Book contents
- The Stylistics of ‘You’
- The Stylistics of ‘You’
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Table
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Theorising the ‘You Effects’
- PART I Singularising and Sharing
- 2 George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
- 3 Paul Auster’s Ordinary Life and Yours
- PART II The Role of ‘You’ in the Writing of Traumatic Events
- Part III The Author–Reader Channel across Time, Gender, Sex and Race
- PART IV New Ways of Implicating Through the Digital Medium?
- References
- Index
3 - Paul Auster’s Ordinary Life and Yours
Blendable Singularities?
from PART I - Singularising and Sharing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2022
- The Stylistics of ‘You’
- The Stylistics of ‘You’
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Table
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Theorising the ‘You Effects’
- PART I Singularising and Sharing
- 2 George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
- 3 Paul Auster’s Ordinary Life and Yours
- PART II The Role of ‘You’ in the Writing of Traumatic Events
- Part III The Author–Reader Channel across Time, Gender, Sex and Race
- PART IV New Ways of Implicating Through the Digital Medium?
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter 3 focuses on Paul Auster’s autobiographical diptych (Winter Journal (2012) and Report from the Interior (2013)) which are both entirely written in the second-person pronoun. It demonstrates why the pronoun is particularly fitting a choice in the general economy of life writing and memory gathering of Auster’s enterprise. The second-person pronoun is also shown to be instrumental in the interpersonal connection Auster is ethically constructing with his readers, making his own personal experience somehow shareable. ‘You’ positions the reader in a most singular way in the intrapersonal dialogue Auster is having with himself, placing her close to his deictic centre, as a sort of co-habitant of his mental space. The American author’s autobiographical works most unusually written in a doubly subjective ‘you’ indeed pragmatically invites the reader to meet him half way via the ethical vector that the second person represents.
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- The Stylistics of ‘You'Second-Person Pronoun and its Pragmatic Effects, pp. 57 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022