Georges Simenon and William Faulkner: The Autonomy of Their Characters, The Essence of Multiple Personality

Why did Faulkner write a limited number of novels, each of which took him a considerable time to write, while Simenon wrote hundreds of novels, each of which was written in short order? Did Faulkner and Simenon choose to write these different ways? Or were their creative processes largely out of their control, and something to which they had to adjust?

We saw in a past post that Faulkner wrote The Sound and the Fury according to what his characters told him, and that he added a new ending fifteen years after he had finished the book, because, even after fifteen years, the characters of that book were still alive to him, and were still telling him their story.

Simenon, in contrast, says:

“Last night I was in a great hurry to sit down to this notebook for it seemed to me that I had a lot of things to write in it. Now, this morning…My ideas have evaporated…To some extent that’s the reason I have to write my novels so quickly. After a few days, what I call the state of grace threatens to abandon me, and my characters, whom I believed to be very much alive the day before, suddenly have become strangers” (1, p. 10).

With both novelists, the host personality telling us about his writing process would seem to be a kind of editor for what is told to him by autonomous intelligences (characters; alternate personalities). Whether the latter make themselves available to the host for years or days would seem to be their own prerogative and not the host’s.

One person’s having more than one independent, autonomous intelligence is the essence of multiple personality. People without multiple personality don’t have this type of subjective experience.

1. Georges Simenon. When I Was Old. Translated by Helen Eustis. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970/1.