“Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys (2): Identity issues

This is a very short, 103-page novel (1) in which the early pages include people close to the protagonist in her childhood, so it is peculiar that the protagonist’s name, Antoinette, is not mentioned until page thirty-one.

Earlier than that, on page sixteen, the protagonist says, “Watching the red and yellow flowers in the sun thinking of nothing, it was as if a door opened and I was somewhere else. Not myself any longer.”

Comment: In this “Jane Eyre” prequel, the protagonist has identity issues before Rochester renames her Bertha and keeps her in the attic. However, while Antoinette/Bertha may have had multiple personality disorder (I’ll see when I read further), the author, like most admired novelists, probably had multiple personality trait (see prior post).

1. Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea [1966]. Edited by Judith L. Raskin. A Norton Critical Edition. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

Jean Rhys (post 1): Best known as author of Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), is said to have identity issues

I plan to read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

“She is a writer of many identities and aspects” (1, p. xi).

“Jean Rhys was a pen name…She was christened Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams…Gwendolen is the spelling on her tombstone, and the one she used in her autobiography…she hated the name Gwendolen (which she learned means white in Welsh), just as she hated being the palest of her siblings: they had brown eyes and hair, and she had blue eyes, fair skin and lighter hair… 

“Dominica, where she was born… still a wildly beautiful island…was a colony of Britain with a long history of slavery and white English hegemony. But, unusually in the Caribbean at the time, this was challenged by a powerful, mixed race elite…She was perhaps of mixed race, not uncommon among Creoles, but an issue for Rhys’s mother’s family, who liked to think their bloodline was only English…Rhys’s father was Welsh.” 

“She had a dark-skinned nurse, Meta, who often played on her child’s credulity, and told her terrifying stories of spirits and demons…Rhys was contradictory about race…there is a sense of forbidden love across racial caste lines…in Wide Sargasso Sea. Then, in the Black Exercise Book, she wrote of being sexually and psychologically abused by an old Englishman, Mr. Howard…The narrative of a young female victim of sexual abuse is clearly one source of the sexual inhibition or emotional masochism that most of Rhys’s protagonists display…” (1, pp. 1-4).

“Rhys adopted a first name as her writing name, which, depending on the context, could signify either gender (Jean as French is a man’s name, and as English a woman’s)” (1, p. 19).

“Rhys’s major characters often have a contradictory and hardly stable sense of self” (1, p. 22).

1. Elaine Savory. The Cambridge Introduction to Jean Rhys. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

“Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett (post 3): What makes novels a great read? 

The appendix to this edition of Bel Canto (1) includes “Ann Patchett’s Ten Great Reads,” which includes two novels discussed in this blog: The Ambassadors by Henry James and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. 

The title of The Ambassadors is plural, because the protagonist has "double consciousness" (multiple personality). And Anna Karenina is thrown under the train by her alternate personality (as explained in past posts).

In contrast, Bel Canto does not have any characters with prominent multiple personality issues, but it was award-winning and based on a real life event (2), which might impress some readers.

1. Ann Patchett. Bel Canto [2001]. New York, Harper Perennial Olive Edition, 2010.

2. Wikipedia. Bel Canto (novel). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Canto_(novel)

“Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett (post 2): How can one of Patchett’s characters recall something to which he had not paid attention?

After one of Patchett’s characters has missed most of what another character has said to him, “he stopped and made himself recall the entire sentence. He could do that. It was as if he had a tape recorder in his head” (1, p. 253).

1. Ann Patchett. Bel Canto [2001]. New York, Harper Perennial Olive Edition, 2010.

The following past post explains how such a thing could be possible.

2018

“The Red House Mystery” by A. A. Milne (author of “Winnie-the-Pooh”): Novel may reflect author’s multiple memory banks, typical of multiple personality

At the beginning of this novel, Antony—an amateur detective, who eventually solves the murder mystery—mentions that he has an eidetic or photographic memory.

But since it turns out that this talent is not essential to solving the mystery, and is not mentioned in most of the rest of the novel, why is it in this novel at all?

And it is a very peculiar kind of photographic memory, for it seems to involve two memory banks, with one of them recording memories outside the awareness of the other, which you would expect to find only in persons with multiple personality.

“Antony…had a wonderfully retentive mind. Everything he saw or heard seemed to make its corresponding impression somewhere in his brain; often without his being conscious of it; and these photographic impressions were always ready for him when he wished to develop them” (1, p. 23).

“Well, I can’t explain it, whether it’s something in the actual eye, or something in the brain, or what, but I have got a rather uncanny habit of recording things unconsciously…I mean my eyes seem to do it without the brain consciously taking part.” (1, p. 58).

He gives an example of remembering how many steps there are at the entrance to a building that he had previously visited. His regular memory would not know how many steps there had been, but if he now wanted to know, then his other memory bank would provide him with a photographic image of the steps, allowing him to count them (1, p. 58).

These multiple memory banks are suggestive of multiple personality, in which the host personality is helped by an alternate personality, who has remembered things that the regular personality had not.

And since neither the plot nor character development of this novel requires the protagonist to have this, it probably reflects the author’s own mentality.

Search “gratuitous multiple personality” for previous discussions.

1. A. A. Milne. The Red House Mystery [1922]. Smoking Gun Mystery Books, 2017. 

“Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett: Author’s most celebrated novel (1) describes, in passing, a purported method of child sexual abuse

“He had lived his life as a good father but now Oscar Mendoza saw again his life as a boy. A daughter was a battle between fathers and boys in which the fathers fought valiantly and always lost…Oscar himself had made too many girls forget their better instincts and fine training by biting them with tender persistence at the base of their skull, just where the hairline grew in downy wisps. Girls were like kittens in this way, if you got them right at the nape of their neck they went easily limp. Then he would whisper his suggestions, all the things they might do together…His voice traveled like a drug dripped down the spiraling canals of their ears until they had forgotten everything, until they had forgotten their own names, until they turned and offered themselves to him, their bodies sweet and soft as marzipan. Oscar shuddered at the thought" (2, pp. 151-152).

Comment: Most persons with multiple personality have a history of childhood trauma (such as, but not necessarily, child sexual abuse). Why is this well-written passage in the book? Does it contribute to the plot or character development, or did it have a personal meaning for the author?

Search “Patchett” for posts on other works.

1. Wikipedia. Bel Canto (novel). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Canto_(novel)

2. Ann Patchett. Bel Canto [2001]. New York, Harper Perennial Olive Edition, 2010.

“Psycho” by Robert Bloch (post 3): Protagonist has some multiple personality symptoms, but a diagnostically unclear conclusion

I would not recommend this novel to learn about multiple personality.

1. Robert Bloch. Psycho [1959]. New York, The Overlook Press, 2021.

“Psycho” by Robert Bloch (post 2): Woman who will stop at Norman Bates’ motel hears the voice of her own italics-rendered alternate personality

After Mary Crane steals money and takes a wrong turn in her getaway car, the voice of her alternate personality says, in italics, “Get a grip on yourself now. You can’t afford to be panicky…

“It was true, she told herself. The worst part was over. The worst part had come yesterday afternoon, when she stole the money” (1, p. 17).

Comment: Why does this character have multiple personality, too? Possibly because it reflects the multiple personality trait of the author, who, judging by himself, considers it ordinary psychology.

However, Mary, like the author, would have only multiple personality trait; whereas, Norman, who is mentally ill, has multiple personality disorder.

Search “italics” for discussion of similar use of italics by other writers.

1. Robert Bloch. Psycho [1959]. New York, The Overlook Press, 2021.

“Psycho” by Robert Bloch (post 1): As novel begins, protagonist has at least three personalities

Norman Bates argues with “Mother,” who demeans him as a forty-year-old “Mamma’s Boy.” However, rendered in italics, another voice advises him: "She’s an old woman, and not quite right in the head. If you keep on listening to her this way, you’ll end up not quite right in the head, either. Tell her to go back to her room…And she’d better go there fast, because if she doesn’t, this time you’re going to strangle her…"(1, p. 16).

Comment: So far, the novel differs from Hitchcock's movie in two ways. In the novel, Norman has more than two personalities, as do most people with multiple personality. Also, he is "plump" (like Hitchcock), unlike the actor Hitchcock cast for the part.

1. Robert Bloch. Psycho [1959]. New York, The Overlook Press, 2021.

Alfred Hitchcock: With films like “Psycho,” “Rebecca,” and “Strangers on a Train,” his biography’s index should have included “multiple personality”

Even Wikipedia knows that Norman Bates in Psycho has multiple personality (1). My past posts on the authors of novels Rebecca and Strangers on a Train explain why I think they involve multiple personality, too. So I’m surprised to see that the index of a recent biography on Hitchcock has no entry for split personality or multiple personality (2).

Hitchcock’s making multiple movies based on novels involving multiple personality doesn’t necessarily mean that he, personally, had multiple personality, but it should have been enough to arouse a biographer’s interest and the interest of reviewers of that biography.

Search “Patricia Highsmith” (Strangers on a Train), “Daphne du Maurier” (Rebecca) and “Rebecca.”  [a related novelist, George du Maurier, wrote the multiple personality novel, Trilby, introducing the famous character, Svengali]

1. Wikipedia. "Psycho (novel)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(novel)

2. Edward White. The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock: An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense. New York, W. W. Norton, 2021.

Why would anyone think multiple personality is rare? [originally posted 2014]

Since all humans are members of the same species, most things that are found in any one person are also found in many other people.

Conditions are rarely diagnosed for three reasons:

1. Rare genetic disorders

2. Special Situations: including infections, weather, diet, toxins, radiation, trauma, culture, and fads.

3. Diagnostic ignorance

Most skeptics do not claim that multiple personality does not exist. They admit that there have been valid cases. All they claim is that valid cases are rare, because, they say, it is a culturally-bound phenomenon and a recent fad.

But the fact is that multiple personality and other dissociative conditions are not culture-bound. They occur all over the world (1).

Is multiple personality a recent fad or a modern artifact? Well, “demon possession” has been reported since biblical times. So if you think that multiple personality is a recent fad, you have to believe in demons.

Then, if multiple personality is neither a rare genetic disease nor culture-bound nor a recent invention, is its alleged rarity a matter of diagnostic ignorance? Who are these skeptics who allege that multiple personality is rare? Not the American Psychiatric Association, whose diagnostic manual, DSM-5, says that the prevalence of multiple personality disorder (called “dissociative identity disorder”) is greater than the prevalence of schizophrenia.

Then who are these skeptics? They are people who, if you ask them, will admit that they, themselves, have never made the initial diagnosis of even one of those allegedly rare, but valid, cases. They are people who—no matter how otherwise brilliant or expert—have never demonstrated diagnostic expertise in regard to multiple personality.

Do you need diagnostic expertise? Is multiple personality the only disorder in the diagnostic manual that is relatively common, but rarely diagnosed? Another example is body dysmorphic disorder. The diagnosis is usually missed, because, like multiple personality, people who have it rarely volunteer their symptoms.

I have addressed skepticism about multiple personality before, and made other points—regarding normal childhood psychology; how the symptoms are usually camouflaged and kept secret; and how the Freudian model of the mind tricks people into thinking that multiple personality is logically impossible—but I think it is worthwhile to revisit skepticism from time to time, because prejudice against multiple personality is so common, and the skeptics think that they are so enlightened and clever.

1. George F. Rhoades Jr PhD and Vedat Sar MD (Editors). Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: Not Just a North American Phenomenon. New York, Haworth Press, 2005.

Afraid of You, Multiple Personality Hides, But Leaves Clues

One kind of clue is out-of-character behavior and puzzling inconsistency.

Another clue is a memory gap, which occurs when one personality does not recall what happened during the period of time that another personality was in control. For example, an emergency room patient may know why she is there, because she sees the bandage on her wrist, but if asked if she actually recalls cutting her wrist, she may not. If the time of a memory gap includes travel, it is called a “dissociative fugue,” like the famous, real-life experience of Agatha Christie.

Another clue may be pseudonyms: multiple names, nicknames, and spellings of names that are privately meaningful. Novelist Ernest Hemingway had about twenty (search Hemingway). Pseudonyms may be names of alternate personalities, but you may not realize it until the personalities feel their cover has been blown and they actually admit, in conversation with you, their separate senses of personhood.

Persons with multiple personality may see alternate personalities when they look in a mirror. Such mirror experiences and the secrecy of the names of alternate personalities may be the basis of fairy tales like Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin. Occupations that call for multiple identities include spies, acting, fiction writing, and confidence men (search posts on acting and novels involving those occupations).

Multiples (persons with multiple personality) may hear voices of alternate personalities in their head, and may even argue with them.

Multiples may get a reputation as liars, because different personalities may believe and remember different things.

Multiples may have episodes of childlike (not simply childish) behavior, due to child-aged alternate personalities.

In short, multiple personality is obvious once you learn the names of alternate personalities and can call them out to speak with you, but prior to that, you need to recognize clues.

Literary Review Standards: The case of the protagonist who forgot how to drive

Rose loved to drive, had to drive, because “I had found a tightness in my chest. Some nights it woke me up, and I would lie there, taking shallow breaths…The only time it seemed to go away was when I was driving” (1, p. 31).

When she found out she was pregnant, she decided not to tell her husband or her mother or where she was going, but simply planned to drive far away, out of state, to a home for unwed mothers.

The puzzling inconsistency of her driving skills is notable: “After I left the doctor’s office, after he had shaken my hand and said congratulations, I drove the car out onto the freeway and couldn’t remember how to drive. I pulled over into the breakdown lane and pressed my forehead against the steering wheel…I kept thinking, someone is going to open the passenger side door and tell me what to do…but no one came” (1, pp. 33-34).

Comment: In multiple personality, alternate personalities may differ in their skills. One personality may know how to drive, but another personality may not. Did the author know this? Had she had puzzling inconsistencies in her own skills? If a review of this novel (2) fails to note the protagonist’s definite symptom of multiple personality, the review is inadequate.

1. Ann Patchett. The Patron Saint of Liars [1992]. New York, Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

2. Alice McDermott. “A Sense of the Miraculous.” New York Times. July 26, 1992. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/26/books/a-sense-of-the-miraculous.html

“The Sun Also Rises” (post 3) by Ernest Hemingway: Bizarre Opening

The most outstanding and bizarre feature of this novel is the beginning of its first page with the name and backstory of Robert Cohn, an interesting, but secondary, Jewish character.

Why doesn’t the novel begin with the first-person protagonist, Jacob Barnes, and/or his love interest, Lady Brett Ashley, the two characters at the novel’s end?

Hemingway may have thought that a Jew and antisemitism would be an attention-getting opening, which it may have been, but it appears to me that the author felt he had things to hide and was afraid to discuss himself.

1. Ernest Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises [1926]. New York, W. W. Norton, 2022.

“The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway: Psychological Questions

Jake, the protagonist, is said to have sexual impotence from having gone to war (WWI), but to what extent was his impotence caused by psychological trauma, and what other psychological or gender issues might he have?

In the last sentence of the novel, Jake says, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” But why does this man use the word “pretty”? Is it sexist ridicule of Lady Brett Ashley for what he considers her feminine foolishness? Or is he accidentally revealing his own femininity?

Comment: My past posts on Hemingway’s posthumous novel The Garden of Eden raised the possibility of his having multiple personality, which often includes both male and female alternate personalities. 

1. Ernest Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises [1926]. New York, W. W. Norton, 2022. 

Ernest Hemingway: Before reading his first novel

My past posts on Hemingway mainly concerned his posthumous novel, The Garden of Eden, which, I found, clearly involves multiple personality of both the main female character and the main male character, a novelist.

Now, in planning to read Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, I am somewhat taken aback by the fact that its male protagonist, Jake, is said to be impotent (from war injuries). I can see how this might be symbolic of WWI’s “lost generation,” but it still seems rather odd for a male novelist’s first novel, especially a novelist later known for his macho public persona. 

“Comforts of the Abyss: The Art of Persona Writing” (post 2) by Philip Schultz, Pulitzer Prize poet and founder of a creative writing school

Schultz usually speaks in terms of “persona,” but he occasionally reveals his understanding that fiction writers have multiple “orchestrated personalities, the great democracy of voices we carry around within us”; and he describes an occasion when he, himself, heard two such voices arguing.

Personalities Within Us

“Occasionally, when suggesting to [a writer] what might be hidden behind a strand of dialogue, an abbreviated scene…stuttering, coughing, or squirming erupts. Whatever is causing such upset, I may then suggest, might be seen as an opportunity to find an “I” or “We” or “You” brave, tolerant, and opinionated enough to confront the origins of their discontent. That inside their assembly of orchestrated personalities, the great democracy of voices we carry around within us, an “I” exists [who will be, to borrow a phrase from Walt Whitman], “the bard of personality” (1, p. 210).

Voices Arguing

“This morning, walking along the ocean on a splendid July morning here in East Hampton, I found myself eavesdropping on an argument between two strenuous points of view. I at first ignored the intrusion but then, looking around and seeing no one, realized that the argument was one I was having with myself…” (1, p. 214).

1.Philip Schultz. Comforts of the Abyss: The Art of Persona Writing. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2022.

“Comforts of the Abyss: The Art of Persona Writing” (post 1) by Philip Schultz, Pulitzer Prize poet and founder of a creative writing school

Is this about the use of multiple personality as a creative writing technique? I’ll read it and see.

1.Philip Schultz. Comforts of the Abyss: The Art of Persona Writing. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2022.

2. Wikipedia. “Philip Schultz.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Schultz

3. Kirkus. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/philip-schultz-2/comforts-of-the-abyss/

“James Patterson by James Patterson” (post 5): Why would he rather think of himself as “mildly schizophrenic” than as having multiple personality?

Like many people, Patterson may think of multiple personality as crazy.

But it is schizophrenia, not multiple personality, that is classified as a psychosis. And novelists, most of whom have multiple personality trait (not the clinical disorder) usually know, very well, the difference between their fiction and reality (although, while writing, their fiction may sometimes feel “more real than real,” like virtual reality).

And unlike delusional, schizophrenic voices, the voices of multiple personality (which are voices of alternate personalities) sometimes give good advice, and may even function as a writer’s muse.

1. James Patterson. James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of my Life. New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2022. 

“James Patterson by James Patterson” (post 4): He says he has “schizophrenia,” meaning multiple personality

“The other day I was catching a quick lunch at the Surf Side Diner in town. Actually, the Surf Side isn’t that close to the surf. Anyway, I’m alone. Making some notes for a novel I’m doing called Lion & Lamb. I’m having a fine time. Doing what I love.

A man I’ve never seen before comes up and stands over my table.

He finally says, “No friends?”

I look up from my writing. I smile. “Oh, when you’re schizophrenic like me, you’re never completely alone”” (1, p. 338).

Question: How many ways must Patterson, and the other great fiction writers discussed in this blog, say they have multiple personality before you believe them?

1. James Patterson. James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of my Life. New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2022.

“James Patterson by James Patterson (post 3): Proof that if an author’s rational characters hear voices in their head, the author probably does, too

In a past post, from Patterson’s novel Along Came a Spider, I quoted a passage in which the protagonist, Alex Cross, heard voices in his head. And I have quoted the same kind of thing from many other novels. I have inferred that this reflected the way that the author’s mind worked, which is proved by the following:

“Five or six weeks after [anesthesia for] the operation on my lung, my imagination wasn’t working so well. I was present, but I wasn’t present. That occasionally clever little voice in my head that usually asks, What about this? What about that?—there was no voice. I was no longer mildly schizophrenic.

“I wasn’t liking it. It was a bit frightening and, honestly, kind of sad. I was lonely without the voice in my head…Then, slowly, my imagination came back. Now I think it’s working pretty well” (1, p. 314).

Comment: When he says, “I wasn’t present” without the voice, he implies that the voice was part of who he was, the voice of an alternate personality who had a mind of its own and could advise him.

1. James Patterson. James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of my Life. New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2022.

 James Patterson by James Patterson (post 2): Writer’s block and memory gaps are followed by a successful novel featuring multiple personality

“I experienced my first and only bout of writer’s block.” He destroyed the pages he’d been writing. “I don’t remember anything about the story, not a scene, not one character, not even the book’s title…” (1, p. 155). Memory gaps are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality.

Patterson next wrote the novel Along Came a Spider, which, he says, “seemed to write itself” (1, p. 156). It was the first of his successful series featuring police detective-psychologist, Alex Cross. The case revolved around whether or not the criminal had multiple personality disorder.

1. James Patterson. James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of my Life. New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2022.

Added June 10, 2022: The following, from past posts, make a very strong circumstantial case that James Patterson is another great fiction writer with multiple personality trait.

“Along Came a Spider” (post 1) by James Patterson: Both hero Alex Cross and villain Gary hear rational voices, typical of multiple personality.

Since fiction writers hear rational voices in their head (1), they naturally assume that most other normal people do, too. So such voices are often heard by their characters, as a trivial aspect of normal psychology.

However, most people don’t hear such voices. It is people with multiple personality who do. They are the voices of alternate personalities, speaking to the host personality, from behind the scenes.

Alex Cross

“Everything was very noisy inside my head” (2, p. 16).

“…a voice inside me screamed” (2, p. 120).

“A line was sounding in my head: ‘Oh no, it’s tomorrow again” (2, p. 135).

“A phrase drifted through my head. Don’t start anything you can’t finish” (2, p. 178).

Villain with alleged multiple personality

“Gary held his head in both hands. He couldn’t stop the screaming inside his brain. I want to be somebody!” (2, p. 145).

To see the many past posts on this subject, search “voice” and “voices” in this blog.

1. Thaisa Frank, Dorothy Wall. Finding Your Writer’s Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

2. James Patterson. Along Came a Spider [1993]. London, HarperCollins, 2004

“Along Came a Spider” (post 2) by James Patterson: The first novel featuring detective/psychologist Alex Cross misclassifies multiple personality.

Alex Cross is both a police detective and a psychologist (Ph.D.). Do the protagonist’s name, “Cross” (as in, a cross between this and that), and his dual occupations, imply that he has a split personality? Just a thought.

One of the main issues in this novel is whether the murderer/kidnapper, Gary Soneji/Murphy, has a real or fake case of multiple personality. Doctor/Detective Alex Cross says:

“A lot of what he’s told us so far suggests a severe dissociative reaction. He appears to have suffered a pretty horrible childhood. There was physical abuse, maybe sexual abuse as well. He may have begun to split off his psyche to avoid pain and fear back then. I’m not saying he’s a multiple, but it’s a possibility. He had the kind of childhood that could produce such a rare psychosis” (1, p. 221). Another doctor continues:

“Dr. Cross and I have talked about the possibility that Soneji/Murphy undergoes ‘fugue states.’ Psychotic episodes that relate to both amnesia and hysteria. He talks about ‘lost days,’ ‘lost weekends,’ even ‘lost weeks.’ In such a fugue state, a patient can wake in a strange place and have no idea how he got there, or what he had been doing for a prolonged period. In some cases, the patients have two separate personalities, often antithetical personalities…” (1, p. 221).

Cross does mention “dissociative,” but he and the other doctor are in error when they refer to multiple personality as a “psychosis” and fugues as “psychotic.” The widely available psychiatric diagnostic manual, the DSM, includes one chapter for Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders, and, separated by literally two hundred pages, an unrelated chapter for Dissociative Disorders, which includes multiple personality and fugues.

At another point, Cross refers to Gary as a “severe schizophrenic” (1, p. 346). At yet another point, Cross expresses belief in Gary’s split personality, saying that the Gary Soneji personality framed the Gary Murphy personality, “and he’s innocent” (1, p. 382). Near the very end, Cross says, “I was certain he was playing games” (1, p. 432), but it is not clear in what sense Cross means this.

Meanwhile, the novel’s Prologue had fantasized that, back in 1932, it had actually been a twelve-year-old boy who had kidnapped the Charles Lindbergh baby, and that the kidnapper had said to himself, expressing self-satisfaction, “Cool beans” (1, p. 4). (Never mind that, outside this novel, the phrase “cool beans” is not known to have been used before the 1960s.) And Gary, who has sometimes referred to himself as the Son of Lindbergh, also sometimes thinks to himself, “Cool beans” (1, p. 394), perhaps implying that he is the reincarnation of the evil soul of the Lindbergh kidnapper.

To summarize, Alex Cross, psychologist, detective, and, often, first-person narrator, does not understand the distinction between multiple personality and schizophrenia, and never does clearly decide whether or not the villain has been faking mental illness. Meanwhile, a third-person narrator seems to suggest that the villain, Gary, is the evil soul of the Lindbergh kidnapper, reincarnated.

What can account for this inconsistent muddle? It is not stupidity or laziness. The writing shows evidence of high intelligence and hard work. My guess is that the novel was written by a committee of more than one personality.

There is a saying that a camel is a horse made by a committee. But a camel is a noble beast in its own way.

1. James Patterson. Along Came a Spider [1993]. London, HarperCollins, 2004.

“James Patterson by James Patterson” (post 1): Is the title of this memoir an unintentional self-diagnosis of multiple personality?

I will read it to see if there is anything else to support that interpretation.

1. James Patterson. James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of my Life. New York, Little, Brown and Company, 2022.

“The History and Art of Ventriloquism” by Valentine Vox (post 2): Ventriloquists sometimes look like they have multiple personality

“This seemingly schizophrenic [word misused to mean split personality] ability, which ventriloquists develop by talking to themselves, has often been the subject of controversy…Many artists have opened up bank accounts for their figures, listed their names in telephone directories, and even entered them as candidates in election campaigns. Although this showmanship is part of the business of the entertainment world, the ventriloquist’s involvement in this façade is often found suspended between illusion and reality.

“During an engagement in Las Vegas, ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson once waited for his figure Danny to sing the last line of their closing song. The song was performed by Nelson in a rapid exchange of three different voices, but when it came to the final line of the song no sound issued from the figure. Nelson had forgotten for that second that he was providing the voice, and waited for the character to finish the song.

“The care and attention that Herbert Dexter gave to his figure Charlie…resulted in a divorce suit in which his wife named the mechanical figure as co-respondent…and his wife was granted a divorce.” (1, pp 151-155).

1. Valentine Vox. I Can See Your Lips Moving: The History and Art of Ventriloquism (From ancient sages to modern stages. Three thousand years of vocal conjuration). London, Plato Publishing, 1981/2019.