Theme of the Multiple in “Based On A True Story” by Delphine de Vigan (post 2): Delphine refers to unnamed alternate personalities other then L.

If you do not have the same kind of subjective experiences as many novelists do, then when they describe such experiences, you may mistakenly think that they are speaking only figuratively, in metaphors. But writers mean what they say when they describe feeling something inside them “that wasn’t me”; when they say they hear a “critical voice” that “chuckled, mocked, grimaced,” and that “it” did this or that; when their routine writing process involves turning on “the creature” and that “books imposed themselves on me,” as follows:

“I don’t know how I came to tell L. about the woman at the Book Fair [the book signing episode mentioned in previous post], about my remorse, a bitter aftertaste that lingered. I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment and my reaction; there was something in that scene that revolted me, that wasn’t me” (1, p. 27).

“In reality, when I turned the computer on, as soon as I began to think, the critical voice kicked in. A sort of sarcastic, pitiless superego had taken possession of my mind. It chuckled, mocked, grimaced. It tracked down, even before it had taken shape, the poor sentence which, taken out of context, would provoke hilarity. On my forehead a third eye had been grafted above the two others. Whatever I prepared to write, it saw me coming in my clumsy clogs. The third eye was waiting for me at the corner, demolishing every attempt to begin, unmasking the deception” (1, pp. 120-121).

“There comes a moment when you tell yourself that it’s a matter of discipline, that all you need do is give yourself a good kick in the backside, then you play the game, turn on the creature at the appointed time first thing in the morning…” (1, p. 124).

“Books imposed themselves on me: there was no discussion or negotiation. It wasn’t a choice, it was a path and there was no other” (1, p. 125).

I am still only half way through the book, but it is already clear that you can’t tell this book by its cover. Its cover suggests that Delphine has two personalities. But people with multiple personality almost always have more than two. Real life is rarely a “double” story with “the theme of the double.” Like the real life of most novelists, this novel has the theme of the multiple.

1. Delphine de Vigan. Based On A True Story [2015]. Translated from the French by George Miller. New York, Bloomsbury, 2017.