Cantos by Ericka Koehler

This story is very interesting, and I believe one of the few that I have seen narrated in the second person. Generally, the stories I read are in first person or third person. I also have a tendency to write in those grammatical persons. So, reading a story written in the second person is something that catches my attention.

Otsuka uses voice and point of view in a masterful way. The title itself reveals “lost.” “Diem Perdidi” is a Latin title meaning “to lose the day.” This has a lot to do with the story told.

The story is about memory loss. The character of the mother is a person with memory loss. The writer repeats words like “She remembers…” or “She does not remember…” as a resource to narrate, and I feel that using these words makes sense, and it is also indirectly related to memory loss.

The mother’s disease is revealed when the mother begins to forget various information. For example, when the narrator says, “She remembers that you once had a husband, but she refuses to remember your ex-husband’s name. That man, she calls him (Otsuka, p. 673).”

About the author, his technique of using the second person seems interesting and challenging at the same time, and I think it will be good to find more writers who write stories narrating with that grammatical person.

   Work Cited

Otsuka, J. (2012). “Diem Perdidi” in “100 Years of the Best American Short Stories.”

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