“That Octopus Book”: Today's Front Page New York Times on “Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, a novel recently discussed in four posts of this blog
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/books/remarkably-bright-creatures-shelby-van-pelt.html
Comment: Search “Remarkably” in this blog to see my four posts.
“Deacon King Kong” (post 6) by James McBride: Multiple personality explains the protagonist’s memory gap for the shooting
“Don’t you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk? Deacon King Kong!”
“Sportcoat blinked, feeling slightly cowed. ‘I already told you, your words can’t hurt me, boy, for I ain’t never done nothing wrong to ya. Other than care for you, a little bit.”
“You shot me, ya dumb nigger.”
“I don’t recall none of it, son” (1, pp. 318-319).
“Now I know why I tried to kill you,” Sportcoat said. ‘For the life of goodness is not one that your people has chosen for you. I don’t want that you should end up like me…I’m in the last Octobers of life, boy…It’s a right end for an old drunk like me, and a right end for you too that you die as a good boy…Better to remember you that way than as the sewer you has become…Don’t ever come near me again,’ Sportcoat said. ‘If you do, I’ll deaden you where you stand” (1, p. 322).
Comment: Since the protagonist’s regular personality had not been co-conscious with the alternate personality who had tried to kill the young drug dealer to save him, his regular personality had had a memory gap for doing it.
Added same day: I finished the novel, but found nothing else worth mentioning, except that the hat in the author's photograph and on the front cover are similar, which may mean nothing, except metaphorically, that the author has multiple personality trait.
1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.
“Deacon King Kong” (post 5) by James McBride: Protagonist’s Dialogue with Deceased Wife has been Observed and Described as “Two-Headed”
The kind of dialogue between the protagonist and his deceased wife that was quoted in post 3 is subsequently observed by another character, who says to the protagonist, “You can’t lay around and talk to yourself like you is two-headed for the rest of your life. Never seen a man lay on a couch and go back and forth like you done” (1, pp. 288-289).
Comment: The protagonist apparently alternates between his wife’s part and his own part, just like a person with multiple personality who is switching back and forth between two co-conscious personalities.
“Co-consciousness is a state of awareness in which one personality is able to directly experience the thoughts, feelings, and actions of another alternate personality (2, p. 234).
1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.
2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.
“Deacon King Kong” (post 4) by James McBride: Protagonist has memory gap even when sober
At the beginning of this novel, the protagonist, when drunk, had amnesia for shooting someone. I commented in post 2 that his amnesia might have been a memory gap due to multiple personality, but said I would read on, to see if he ever had unusual forgetting when sober. He does:
“It was the only job he had that he didn’t need to take a drink for…Four months into the job and he’d never managed to remember her [his employer’s] name…” (1, p. 223).
Comment: This alone certainly does not prove that the protagonist has multiple personality. But I—and perhaps the author—want to caution people about automatically attributing memory gaps to alcohol.
1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.
“The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?”
Comment: Seeming to have minds of their own is the essence of alternate personalities in multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder) and a study found that it is true of how most novelists experience their characters (1). But since it doesn’t cause them distress or dysfunction, it is a creative trait, not a disorder, what I call “multiple personality trait.”
1. Marjorie Taylor, Sara D. Hodges, Adèle Kohányi. “The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 22(4) 361-380, 2002-2003. https://pages.uoregon.edu/hodgeslab/files/Download/Taylor%20Hodges%20Kohanyi_2003.pdf
“Deacon King Kong” (post 3) by James McBride: Protagonist converses with an alternate personality based on his deceased wife, Hettie
“…Hettie suddenly appeared…
“‘I don’t care what you done,’ she said. ‘Fact is, when you walk about being spit on, it don’t much matter what else you think you done.”
“Who spit on me? Nobody spit on me.”
“You spit on yourself.”
“Get done with that foolishness. I’m going to work.”
“Well git on then.”
“…I gived joy to everyone.
“Except your own wife.”
“Oh hush.”
“I was lonely in my marriage,” she said.
“Stop complaining, woman! Food on the table. Roof over our heads. What else you want? Where’s the damn church money, by the way? I’m in a heap of trouble on account of it!”
“She watched him silently, then after a moment said, “Some of it’s not your fault.”
“Sure ain’t. You the one hid that money.”
“I ain’t talking about that,” she said, almost pensively. “I’m talking about the old days when you was a child. Everything ever said to you or done to you back then was at the expense of your own dignity. You never complained. I loved that about you.”
“Oh, woman, leave my people out of it. They long dead.”
She watched him thoughtfully. “And now here you are,” she said sadly, “an old man funning around a ball field, making folks laugh. Even the boys don’t follow you no more.”
“They’ll follow me plenty when I get ‘em back on the field. But I got to get get off the hook ‘bout them Christmas Club chips first. You kept the money in a little green box, I remember that. Where’s the box? Where’s it at, woman?!” “Stop talking in circles, dammit!"
"She sighed. When you love somebody, their words ought to be important enough for you to listen…”
“Then she was gone” (1, pp. 159-161).
Comment: Hettie, long-deceased wife, appears, speaks, and departs like she has a mind of her own, which is the essence of an alternate personality, as opposed to a person’s regular personalty’s own thoughts. Of course, if you refuse to think in terms of multiple personality, you could explain Hettie away as a ghost.
1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.
New Movie Musical of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/movies/the-color-purple-review.html
Search “the color purple” in this blog to see psychologically relevant old posts.
“Deacon King Kong” (post 2) by James McBride: False premise that protagonist’s out-of-character behavior and memory gap were due to alcohol intoxication
At the beginning of this novel (1), the protagonist shoots a drug dealer in front of many witnesses, but can’t remember doing it. Why is alcohol abuse the only diagnosis considered?
Textbook: Out-of-character behavior with a memory gap for doing it is typical of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder).
“Unfortunately, many MPD patients would rather admit to the more socially acceptable drug or alcohol blackouts than admit that they do not really know why they 'lose time' ” (2, p. 61).
Comment: Does the protagonist ever lose time when sober? I’ll keep reading.
1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.
2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press. 1989.
“Deacon King Kong” (post 1) by James McBride: 24-years after his memoir, The Color of Water, McBride remains conflicted with dissociated from his reflection in the mirror
“At age five, Baby Sportcoat [nickname of adult protagonist] crawled to a mirror and spit at his reflection (1, p. 16).
See posts in this blog on McBride’s memoir, The Color of Water (1996), in which I discuss his reported antagonism to differences with his reflection in the mirror, a textbook symptom of multiple personality. The thesis of this blog is that most novelists have a normal, creative version of multiple personality.
1. James McBride. Deacon King Kong. NewYork Riverhead Books, 2020.
“The Color of Water” (post 2) by James McBride: At the end, author recalls “ache” as a boy, but does not know that “a boy who lived in the mirror” (see post 1) had been a textbook symptom of multiple personality
“…the little ache I had known as a boy was no longer a little ache when I reached thirty. It was…telling me, Get on with your life…There were two worlds bursting inside me trying to get out. I had to find out more about who I was…” (1, p. 266).
Comment: “MPD patients often report seeing themselves as different people when they look into a mirror” (2, p. 62).
1. James McBride. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother (a memoir). New York, Riverhead Books, 1996/2006.
2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press. 1989.
“The Color of Water” (post 1) by James McBride: Alternate Personality in Mirror
“Music arrived in my life around that time, and books. I would disappear inside whole worlds comprised of Gulliver’s Travels, Shane, and books by Beverly Cleary. I took piano and clarinet lessons in school, often squirreling myself away in some corner with my clarinet to practice, wandering away in Tchaikovsky or John Philip Sousa, trying to improvise like jazz saxophonist James Moody, only to blink back to realty an hour or two later. To further escape from painful reality, I created an imaginary world for myself. I believed my true self was a boy who lived in the mirror. I’d lock myself in the bathroom and spend long hours playing with him. He looked just like me. I’d stare at him. Kiss him. Make faces at him and order him around. Unlike my siblings, he had no opinions. He would listen to me. ‘If I’m here and you’re me, how can you be there at the same time?’ I’d ask. He’d shrug and smile. I’d shout at him, abuse him verbally. ‘Give me an answer!’ I’d snarl. I would turn to leave, but when I wheeled around he was always there, waiting for me. I had an ache inside, a longing, but I didn’t know where it came from or why I had it. The boy in the mirror, he didn’t seem to have an ache. He was free. He was never hungry, he had his own bed probably, and his mother wasn’t white. I hated him. ‘Go away!' I’d shout. ‘Hurry up! Get on out!’ But he’d never leave. My siblings would hold their ears to the bathroom door and laugh as I talked to myself. ‘What a doofus you are,’ my brother Richie snickered” (1, pp. 90-91).
Comment: Search “mirror” and “mirrors” in this blog to read past posts that discuss this textbook symptom of multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity), whose normal, creative version, an asset of many novelists, I call "multiple personality trait.”
1. James McBride. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother (a memoir). New York, Riverhead Books, 1996/2006.
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” (post 4) by Shelby Van Pelt: Ends with photographic memory; a needling voice; and dissociated parts
“Brinks gapes. ‘How on earth did you know all that?
“Cameron shrugs and explains that he read it somewhere, once. ‘I retain random knowledge. I kind of can’t help it…this weird photographic memory…’ ” (1, p. 305).
“From somewhere deep in his brain, a voice needles him. None of this was ever real, it nags. Too good to be true. This isn’t your life. This is not your home. He wasn’t your father. She’s not your girlfriend…You’re not as good as you think you are, the voice sneers…‘Shut up,’ Cameron mutters to himself…” (1, p. 309).
“Tova holds the door open with an arm that feels like it belongs to someone else. Like she’s out of her own body…‘I suppose some part of me didn’t believe you when you insisted you were the type of person who would shirk a job’ ” (1, pp. 342-343).
Comment: Abilities, voices, and behaviors that a person does not identify with may belong to alternate personalities of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder). Search “photographic memory” in this blog for related discussion.
Since none of this novel’s characters is labeled as having multiple personality, I would attribute its gratuitous symptoms to the novelist’s having what I call “multiple personality trait,” a normal, creative version of the disorder that may be a common asset of successful novelists.
1. Shelby Van Pelt. Remarkably Bright Creatures. New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2022.
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” (post 3) by Shelby Van Pelt: Hearing a nagging VOICE rather than having a nagging THOUGHT in the back of his brain
Cameron is offered appetizing food. “Fine,” Cameron agrees, mostly to end the conversation, but also to appease the nagging voice in the back of his brain reminding him he’s in no position to turn down free meals” (1, p. 116).
Comment: Why would an author describe a character as hearing a “nagging voice” rather than simply having a nagging thought?
Search “voices” in this blog for discussions of hearing voices in multiple personality, and the probability that many successful novelists have multiple personality trait, a normal, creative asset in writing fiction.
1. Shelby Van Pelt. Remarkably Bright Creatures. New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2022.
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” (post 2) by Shelby Van Pelt: Conversing, Vocalizations, Diagnosis, the Octopus and the Experience of Multiple Personality
Conversing and Diagnosis
“Every so often, one [of the humans] will pause here [at the octopus tank in the aquarium]. With these, “I [Marcellus, the octopus protagonist] (see post 1] always play a game. I unfurl my arms…and the human draws nearer. Then I pull my mantle to the front of the tank and stare into its eyes. The human calls its companions to come and look. As soon as I hear their footsteps around the bend, I jet back behind my rock, leaving nothing but a whoosh of water. How predictable humans are! With one exception: The elderly female [Tova Sullivan]…does not play my games. Instead, she speaks to me. We…converse” (1, p. 67).
“The diagnosis of MPD [multiple personality disorder] can only be made after the clinician has met one or more of the alternate personalities (‘alters’) and determined that at least one alternate personality is distinct and takes full control of the individual’s behavior from time to time…
“…in about half of all cases the meeting is initiated by one or more alternate personality who ‘come out’ and identify themselves as being different from the patient…In many instances the therapist has never even suspected that the patient has MPD…
“…The simplest case is one in which an alternate personality emerges, identifies himself or herself, and proceeds to talk with the therapist…
“…Another form of contact is through inner vocalizations. The patient [the host or regular personality] may ‘hear’ the alter speak as an inner voice within, often as one of the ‘voices’ that the patient has been hearing for years. [But a formal diagnosis can be made only after one or more alters have ‘come out’] (2, pp. 89-94).
Comment: Also, please click this link on the Octopus and Experience of Multiple Personality. Pamela Covert, PhD. https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/August-2022/The-Fascinating-Connection-Between-Octopi-and-Dissociative-Identity-Disorder
1. Shelby Van Pelt. Remarkably Bright Creatures. New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2022.
2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press. 1989.
“Remarkably Bright Creatures” (post 1) by Shelby Van Pelt: Gratuitous Symptoms of Multiple Personality in First Few Chapters
On the novel’s first page, narration is begun by Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living in the aquarium:
“My name is Marcellus…
“I am a giant Pacific octopus. I know this from the plaque on the wall beside my enclosure” (1, p. 1). He also overhears what visitors say about him. But even when there are no visitors, he appears to converse with an italicized voice in his head:
“Why don’t you prop the door?
“Well, obviously” (1, p. 24).
So far, the only other major character is Tova Sullivan, a seventy-year-old woman who works at the aquarium: “Now she sometimes catches a glimpse of her profile reflected in a shop window…She wonders how this body can possibly be hers” (1, p. 20).
Comment: Conversing with a voice in your head, and not identifying with your own reflection, are textbook symptoms of multiple personality, as previously discussed in this blog: Search “voices” and “mirrors.”
Why would any novel have symptoms of multiple personality that are not called for by character development or plot? Gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality in a novel probably reflect the successful novelist’s multiple personality trait.
1. Shelby Van Pelt. Remarkably Bright Creatures. New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2022.
Persecutor Personalities, Conspiracies and Scapegoats
“At least half or more of MPD [multiple personality disorder] patients have alternate personalities who see themselves in diametric conflict with the host [regular] personality. This group of alternate personalities will sabotage the patient’s life and may inflict serious injury upon the body in attempts to harm or kill the host or other personalities. They may be responsible for episodes of self-mutilation or for other ‘suicide’ attempts, which are actually ‘internal homicides,’ as persecutor personalities attempt to maim or kill the host. The perceived degree of separateness that allows one personality to believe that it can kill another personality without endangering itself has been called a ‘pseudodelusion' or a form of ‘trance logic.’
“Some persecutor personalities…have evolved from original helper personalities into current persecutors" after developing a contemptuous or condescending attitude toward the perceived ineptitude of the regular personality and/or the regular personality’s therapist” (1, p. 108).
Comment: Since the person with undiagnosed multiple personality is usually unaware of their alternate personalities, the sabotage by internal persecutor personalities may be attributed to outside conspiracies and scapegoats.
1. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.
The Octopus and Multiple Personality
Pamela Covert, PhD. https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/August-2022/The-Fascinating-Connection-Between-Octopi-and-Dissociative-Identity-Disorder
Jon Fosse: Nobel Prize winner interprets his fiction-writing process from a mystical or religious perspective
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/07/arts/jon-fosse-nobel-prize.html
Search “Jon Fosse” in this blog for a psychological perspective.
“The Da Vinci Code” (post 4) by Dan Brown: At the end, Robert Langdon hears a woman’s voice, probably an alternate personality
“The quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one.”
“With a sudden upwelling of reverence, Robert Langdon fell to his knees."
“For a moment, he thought he heard a woman’s voice…the wisdom of the ages…” (1, p. 597).
Comment: Search “italics,” “voices,” and “italicized voices” in this blog for discussion of their relation to alternate personalities.
1. Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code. New York, Anchor Books, 2003.
“The Da Vinci Code” (post 3) by Dan Brown: Why Say This?
“Langdon smiled. ‘Sophie, every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith—acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration…The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors’ ” (1, p. 448).
Comment: One of Dan Brown’s alternate personalities is agnostic.
1. Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code. New York, Anchor Books, 2003.
