I am not the only 'you'

One of the things I find captivating about Aura is the use of the second-person narrative. I don’t think I have ever before read a book written entirely in second person; rather, writers seem to use it only for the occasional dramatic effect. But it achieves so much and does so with such ease and naturalness in Aura that it hardly seems to be an oddity. “It seems to be addressed to you and no one else,” a line from the text reads. Indeed, the whole of Aura seems to be addressed just to me. But I am not the only one who will read this book. I am not the only ‘you.’ Is it possible for a book to create such a feeling of personalness, of intimacy, when the reader is aware that he or she is not special, is not the only one? Who, then, is the book for? Who does the book assume we are? There is an interesting issue about authorship and audience that Aura strives to address through the subtlety of the second-person perspective as well as through the narrative itself.

                “’You’ll learn to write in my husband’s own style,’” Señora Consuelo instructs. To complete the memoirs of her husband, General Llorente, Felipe Montero has to assume an aspect of the deceased man’s identity. I found this to be an interesting quandary of sorts. Montero is writing for another person, telling the story of his life, and has to adopt a new identity in order to do so. Here, the question of authorship and its ties to identity is thrust to the forefront. Montero’s identity is now in flux, dependent to a certain extent on his role as the author of another man's life and the relationships he has with the people who have come into his life as a result of the memoir. The writing of this memoir forms a tie of identity, almost of kinship, between two previously unrelated men the same way the second-person narrative perspective forms a tie of identity between Montero and the reader.