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.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

“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. 

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)