After reading Aura, I realized that, to me, the strangest thing I felt was getting used to the second person point of view that the author was writing in. Maybe it was all the extra attention I paid towards the title in the wake of my failure with Chabon’s The Final Solution, or just the fact that I am always extra wary of books when I read them for this class, but I actually felt that I saw where the story was going from very early on.
What kept throwing me, however, was that the story was written from my point of view, especially with phrases like the one on page 35, where Fuentes tells me that “[I] could enjoy playing with the door, swinging it back and forth. [I] don’t do it.” Well yes Mr. Fuentes, I probably could enjoy playing with a door; I have the attention span of a ten year old and am very easily entertained. That I agree with him on. But then he tells me that I can’t.
See, what disagrees with me in this second person writing is the fact that I can’t disagree. Fuentes is engaging in an exceedingly blatant form of author manipulation when he quite literally tells the reader what to do, over and over again. Furthermore, it feels to me that he takes away our choice in the matter by telling us what our impulses are and overruling them.
I agree that in the English version, the text’s second person narrative is authoritative and quite annoying. What I have yet to consider is from whom exactly is the command from. I understand that you take it to be from Fuentes the author himself, which would make sense considering how his position as the owner of the text gives him rights to do so. Looking at it this way, the consequent general consensus of our class that although he can do such a thing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he should is expectable. What is interesting to me as I think it over, however, is how it all plays out in the Spanish version/ original text that Fuentes intended. Professor Schwartz noted in class of the sense of familiarity and comfort between the Spanish text and its readers, the complete opposite of that between the English version and its audience. So it leads me to believe that perhaps the voice that lures us in isn’t necessarily Fuentes’s himself, but is in fact the same voice that lures and traps Montero in 815 Donceles Street: Consuelo’s. This is because we know that there, too, is a sense of familiarity between Consuelo and Montero, first and mostly evident in the newspaper ad that caught Montero’s attention. This would tie in with the interpretation of other textual evidence as magical realistic mechanisms meant to suspend our disbelieves and take us to the other side of the moby strip as well. Yes, all this talk can just be another case of invention as opposed to detection. But I don’t think the discrepancy invalidates the gravity of such speculations.
ReplyDeleteLiam, I agree with you that the second person narrative took some getting used to. I got used to it, though. In fact, I kind of grew to like it. I thought being told what to do added to the eery feel of the text. It made the read feel like a dream.
ReplyDeleteHung, I agree that the person directing "you," the reader, was likely Consuelo instead of Fuentes. Though, it could all be invention.
While reading House of Danger I thought about how the way the second person narrative felt different than in Aura. While in Aura, we were being manipulated without question, in House of Danger, we at least had the illusion of being in control.
Lilly, I agree with your comment about the illusion of feeling in control in, House of Danger. However, I subliminally was not in control. Montgomery tells us how we feel about the given information and then lets us make our own decision. Our own decision making definitely lets us feel in control, but when Montgomery tells us how we feel he anticipates what page we will turn to; i.e. manipulating our decisions. For example, on page 7 he says "You're eager to begin work on the case as soon as possible.." and then asks us whether we want to go to the given address or wait for Ricardo and Lisa to call us back. After telling us we're excited to begin the case Montgomery clearly expects us to immediately jump into things and go right to the house. I agree with you that this juxtaposes the manipulation without feeling in control in Aura.
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