August Strindberg’s The Red Room: Change in Narrative Perspective indicates the Author’s Multiple Personality

I noted in my last post that Strindberg’s first literary recognition was for his novel, The Red Room, in which “the hero is split into three characters” (quoted on page 80 in Michael Meyer’s biography). Now that I’ve read the novel itself, I will try to clarify what this quote may have had in mind.

The novel’s initial “hero” or protagonist, Arvid Falk, does not have a split personality. What happens is that the novel’s perspective begins by being his, but, as the novel progresses, the point of view often switches among several characters. Indeed, the novel ends with our being told by another character how things turned out for Arvid, as though Arvid were no longer the main character, but just someone in the other character’s story.

The reason this happens is that the novelist has more than one narrative personality. These personalities differ, but they all want to publish, and tell the story their own way. Under these circumstances, there are three possibilities:

First, they can take turns, with one of them writing one novel, and another one writing another novel, all under the same name. Second, the different narrators can use pseudonyms and publish under their own names. Third—and this is what I found in Strindberg’s The Red Room—the different narrative personalities take turns within the same novel.

I first became aware of this third possibility when I once read a novel by an eminent contemporary novelist. I mention “eminent” and “contemporary” to indicate that what I’m describing in not an artifact of poor writing skills or of a bygone era.

In the first half of this contemporary novel, there was a heinous crime committed against the main character, and there was no doubt that the implied author condemned this despicable crime. However, in the second half of the novel, the main character became only a secondary character, hardly mentioned, while the criminal became the main character, who was now likable (and the sexual crime was virtually forgotten).

You might think that such a change could never happen, because it would stick out like a sore thumb. But the novelist was such a skillful writer, and this change in perspective and sensibility was so expertly glossed over, that reviews of the book never mentioned it.

Do you know of any other novels that change horses in midstream?

August Strindberg. The Red Room. Translated by Ellie Schleussner. London, Howard Latimer, 1913.