“It Was All Very Weird” by Robert Gottlieb, reviews Edward Gorey biography: Gorey claims “two parts”; he “puzzled” mother; review neglects pseudonyms

This cover story in tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review ends its first paragraph with this quote from Edward Gorey: “Part of me is genuinely eccentric,” he acknowledged, “part of me is a bit of a put-on. But I know what I’m doing.” Is this a self-diagnosis of two personalities (eccentric and put-on)? People with multiple personality often refer to their alternate personalities as “parts.”

Gottlieb’s whole long review concludes, “His mother, candid as always, summed things up this way: ‘But then, Ted always did puzzle me’ ” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/books/review/edward-gorey-mark-dery-born-to-be-posthumous.html).

People may be puzzling if you don’t know them very well. But if you do know them well (as a mother would) and they are still puzzling, it may be because, unacknowledged, they switch from one personality to another. Please search “puzzling inconsistency” for past posts on this diagnostic clue.

Pseudonyms

Also search past posts on pseudonyms, which may be names of alternate personalities. Gottlieb’s long review neglects this outstanding attribute of Edward Gorey, but another source reports the following:

“The odd trappings Gorey employed extend even to the pseudonyms and anagrams and literary variations, outrageous and hilarious, of his own wonderfully evocative name which he so delighted in playing about with: Mrs. Regera Dowdy; D. Awdrey-Gore; ogdred Weary; Dreary Wodge; Roy Grewdead; Edward Blutig and o Müde – two German equivalents for "Edward Gorey" and "ogdred Weary"; Dogear Wryde; Grey Redwoad; Drew Dogyear; E. G. Deadworry; Raddory Gewe; Aedwyrd Gore; Garrod Weedy; Addée Gorrwy, Deary Rewdgo, Wee Graddory, om, Ydora Wredge, Dedge Yarrow, Roger Addyew, orde Graydew, Gary Dredwoe, Edgar E. Wordy, Dora Greydew, Dewda Yorger, Aedwyrd Goré, Agowy Erderd, Waredo Dyrge, Madame Groeda Weyrd – even Edward Pig!

“ ‘I wanted to publish everything under a pseudonym from the very beginning,’ Gorey told interviewer Robert Dahlin, 'but everybody said, 'What for?' And I couldn't really explain why I wanted to. I still don't know exactly, except that I think what you publish and what you are are two different things. I really don't see that much connection’ ” (from The Strange Case of Edward Gorey by Alexander Theroux).

Gorey doesn’t see much connection between his everyday self and his publishing self—they are like two different people—so he gives the publishing self a different name. Indeed, he appears to contain multitudes (to borrow a phrase from Walt Whitman). Or maybe he has only one publishing personality, but that is the “part of me [who is] a bit of a put-on” and who likes to invent amusing new names for himself each time that he publishes. I would have had to interview Gorey to learn the actual details.

In conclusion, although I can’t say definitively that Gorey had multiple personality, it is worth at least noting the clues to that possibility.