“Enduring Love” by Ian McEwan (post 3): Novel opens with “multiplicity” of “selves”; false clue; transformation, memory gap, and depersonalization

The first three pages of the novel, separated by a space from the rest of chapter one, have three things that caught my attention. The third thing was the “enormous balloon filled with helium, that elemental gas…first step along in the generation of multiplicity and variety of matter in the universe, including our selves…” (1, p. 3). “Multiplicity” and “selves” in the same sentence may not be a meaningless coincidence.

The second thing was that, as five people rushed toward the balloon and its call of distress, the narrating protagonist, Joe Rose, and a stranger, Jed Parry, who are coming from opposite sides of the field, are described as “rushing toward each other like lovers” (1, p. 2). This may be an intentionally false clue, designed to make the reader mistakenly suspect that it is Joe Rose and not Jed Parry who has a sudden psychotic fixation.

The first thing that caught my attention was this: “…we heard a man’s shout. We turned to look across the field and saw the danger. Next thing, I was running toward it. The transformation was absolute: I don’t recall…getting to my feet, or making a decision, or hearing the caution Clarissa called after me…And there, suddenly, from different points around the field, four other men were converging on the scene, running like me. I see us from two hundred feet up…(1, p. 1).

The word “transformation,” especially in combination with a memory gap (“I don’t recall…”), indicates a switch to an alternate personality. This is confirmed by the depersonalization (“I see us from two hundred feet up”), which means that one personality was observing the other personality run toward the balloon.

Two relevant works previously discussed here are Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea, which featured the protagonist’s “sudden transformations,” and Kafka’s Metamorphosis, which was about the protagonist’s transformation. Search “Sartre,” “Kafka,” and “transformation.” Transformation is a literary metaphor for switching from one personality to another.

1. Ian McEwan. Enduring Love. New York, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 1997.