BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

— Share site with friends.

Thursday, June 3, 2021

“The Twin” by Gerbrand Bakker (post 3): It is illogical to have a first-person narrative by a protagonist who is socially isolated and not a writer


As the last line of this novel emphasizes—“I am alone”—this story is told by someone who is, for all practical purposes, marooned on a desert island.


Why didn’t the author avoid this problem by writing it in the third person? I will offer two speculations.


First, if the author, as a reflection of his own psychology, thought that most people have a normal version of multiple personality, he may have assumed that his protagonist had a hidden alternate personality, who would write down and publish his story.


Another possibility is that the character, having a mind of his own, refused the services of a narrator, and insisted on telling his own story.


1. Gerbrand Bakker. The Twin [2006]. Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer. Brooklyn NY, Archipelago Books, 2009.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)