“A Perfect Spy” (post 1) by John le Carré (post 2): In first hundred pages, spy tells how unhappy childhood taught him the “art” of multiple personality.

This is John le Carré’s most autobiographical novel, especially in regard to his childhood.

The following scene takes place when the spy, the protagonist, was a schoolboy, after the latest episode of his chaotic childhood, when he was taking refuge in his school’s staff lavatory:

“He took out his penknife, opened it and held its big blade uppermost before his face in the mirror…He thought of cutting his throat…He pressed his cheek against the wood panelling…The knife was still in his hand. His eyes went hot and blurred, his ears sang. The divine voice inside him told him to look, and he saw the initials “KS-B” carved very deeply into the best panel…

“All afternoon he waited, confident nothing had happened. I didn’t do it. If I went back it wouldn’t be there…

“It was not until evening line-up that the full name of the Honorable Kenneth Sefton Boyd was called out…[Boyd was] Mystified. Mystified himself, [the protagonist] watched [Boyd] go [to get corporal punishment]…

“ ‘It had a hyphen,’ Sefton Boyd told [the protagonist] the next day. ‘Whoever did it [carved ‘KS-B’] gave us a hyphen when we haven’t got one. If I ever find the sod I’ll kill him.

“ ‘So will I,’ [the protagonist] promised loyally and meant every word. Like [his father, he] was learning to live on several planes at once. The art of it was to forget everything except the ground you stood on and the face you spoke from at that moment” (1, pp. 97-98).

Comment

The protagonist had evidently carved the initials in the wood panelling: The initials were carved, and he was right there holding the knife. But he had no memory of doing it—he had a memory gap (search “memory gaps”)—and he did not notice the carving until a voice in his head told him to look.

That is, an alternate personality had carved the letters, and his regular personality had amnesia for what the alternate personality had done. And then a third personality, the voice, told the regular personality to look and see what the alternate personality had done.

“Learning to live on several planes at once” means having several different personalities. As previously discussed in this blog, the “alternate” in “alternate personality” is misleading, because all the personalities are conscious simultaneously, and they alternate only in regard to which one is out in front and is most in control of overt behavior at that moment, “the face you spoke from at that moment.”

It is noteworthy that, even after the protagonist’s regular personality sees, from circumstantial evidence, that he must have been the one who carved the initials in the wood panel, he does not really believe it. Why? Because remembering is believing. And the regular personality does not remember doing it. That is why you can give a person (the regular personality) all kinds of proof, even videotapes showing, that they have multiple personality, and they may still deny it.

In conclusion, this episode in the novel is a description of multiple personality, but since the terminology is not used, the author may not understand it in those terms.

1. John le Carré. A Perfect Spy. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.

[September 16, 2016: I don't plan any more posts on this book.]