“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 3): Narrator (still using “we”) thinks everyone hears rational voices who speak to them in quotable dialogues

Years later, Jean Valjean, now with a different name and identity, is a successful businessman and virtuous mayor. Police inspector Javert suspects his true identity. But a man in another city is misidentified as Jean Valjean and will probably go to prison in his place.

Should the real Jean Valjean step forward and save the misidentified man? He would lose everything, but satisfy his conscience.

Of interest here is the way his conscience manifests itself: as a personified, independent-minded voice in his head.

“…he resumed this sober dialogue, in which it was himself who spoke and himself who listened…

“It is certain that we talk with ourselves; there is not a thinking being who has not experienced that…” (1, pp. 196-197).

But only people with multiple personality hear rational voices who converse with them to this extent:

“At that moment, it seemed to him that he heard a voice crying within him: ‘Jean Valjean!’ ‘Jean Valjean!'

“His hair stood on end; he was like a man who hears some terrible thing.

“…‘Applaud yourself! So it is arranged, it is determined, it is done. Behold a man, a graybeard who knows not what he is accused of, who has done nothing, it may be, an innocent man, whose misfortune is caused by your name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime who will be taken instead of you; will be condemned, will end his days in abjection and horror! very well. Be an honored man yourself. Remain, Monsieur Mayor, remain honorable and honored, enrich the city, feed the poor, bring up the orphans, live happy, virtuous, and admired, and all this time while you are here in joy and in the light, there shall be a man wearing your red blouse, bearing your name in ignominy, and dragging your chain in the galleys! Yes! this is a fine arrangement! Oh, wretch!’ ” (1, pp. 203-204).

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Trans. Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

Good Possession vs. Bad Possession: Since ancient times, in both religion and the arts, being “possessed” (having multiple personality) can be a good thing

In the New Testament, there are two kinds of possession. There is good possession by the Holy Spirit. And there is bad possession by unclean spirits or demons.

In the arts, since antiquity, there has been good possession by one of the inspirational goddesses, called Muses, or by the artist’s personal muse.

In psychological terms, what used to be thought of as possession is now understood as multiple personality. And what used to be thought of as spirits or muses are now understood to be alternate personalities.

Novelists are possessed by both good and bad spirits (alternate personalities), enabling novels to have both heroes and villains.

Search “possession” for previous discussions.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo (post 2): Jean Valjean, the main character, undergoes an internal struggle and becomes “separated from himself”

In the first hundred pages, the narrator continues to refer to himself as “we,” except for one instance of “I” (1, p. 75), without explanation.

Jean Valjean, the main character, is introduced (1, p. 55). He is a 46-year-old man, who has just been released after nineteen years of brutal imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread. His yellow passport will ensure perpetual persecution by society, against which he feels violent hate.

However, he encounters the good Bishop Bienvenu, whose respectful, kindly treatment evokes a countervailing attitude in Jean Valjean, so that “…a gigantic and decisive struggle had begun between…wickedness and…goodness…One thing was certain…he was no longer the same man…and was already so far separated from himself…He veritably saw this [wicked] Jean Valjean, this ominous face, before him. He was on the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horror-stricken by it…He beheld himself then, so to speak, face to face…Where did he go? Nobody ever knew” (1, pp. 97-99).

Has the brutalized, wicked Jean Valjean been replaced by a good personality? Will the narrator continue to discuss radical, personal dividedness, and the switching between alternate personalities, in spiritual terms only? On the back cover, Hugo is quoted as calling this novel “a religious work.”

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

“Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo: Narrator refers to himself as “we.” What is the reason for this nosism?

For example, the narrator says, “We must confess…” (1, p. 21).

And I suppose the usual explanation would be literary convention. Did most narrators of 19th-century French novels refer to themselves in the plural? I don’t know, but even if they did, why did they do it?

There are two reasons usually given for nosism (2). One is that the person is grander than the ordinary individual and represents many people, as in the royal or editorial “we.” Another purpose is to make the audience feel included, as when a writer seeks to engage the reader. But “We must confess” seems to be about the narrator, personally.

Is the narrator plural, in the sense of having multiple personality trait? As I continue to read, I will see if there is anything further to support that, or any related, possibility.

Les Misérables, which I have just started, is daunting in length, 1260 pages (1). And I don’t know whether I will see it through or how long it will take. But, so far, I am encouraged by the way it is written.

1. Victor Hugo. Les Misérables [1862]. Translated by Charles E. Wilbour. New York, The Modern Library, 1992.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism

“The Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford (post 2): Narrator claims “a silent listener,” infers “a dual personality,” and has trouble controlling characters

For whom do novelists write? They write primarily to suit themselves, and secondarily to suit readers. Where are the readers? Out in the world somewhere. The one place with no readers is the room where the novelist is writing. Please read the following with that in mind:

“I have, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in a country cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of the wind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the story as it comes. And when one discusses an affair—a long, sad, affair—one goes back, and one goes forward” (1, p. 143).

Thus, the story is not being told via the written novel to readers out in the world somewhere, but to “a silent listener” in the same room. But how can there be two persons in a room that has only one person, the writer? The only way would be for the writer to have multiple personality.

Is there any other evidence that the narrator has multiple personality? Yes, he infers it about himself, twice: “It is as if one had a dual personality…” (1, p. 85). “I suppose that my inner soul—my dual personality…” (1, p. 96).

As to why the narrator tells the story in such “a very rambling way,” in which he goes back and forth in time, he says “…I cannot help it. It is so difficult to keep all these people going” (1, p. 169). That is, the narrator gets much of the story from the characters themselves, but they are not continuously available and completely cooperative, which means they have a degree of independence that would make them alternate personalities.

Comment

In my previous post, I raised the question of how this novel’s famous first line—“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”—could be true. Perhaps the “silent listener” (see above) is expressing his opinion.

1. Ford Madox Ford. The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion [1915]. Oxford University Press, 2012.

“The Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford: How can first line—“This is the saddest story I have ever heard”—be true for first-person protagonist?

I am halfway through this author’s masterpiece, whose famous first line (see above) is puzzling: How can the first-person narrator, who is one of the main characters, speak of the story as something that was told to him?

Looking for opinions online, I find that some writers simply ignore the issue, but that of those who address it, there are two approaches: 1. rationalizing it (making excuses for it) and 2. taking it as the first evidence of an unreliable narrator.

Rationalization
"This is the line written by John Dowell that opens the novel...The word choice in this quotation is very important. This is the saddest story that Dowell has ever heard. The word 'heard' implies that he has not lived the story or experienced the events, but merely 'heard' about them. His statement is accurate. Although Dowell was present in many of the scenes he described, his eyes were closed to the reality of what was occurring. He was so blind, ignorant, or naive, that the significance of the events can only be felt as he writes and reflects upon what has happened" (1).

Unreliable Narrator

" 'This is the saddest story I have ever heard.' What could be more simple and declaratory, a statement of such high plangency and enormous claim that the reader assumes it must be not just an impression, or even a powerful opinion, but a 'fact'? Yet it is one of the most misleading first sentences in all fiction. This isn't - it cannot be - apparent at first reading, though if you were to go back and reread that line after finishing the first chapter, you would instantly see the falsity, instantly feel the floorboard creak beneath your foot on that "heard". The narrator, an American called Dowell (he forgets to tell us his Christian name until nearly the end of the novel) has not 'heard' the story at all. It's a story in which he has actively - and passively - participated, been in up to his ears, eyes, neck, heart and guts. We're the ones 'hearing' it; he's the one telling it, despite this initial, hopeless attempt to deflect attention from his own presence and complicity. And if the second verb of the first sentence cannot be trusted, we must be prepared to treat every sentence with the same care and suspicion. We must prowl soft-footed through this text, alive for every board's moan and plaint” (2).

Are there any other possible explanations?

1. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/goodsoldier/quotes/

2. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/07/fiction.julianbarnes

3. Ford Madox Ford. The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion [1915]. Edited with Introduction and Notes by Max Saunders. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.

“The Overstory” by Richard Powers (post 3): Multiplex narrative structure not for me, so I stopped reading it

This novel’s book flaps describe its intended readership:

“The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range form antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

“The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity’s self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us?”

As Richard Powers said in an interview, this book was written by his multiple personalities. In the words of the book flaps, each personality tells its own “fable,” and these fables are “interlocked.” This kind of multiplex narrative structure is congenial to some readers, but annoying to others.

1. Richard Powers. The Overstory. New York, W. W. Norton, 2018.

“The Overstory” by Richard Powers (post 2): Trees call on characters to protect them, and characters reflect author’s multiple personality

In the previous post, the author, quoted from a published interview about this novel, said that he enjoyed the writing process, because it unleashed his “multiple personalities.”

One-third into the novel, two characters have had symptoms reflective of the author’s multiple personality.

Of Patricia Westerford, a tree biologist, it is said (note italics in the original): “Something stops her. Signals flood her muscles, finer than any words. Not this. Come with. Fear nothing” (1, p. 128). As discussed in past posts on italics (search “italics”), their use here indicates communication from an alternate personality.

Olivia Vandergriff, a college student, who has recently recovered from a brief cardiac arrest, starts to experience communication from “presences”:

“There, the presences—the only thing to call them—removed her blinders and let her look through…Something’s watching—huge, living sentinels know who she is…She will do whatever they ask…They speak no words out loud…They’re part of her, kin in some way…You were worthless, they hum. But now you’re not. You have been spared from death to do a most important thing…Disembodied entities from the far side of death make themselves known, here, now…” (1, pp. 158-163).

Of course, within the context of the story, these communications from alternate personalities are meant to be interpreted by the reader as coming from trees, whom the characters are being called to protect.

1. Richard Powers. The Overstory. New York, W. W. Norton, 2018.

“The League of Youth” by Henrik Ibsen (post 2): Interpretation that Hedda Gabler had split personality is supported by Ibsen’s thinking in those terms

In my previous post on Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, I cited clues in the play that suggest Hedda had multiple personality. But is there evidence in any of Ibsen’s plays that he ever actually thought in those terms?

The League of Youth, an early Ibsen play, is usually cited today for having one situation and a bit of dialogue that anticipate A Doll’s House. But the following passage shows that Ibsen had also been thinking about split personality.

“A patchwork! I’ve known him all his life. His father was a little wizened idler — a scarecrow, a nobody. He ran a little general shop, with some pawnbroking on the side — or, more accurately, it was his wife who ran it. She was coarse and gross — the most unwomanly woman I’ve ever known. She had her husband declared unfit to manage his affairs. She hadn’t a kindly thought in her…That was the home where Stensgård grew up. He went to the grammar school. ‘He must be educated,’ said the mother, ‘he’ll make a fine debt-collector.’ An ugly life at home — high ideals at school; his mind, his character, his will, his talents, all pulling different ways…what else could it lead to but a split in his personality?” (1, Act 5, p. 126).*

* [translator’s note] “a split in his personality: This looks like an anachronism now that ‘split personality’ has become such a part of our fashionable psychological jargon, but ‘splittelse i personligheden’ is what Ibsen wrote” (1, p. 332).

Why had Ibsen been thinking about split personality? Had he read about it? Did he know anyone who had it? Did he have it? If you are an Ibsen scholar, maybe you can answer those questions.

1. Henrik Ibsen. “The League of Youth: A Comedy in Five Acts” [1869], pp. 23-143, in A Doll’s House and Other Plays by Henrik Ibsen. Trans. Peter Watts. London, Penguin Books, 1965.

“Christina Alberta’s Father” by H. G. Wells (post 3): In contrast to Don Quixote, Wells’ protagonist does not have multiple personality

In my first post on H. G. Wells, quoting his autobiography, I noted he did not have multiple personality. But my second post on Wells, on his novel, Christina Alberta’s Father, was inconsistent with that, because the first half of the novel appeared to be setting up a story of unlabeled multiple personality (which is characteristic of authors who do have multiple personality).

I have now finished the novel, and the father, Mr. Preemby (who came to believe he was King Sargon), did not revert back to his true, Preemby identity, at the end, although the strength of his Sargon identity did lessen. (In contrast, Don Quixote did revert back to his true identity at the end.) Moreover, it had become increasingly clear that his Sargon identity was a psychotic delusion, not an alternate personality.

Some readers might think that all alternate personalities are psychotic delusions, and that multiple personality, per se, is psychotic. But as I’ve said in many past posts, multiple personality is not a psychosis. This is true, not only because the host personality usually has a quite conventional view of reality, but because the alternate personalities are rarely psychotic.

As I discussed in past posts on Don Quixote, the Don Quixote alternate personality is comically exaggerated to appear out of touch with reality (e.g., tilting at wind mills), but his ability to maintain his longterm relationship with Sancho Panza is very significant. Truly psychotic people have poor, estranged, interpersonal relationships. But people with multiple personality often maintain close relationships, sometimes even to the point of entanglement.

In Christina Alberta’s Father, when Mr. Preemby’s Sargon identity is strongest, his interpersonal relationships are nil, and he gets committed to an insane asylum. Wells tries to romanticize Sargon, but true psychosis is neither romantic nor comical.

In conclusion, H. G. Wells is an example of the 10% of novelists who do not have multiple personality, and this novel reflects it.

“Christina Alberta’s Father” by H. G. Wells (post 2): As in “Don Quixote” (post 7), protagonist switches his name and personality, and tries to save the world

As quoted from his autobiography in the previous post, H. G. Wells said he had known people who had multiple personality, and concluded that he, himself, did not have it. But since he did show interest in the subject, I wanted to read one of his more psychological novels.

I am halfway through Christina Alberta’s Father, whose back cover describes it as a “comic novel” that “explores the fine line between insight and madness. Make the acquaintance of Mr Preemby — or should that be Sargon, King of Kings?” (1).

Just as Cervantes’s character, Alonso Quixano, switches to his alternate personality, Don Quixote, who thinks he can save the world (search “Don Quixote” to see past posts), so Wells’s character, Mr. Preemby, switches to his alternate personality, Sargon, who hopes to save the world.

The switch from Preemby to Sargon happens during a séance, but the narrator says Preemby had already had many behind-the-scenes alternate personalities, and it just happened that the séance brought out the Sargon one.

Halfway through the novel, Sargon, who sees himself as a king from antiquity, is trying to orient himself to 1920s London.

“So he walked up and down his little upper room in Midgard Street and elaborated his conception of his new role as lord and protector of the whole world…‘I must watch and observe. But not for too long. There is action. Action gives life. That fellow Preemby, poor soul, he could look at things, but dared he lift a finger? No! Everywhere suffering, everywhere injustice and disorder…and he did nothing…Awake!…The High Path…Honor. Sargon calls…H’rrmp…’ ” (1, pp. 193-194).

It is noteworthy that Sargon punctuates his statement with “h’rrmp,” because Preemby, throughout the first half of the novel (way before the séance brings forth Sargon), had been routinely making that same sound. The author evidently means this as confirmation that the Sargon personality is not an artifact of the séance experience, but had long been present and pulling occasional strings from behind-the-scenes.

Will the Sargon alternate personality come to the same end as the Don Quixote alternate personality? I will see.

1. H. G. Wells. Christina Alberta’s Father [1925]. London, Peter Owen Publishers, 2017.

“Labrador” by Kathryn Davis (post 3): The rest of novel continues story in which clearest point is protagonist’s multiple personality

Labrador is a good demonstration of the fact that a whole novel can be pervaded by the protagonist’s multiple personality—epitomized by Kitty and Rogni, her alternate personality—but no book review will tell you.

If the author doesn’t label the multiple personality, most readers, including most reviewers, don’t think of it.

And unlabeled multiple personality is so common in literature that its recognition should be taught in school.

Should fiction writers label the multiple personality in their novels? Not necessarily. Writing and reading are different.

“The Overstory” by Richard Powers: Wins 2019 Pulitzer Prize for novel that employed all his “multiple personalities” and “that was so satisfying”

“…he has poured plenty of himself into the nine main human characters in The Overstory. The most obvious proxy is Nick Hoel: ‘The introspective midwestern creator and outsider, trying to solve the tensions between that intense introspection of his temperament with the outward ambition of his vocation – that’s me.’ But there’s also Mimi Ma, the engineer who represents the pragmatic path Powers might have taken; Neelay, a programmer who loses himself in alternative worlds, and Douglas, the war veteran to whom the author gave his ‘relentless goofy humour’. ‘It was like a five-year-long therapy session where I let all my multiple personalities off the leash and that was so satisfying’ ” (1).

1.  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/16/richard-powers-interview-overstory

“Labrador” by Kathryn Davis (post 2): Rogni, the Angel, is revealed to be Kitty’s alternate personality, but Kitty doesn’t acknowledge it

Kitty tells her older sister, Willie, about an incident in the past. According to Kitty, her angel, Rogni, had kissed Willie. But Willie says it was Kitty who had kissed her, which means that “Rogni” had been Kitty’s alternate personality.

“And then Rogni came in,” I said. “And he held on to you and kissed you.”

“Rogni?”

“The angel.”

“There were never any angels, Kitty,” you said. “Besides, that was you. You were the one who kissed me. How could you forget that?”

“Cut it out, Willie,” I said [still not understanding that Rogni is an alternate personality] (1, p. 80).

In the past incident, Kitty’s regular personality had been watching her alternate personality, Rogni the angel, kiss her sister. Of course, to the sister, it looked like Kitty was kissing her, because Rogni was Kitty’s alternate personality (using Kitty’s one and only body).

Reviewers, like most readers, tend to attune themselves to the narrator’s perspective, and since the narrator, Kitty, is in denial (“Cut it out, Willie.), the reviewers must have missed the point of the above passage, or at least failed to mention it in their reviews.

1. Kathryn Davis. Labrador. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988.

“Labrador” by Kathryn Davis: First fifty pages of praised novel raise questions about narration and characters not raised in book reviews

The first-person narrator, Kathleen (“Kitty”), begins her story when she is five and her sister, Willie, is nine. Kitty is telling the story, not to the reader, but to “you,” who is Willie.

Kitty tells how she became aware of Rogni, a male angel, whom only she could hear and see, and whose existence she had never revealed to Willie until now (the telling of this story). The two young sisters live with their parents, but Kitty sometimes likes to imagine that the sisters are orphans. Both sisters are portrayed as children who readily tell lies (1).

Why is Kitty addressing the narrative to her sister rather than the reader? And since Kitty depicts herself as a child who imagines things that are not true (like a fire when there is no fire), is she imagining Willie and Rogni? And are Willie and Rogni Kitty’s imaginary companions or alternate personalities?

Reviewers don’t wonder about these things (2,3,4,5) and maybe I won’t either by the time I finish the novel.

1. Kathryn Davis. Labrador. New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988.

2. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kathryn-davis-2/labrador/

3. https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-18251-9

4. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/books/the-angel-fell-for-willie.html

5. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/09/books/books-of-the-times-darkness-under-2-sisters-innocence.html

“Hedda Gabler” by Henrik Ibsen: Does Hedda have multiple personality?

According to Ben Brantley’s New York Times review of a 2006 production, Hedda has “multiple personality disorder” (1). I don’t know whether Brantley was being serious or sarcastic. But is there any evidence in the original play that Hedda has a split personality?

At the play's end, after Hedda has just committed suicide by shooting herself in the head, another character comments, which are the last words of the play: “People just don’t act that way!” (2).

Ibsen is reminding us, emphasizing the point, and leaving us with the thought, that Hedda’s behavior is puzzling, and has been for many years. In an old example from earlier in the play, one of the other characters says she has been afraid of Hedda since their school days:

HEDDA: Afraid of me?

MRS. ELVSTED: Horribly afraid. Whenever we’d meet on the stairs you always used to pull my hair…and once you said you’d burn it off.

Hedda says she doesn’t recall that. But at a later point in the play, she indicates that she does recall it. Was she just lying the first time, or does she have one personality who doesn’t recall it and another personality who does?

Another example of Hedda’s puzzling behavior—puzzling even to herself— is an incident regarding a hat belonging to her husband’s aunt:

BRACK: What were you saying about a hat?

HEDDA: Oh, just a little run-in with Miss Tesman this morning. She’d put her hat down there on that chair (Looks at him smiling.) and I pretended I thought it was the maid’s.

BRACK: (Shaking his head.) My dear Mrs. Hedda, how could you do such a thing to that harmless old lady?

HEDDA: (Nervously walking across the floor.) Oh, you know—these things just come over me like that and I can’t resist them. (Flings herself into the armchair by the stove.) I can’t explain it, even to myself.

Puzzling behavior—puzzling even to those who know the person well, and even to the person herself—and inconsistent memory, may be clues to multiple personality, but there is nothing definitive in this play. In the future, I will look to see if any of Ibsen’s other plays is more explicit.

1. Ben Brantley. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/theater/reviews/a-heroine-in-a-hurry-via-ibsen.html

2. Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen’s Selected Plays [including Hedda Gabler, 1891]. Edited by Brian Johnston. Translated by Rick Davis and Brian Johnston. New York, W. W. Norton, 2004.

“Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine” by Gail Honeyman (post 3): Eleanor’s conversations with her “Mum” are virtually diagnostic of multiple personality

People with multiple personality usually hear the voices of their alternate personalities as loud thoughts or voices in their head. But some people with multiple personality are able to visualize their alternate personalities outside themselves, and this ability has been used in therapy: for example, the person visualizes their alternate personalities sitting in a group, and they discuss their problems.

Is that psychotic? No, because the person experiences these voices and visualizations as a subjective experience, something they know that other people cannot hear or see, something that is not objective.

Is it ordinary imagination? No. In ordinary imagination, the person doing the imagining feels they are producing and controlling what is seen and said. Whereas, in multiple personality, the other personalities are experienced as having minds of their own.

Thus, Eleanor’s conversations with her “Mum,” which may have been taking place every Wednesday for twenty years, are virtually diagnostic of multiple personality.

“Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine” by Gail Honeyman (post 2): Eleanor’s multiple personality is unacknowledged (both in novel and reviews)

The novel ends optimistically. Eleanor, after being on the verge of suicide, and then on leave-of-absence from work, is now in psychotherapy, is also in a relationship with Raymond, and is back to work. Moreover, she has stopped binging on vodka every weekend, which she might have been doing for more than a decade. And on Wednesday night, the night of the week she’s been hallucinating conversations with her deceased mother for perhaps the last twenty years, she tells the hallucination “Good-bye…And, just like that, Mummy was gone” (1, p. 316).

Throughout the novel, Eleanor has repeatedly specified that her alcohol binges and her hallucinated conversations have always happened in different parts of the week (the binges on weekends and the hallucinations on Wednesdays). Her consistently separating these two things indicates that the hallucinations were not the major stress of Eleanor’s week. Indeed, these hallucinations came in the middle of the best functioning part of her week (Monday-Friday, when she was working full time). This circumstantial evidence suggests that her conversations with “Mum” were actually, in their own way, supportive.

Of course, these conversations were not with Eleanor’s actual Mum. She was not being visited by the spirit of her deceased, abusive mother on Wednesday leaves-of-absence from hell. No, this “Mum” was one of Eleanor’s alternate personalities, and was, relatively speaking, a nice version of her mother, one who kept Eleanor company every Wednesday evening for the last twenty years (during which time Eleanor graduated from university and then worked full-time for the last nine years).

If a person with multiple personality decides to ignore an alternate personality that she has had for twenty years, that alternate personality might become quiet, but will remain behind-the-scenes. “Mum,” like all of her alternate personalities, is a part of who Eleanor is.

1. Gail Honeyman. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. New You, Pamela Dorman/Viking Penguin, 2017.

“Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine” by Gail Honeyman: Five clues in first third of novel suggest that Eleanor Oliphant has multiple personality

Having chosen this novel because it has been on The New York Times fiction bestseller list for the last thirty weeks (longer than any other novel now listed), I am almost one-third into it, and have found the following quotations to be of interest here:

“When I awoke, it was just after 3 a.m., and the pen and notebook were lying on the floor. Slowly, I recalled getting sidetracked, starting to daydream as the brandy slipped down. The backs of my hands were tattooed with black ink, his name written there over and over, inscribed inside love hearts, so that barely an inch of skin remained unsullied. A mouthful of brandy remained in the bottle. I downed it and went to bed” (1, p. 23).

Readers of the above should be asking themselves whether Eleanor Oliphant’s “tattooing” was done by her: 1. while awake, 2. during sleep, 3. while awake, but during an alcoholic blackout, or 4. while awake, by an alternate personality, during a multiple personality memory gap.

She had not reported a history of alcoholic blackouts, and had described her substantial weekend drinking as only sufficient to keep her painlessly intoxicated but not seriously drunk. If this episode had no special meaning about the character, it would not have been included and highlighted.

“It was only when the air went dead that I noticed I’d been crying” (1, p. 32). Do most people only belatedly realize when they have been crying? In multiple personality, one personality may be crying while another personality is not crying, so the latter may not be immediately aware of it.

“[Polly, the plant she had had for many years] was a birthday present, but I can’t remember who gave her to me, which is strange. I was not, after all, a girl who was overwhelmed with gifts” (1, p. 50). Another gap in her memory. (Memory gaps are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality.)

When “I was in need of soothing” (1, p. 71), she reached for her trusty old copy of Jane Eyre. What is that novel’s relevance? Search “Jane Eyre” to see ten past posts.

“I surprised myself. And whose fault is that, then? A voice, whispering in my ear, cold and sharp. Angry. Mummy. I closed my eyes, trying to be rid of her” (1, p. 94). This may be one more novel that uses italics when quoting the voice of an alternate personality. Search “italics.”

1. Gail Honeyman. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. New York, Pamela Dorman/Viking Penguin, 2017.

“Mr. Fox” by Helen Oyeyemi: Three characters, including a fiction writer, have multiple personality, but book reviews of this novel do not mention it

The three main characters are St. John Fox, a fiction writer, his wife Daphne, and his alternate personality, Mary Foxe.

As the novel begins, Mr. Fox, a novelist, becomes aware of the presence of Mary Foxe, after he had not seen her for seven years (1, p. 2). When Daphne suspects he has a mistress, he explains that “Her name’s Mary…I made her up during the war…Just a precaution for the times I came dangerously close to feeling sorry for myself” (1, p. 85). Actually, he considers Mary to be a love interest, and often thinks he prefers her to Daphne.

As is common in multiple personality fiction, Mary is often incarnated, and appears like a real-life (but magically appearing and disappearing) person, not only to Mr. Fox, but eventually to Daphne, too (although they both always know that Mary is imaginary).

In a long chapter beginning on page 145, St. John Fox is reimagined as a psychiatrist, and Mary Foxe as a model with a psychology degree whom he meets on an airplane on his way back from a psychiatric convention, where he had delivered a paper on fugue states (1, p. 151).

Readers of this blog know that fugue states (search “dissociative fugues”) happen mostly in persons with multiple personality, and are a big version of memory gaps (search “memory gaps”), which are periods of time for which the regular, host personality has amnesia, because one of the alternate personalities had been in control. So in this chapter’s scenario, St. John Fox is a psychiatrist with interests related to multiple personality.

Furthermore, after a date with the psychiatrist (Dr. Fox), Mary loses time, has a memory gap (1, p. 177), suggesting to the alert reader that she probably has multiple personality in this chapter’s scenario.

In a later chapter, Daphne feels a hand on her thigh, and then is surprised to realize it is her own hand, whereupon, a voice in her head, from her own alternate personality, says to her (italics in the original),“Stupid Daphne…” (1, p. 231). So Daphne has multiple personality, too.

Comment

There are two reasons that the many book reviews of this novel do not recognize the blatant multiple personality.

First, Mary Foxe is referred to in the novel as the fiction writer’s “muse,” which is the way all the book reviews refer to her. See my recent post on the definition of “muse.” Mary is critical of Mr. Fox’s novels, but she is definitely not his muse. And even if she were his muse, a psychological muse is just a type of alternate personality.

Second, the text never refers to Mary Foxe as what she obviously is, an alternate personality. And reviewers might not think of it, because they are confused by the term “alternate personality,” thinking it means that two personalities can’t be present at the same time. But alternate personalities are often co-conscious and present at the same time.

In short, this novel is another example of unlabeled, unacknowledged, multiple personality, which is probably in the novel as a reflection of the author’s own psychology.

1. Helen Oyeyemi. Mr. Fox. New York, Riverhead/Penguin, 2011.

Muse: alternate personality who is first one to know what comes next

In discussions of fiction writing, the word “muse” is used in three ways: 1. a real person who helps the writer, 2. a mythical goddess of artistic inspiration, and 3. an internal, alternate personality, sometimes visualized, often heard, or just vaguely thought of as “the unconscious,” who knows what comes next before the rest of the writer’s mind knows, and who may act as an advisor.

How does the muse know? Either the muse has prewritten the story or has gotten it from other alternate personalities. I don’t know how they do it. It’s just a fact that some alternate personalities are mythopoetic. They like to make up stories, often from things the person has experienced or heard about, but which the host and most other personalities may have forgotten or dismissed.

This is what is behind it when fiction writers say their stories and characters “come to them” or that “the book writes itself” (except for the pruning and rewriting, which may be a lot of work).

Search “mythopoetic” to read a post on the mythopoetic function of alternate personalities.

“Milkman” by Anna Burns (post 8): Have any reviewers, including judges that awarded it the 2018 Booker Prize, actually read it in its entirety?

There is nothing further about multiple personality in the rest of the novel. It doesn’t lead to the climax. Indeed, there is no climax, if a climax has to be a little surprising. The title character, the bad guy, dies, just as predicted on page one. And life goes on in 1970’s Northern Ireland.

Does the multiple personality in this novel serve any purpose? Yes, it is the basis of the narrator/protagonist’s behavior, and her behavior drives the story, beginning with her reading-while-walking. The community finds this behavior very weird, because she is not just checking her smartphone (so to speak), but is really engrossed in 19th-century novels like Ivanhoe. People don’t know how a person can do this. But the reader knows (or should know) that she has one personality doing the reading, while another personality is watching where she is going.

The novel never addresses why she has multiple personality. Did it have anything to do with her late father, who had been mentally ill? Had she had any traumatic experiences? Her multiple personality is not only not explained, it is never explicitly acknowledged. (But at least she doesn’t try to kill people, as does the other character with multiple personality, the serial poisoner, “tablets girl.”) [Added April 6: I forgot that a third character, "chef," also has multiple personality.]

This novel is about two things: the protagonist’s behavior and the political/social problems of Northern Ireland in the 1970s. So if you don’t realize that the protagonist has multiple personality, you can’t understand what half of this novel is about.

But when I googled “Milkman Anna Burns multiple personality” or “Milkman Anna Burns split personality,” I didn’t find any book reviews that raised the issue. Had any reviewers actually read the novel in its entirety? Had they glossed over the passages I quoted in previous posts? Or had they just not thought of multiple personality, since it is not explicitly mentioned by the text or in author interviews?

To what extent does the author, herself, know that multiple personality, per se, is in the novel, since, she says, she just wrote what came to her. And she may see what came to her, from her own mind, as ordinary psychology. 

But as I noted previously, in regard to her mentioning the “host” (personality), she may know more than she has been willing to say. Or maybe she would be willing to say more, if an interviewer asked her.

Why does President Trump repeatedly lie about where his father was born?

I just heard in the news that President Trump said his father was born in Germany; whereas, his father was actually born in New York. And I see online that this is at least the fourth occasion on which he has told this particular lie.

Like Trump’s many other lies, this lie is so preposterous and easily checkable that any ordinary explanation just won’t work. And he is not stupid, so why would he do it?

In line with my previous speculation that Trump has multiple personality trait, I wonder if this lie can be attributed to an alternate personality. Keep in mind that multiple personality may be thought of as multiple reality, since each alternate personality has its own view of reality, which, unlike the reality of the host personality, may not be objective reality.

One possibility would be an alternate personality who sincerely believes that his father was born in Germany.

Another possibility would be an alternate personality who is designed to tell momentarily convenient lies in total disregard of later consequences, because it has no sense of the future, and lives purely in the moment.

“Milkman” by Anna Burns (post 7): Tablets Girl, a serial poisoner, leaves written evidence of multiple personality

After tablets girl is murdered, her sister finds a handwritten letter: “It was written in her sister’s hand and seemed to be a private missive written by some aspect of tablets girl to another aspect of herself” (1, p. 262).

It is reported that one of tablets girl’s named aspects had “killed” another of her named aspects: “So it was that Terror Of Other People overruled, disordered, and then finally assassinated Lightness and Niceness” (1, p. 267).

About which the narrator says: “Never do they realise, these psychological usurpers and possessors, that in dispensing with the host — with the one being above all whom they need for their own survival — inevitably they are also dispensing with themselves” (1, p. 267).

Comment

In the past six posts, there is evidence suggestive of multiple personality in both the author and this novel, but since it is not labeled as multiple personality, it has been unclear whether the author thought of it in those terms.

In the above quotes, there is still no explicit labeling of tablets girl’s “aspects” as alternate personalities, and still no use of explicit terms like multiple personality or split personality.

However, the narrator’s use of the word “host,” as in host personality, suggests that the narrator is, indeed, thinking in terms of multiple personality, per se.

1. Anna Burns. Milkman. Minneapolis Minnesota, Graywolf Press, 2018.