“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 3) by Olga Tokarczuk: Janina’s gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality in the rest of the novel

“But on the whole, from the time of my brief stay in custody I became very absentminded” (1, p. 219).

“I kept talking to myself and realized there was something wrong with me…I’d become pensive and would be lost in thought for hours at a time. I put down my keys in the garage, for instance, and couldn’t find them for a week” (1, p. 220).

“On several occasions, I seemed to hear other people’s thoughts” (1, p. 233).

“I could have been a pretty good writer. But at the same time I have trouble explaining my feelings and the motives of my behavior” (1, p. 249).

“I got home without being noticed. Once I was in the car I couldn’t remember a thing” (1, pp. 261-262).

“ But will you believe me when I say I didn’t do it entirely consciously? I instantly forgot what had happened, as if there were some powerful Defense Mechanisms protecting me. Perhaps I should ascribe it to my Ailments—quite simply, from time to time I was not Janina, but Bellona or Medea” (1, p. 262).

Comments: Gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality included memory gaps and alternate identities, possibly reflective of author's multiple personality trait.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.