protean and multivocal second person suggests a sinister fusion of individual and governmental agency, effected through the protagonist’s cybernetically-enhanced body. The result is a deceptively simple critique of post-9/11 American foreign policy as an extension of paternalism and patriarchy in the domestic sphere. The patterns investigated in this paper shed light on other recent uses of the second person in other experimental narratives concerned with identity, self-formation among disenfranchised individuals, and resistance to political and cultural oppression.

Your body is our black box: Narrating nations in second-person fiction by Edna O’Brien and Jennifer Egan

While some Nubian authors demanded a separate homeland in Egypt, the late Idris Ali remained committed to the idea of integration into Egyptian society. Ali agreed that a demeaning historical narrative had been imposed upon Egypt’s Nubians, but believed narratives could be rewritten. In his largely autobiographical novel Below the poverty line, Ali uses the defamiliarizing second-person narrative mode to showcase how a discouraging history is imposed on the Nubian subject. This mode also allows for a fluid positioning of the reader and subject, building both empathy and responsibility for the protagonist’s plight. For a narrative mode that has been frequently criticized as a mere gimmick, second-person narration’s unique power and fluidity is convincingly demonstrated in this novel.

Writing the history of “you”: second-person narration and the plight of the Nubian in Idris Ali’s Below the poverty line

I read Joshua Parker's "In Their Own Words: On Writing in Second Person" with great interest and enjoyment. Parker deftly covers a vast swath of second person narratives as well as corresponding narrative criticism and theory in this impressive article, bringing in new material and casting fresh light on older pieces. Especially fascinating are the many accounts he has assembled by authors explaining their decision to employ the second-person form. He also packages the various scattered uses of this technique into a single, plausible, unified position. Unfortunately, the very virtues of Parker's approach also lead to what I see as its limitations. The homogenization of these disparate texts can be questioned on three counts, concerning their reception, production, and theoretical conceptualization.ReceptionDrawing on Helmut Bonheim's "open definition" (or, rather, loose account) of the subject, Parker presents second-person narration as part of a continuous spectrum of other uses of the second person, such as the apostrophe or direct address to readers or narratees. This allows him to compile and juxtapose a wide range of material with a considerable historical reach. My own sense, however, is that there is a tremendous difference between established, conventional uses of the second person and what I have called "unnatural" uses that do not occur in ordinary discourse and are only found in innovative fiction (Unnatural 18-19; 134-40).1 Consider the difference between the following passages; first, the beginning lines of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men: "You follow Highway 58, going north-east out of the city, and it is a good highway, and new. Or was new, that day we went up it. You look up the highway and it is straight for miles" (3). This is a conventional deployment of "you" to mean "one."Now compare your experience reading those lines with the following: "You are the second person. You look around for someone else to be the second person. But there is no one else. Even if there were someone else there they could not be you ... You make a pathetic effort to disguise yourself in all the affectations of the third person, but you know it is no use. The third person is no one. A convention" (116). The second passage, by W. S. Merwin, is unconventional and much more jarring. It is disorienting, seeming to address the reader and then (perhaps) using this form of address to depict a character's thoughts, producing what David Herman has called "double deixis," something that does not occur in natural discourse and therefore is perceived either as mistaken, unnerving, or ludic. In fact, I would argue that this destabilization of the standard communicative frame is one of the most powerful effects of second-person narration and the reason why many innovative authors choose to use it. I strongly believe that the uniqueness of this effect should be foregrounded and appreciated. The distinction between conventional and nonconventional secondperson forms also extends to digital fiction, as Alice Bell and Astrid Ensslin have convincingly shown: second-person narration in some hypertext fictions "ask for reader input, but they also limit the involvement of the reader by preventing her from identifying with 'you' completely" (313). This distinction is in fact also central in Joyce Carol Oates's story, "You," which at first seems to be an unnatural second-person narration but then is revealed to be simply the apostrophe of a disappointed daughter addressing her absent mother.ProductionParker does an excellent job uncovering authors' statements concerning their decision to use the second person and seems to suggest that the second-person form is typically or especially used to disguise or distance what is essentially a first-person discourse. This is no doubt often the case, and Parker deserves credit for establishing this connection. But often it is not the case, and the authorial "I" is resting far away from the textual "you. …

Brian Richardson

Papers

Keeping You Unnatural: Against the Homogenization of Second Person Writing. A Response to Joshua Parker*