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.

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Friday, November 25, 2022

“The Sea” by John Banville: Why is Booker Prize Novel Disorganized?

Max is the first-person protagonist (1), and “With Max's unreliable, unorganised and omitted iteration of events, we gradually learn…” (2).


Comment: This novel is disorganized, possibly due to the author’s writing process, as discussed in previous posts. For example, Banville would not remember from day to day what he had written the day before, possibly due to multiple-personality memory gaps.


Years ago, I can recall another novel by another author who had won a different major literary prize. I refused to finish reading it, because the story became disorganized; however, reviewers, wanting to appear sophisticated, said the novel's disorganization was a feature, not a bug.


1. John Banville. The Sea. New York, Vintage International, 2005.

2. Wikipedia. “The Sea (novel).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_(novel)

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