One of the most effective elements in Seconds is the constantly shifting dynamic between the narrator and addressee. Bryan Lee O’Malley plays with this relationship in a way that manipulates the narrator, the addressee, and the capable reader.
O’Malley often switches between addressees and narrators. Throughout most of the book this outside voice who I will call The Narrator is telling us the story. This voice will just speak, addressing, us, the readers. The Narrator talks to us, and we believe everything it says. However, The Narrator is also an outside eye, a third party. Katie has her own opinions about what is happening with the magic mushrooms and her new ability to “start anew,” and each reader develops their own. The Narrator poses questions for us and offers insights that it knows as this omniscient force that overlooks this world of Seconds.
For instance, take page 239
Sometimes, though, when the narrator is talking to us, the readers, Katie interjects, as if she was not just a character, but a reader, too, breaking the fourth wall. This forces the reader to pull back from their submission and pay attention to this. Why this sudden shift?
Here is an example (page 11):
Also, we also see in these interjections that Katie is resistant not only to the narrator but to the trajectory of her life. She’s rejecting the fact that’s she’s not okay with being 29 and not where she wants to be in life. (Check out blog 3 for a more in-depth discussion on this cultural code.) Katie is so resistant to really everything before her adventure begins.
Then, as the story progresses, Katie eventually learns from her mistakes. She realizes she cannot ever erase those mistakes. We see that she regrets ever getting into this mess– she wishes she’d never taken on this role. She says,
I never asked for this, Lis. This is not where I thought I’d end up (282).
At this point, the reader is thinking the same thing. We’ve seen Katie do the same thing again and again with results all too similar to the last time (this bears a very close resemblance to the definition of insanity, might I add). The book didn’t end up how we thought it would.
However, this eventually causes a shift within Katie. Katie has the epiphany that everytime she went and erased her mistakes, she entered a new world. She was an entirely new being in an entirely new universe. She took on a readerly role.With this realization, The Narrator says,
Every time she woke up it was as a different person (292).
When Katie took on her new role in each world, in each present, the reader had to take on a new readerly role to adjust to this new Katie and the new world she created. As Katie has this realization, the capable reader looks back and understands the roles that they were taking on and how they were being manipulated. (That is if they were the authentically submissive narrative audience.)
Eventually, we see Katie finally submit to rules of the magic mushrooms in order to go back and fix everything. In this, she is submitting to who she was supposed to be all along. We saw an inkling of this submission earlier. On page 255,
And then she knew. She knew, for sure, deep in her bones, that she wasn’t in control anymore (255.)
That is where Katie begins to acknowledge that she is no longer the controlling force of her own self. The capable readers also face the skeletons in that scene and must acknowledge that We are being manipulated. We must submit.
Both Katie and our final submission- true and authentic submission comes on page 294. Katie says,
But Seconds isn’t ours anymore! We can’t keep holding onto it! (294).
In this instance, “Seconds” refers to both the book and the restaurant. We have submitted and relinquished ourselves unto the powers of the book.
Seconds really forces the reader to become a submissive reader. Even if one intends to read it with a critical lens, it’s impossible to at least be drawn into some parts. My book is marked up in most places, but there are large gaps where it is totally blank for about 50 pages. Also, I was especially resistant at first as one who does not read graphic novels regularly. The readers and Katie both have to become submissive, especially if they are like Katie and are extremely resistant when they first open the book.
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When you mentioned that the narrator says something and Katie contradicts it that this is something we ought to have noticed was a great observation. Sometimes in novels and stories we can glaze over what the narrator is telling us because it is mostly the standard. This narrator, as you pointed out, narrates and then Katie opposes the narrator. Pointing this out really makes those remarks about her character stick out and makes you remember those points. It does not give you the chance to glaze over or forget, which is very clever on O’Malley’s part. On page 11, just as you showed in the blog post, she is driving down the road and arguing with the narrator. “At age 29, she felt like everything was slipping away.” then Katie replies “Um, no.” Which immediately tells a lot about her character and makes the reader remember this instance. I believe O’Malley planned this so we could take note of these little details in our main character.
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You bring to attention many valuable points about the text in terms of the different roles the narrator, addressee and capable reader play. The point that you make regarding that the reader has to take on different readerly roles every time that Katie uses a mushroom to travel back in time is a very interesting since, as you mention in your blog, Katie and the world that she lives in physically changes. Each time that Katie time travels, she becomes a different person, in which the capable reader must take on a different readerly role. This book in particular has a very unique narrator/addresses relationship Katie is very submissive when it comes to the fact of accepting the magic powers of the mushrooms. Maybe that is an example of how submissive the capable reader is when accepting the unreliable narrator? As Jesse mentioned in his comment, we normally do not pay very much attention to the role of the narrator, but in this book, the narrator is as important as the main character.
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This blog post was extremely well-written and successfully evaluates the relationship between narrator, main character, and reader. Because Katie is so human and so flawed, she often contradicts herself. This tendency can often turn Katie into an unreliable narrator, though she does not intentionally mislead or misdirect the audience. Most instances of Katie revealing herself to be unreliable stem from either a feeling of internal shame, or from Katie wanting to hide something from another character or the reader. This character flaw is the exact same one that causes Katie to keep eating the mushrooms and re-doing the past. With help from the narrator, the reader is able to see past Katie’s white lies and evaluate her internal progression throughout the novel. Katie eventually surrenders (or submits) to a world that she no longer has control over. And in this moment, the reader too must come to the conclusion that he or she must also surrender to the text. Great job discussing the role of the reader in this work, it definitely helped me to better understand the novel.
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