If I have dealt at length with this

If I have dealt at length with this short story it was because it illus* trates the potential jntricac.ies of second person fiction much more clearly than some of the book-length exercises in this genre. These, not able to hold the reader's attention level at maximum for an entire novel, content themselves for the most part with "pure" reflector narrative which can easily be recuperated realistically once the figural perspective has beeen sorted out by the reader. Oates's story documents, even more forcefully, that second person fiction has arrived at full literary maturity, no longer a simple experimental trick without particular narrative quality.