Set This House in Order - Matt Ruff

[mystickeeper]

This was for this month's selection at beer_marmalade.

Almost all of the links in this post are courtesy of jesse_the_kAndrew Gage is a man who has Dissociative Identity Disorder. Throughout the course of the novel, he [the POV character] usually refers to it as Multiple Personality Disorder, and is snide when encouraged to use the name "DID." Still, I think DID is the

Comments

[tigrin]

That reminds me of a Stargate SG-1 episode; one of the main characters gets the consciousness of several different people put into him. One of the personalities attempts to explain why they can't just be taken out of the body and leave the original personality behind.

TRYAN IN JACKSON: "No. That's not possible. Here ... " (he walks around to the table at the end of the bed and picks up a glass of water) "Could these same water molecules ever be returned to this glass, just as they were before? No more, no less? In precisely the same configuration?"

Then he pours the water into the pitcher that is also on the table.

I somewhat agree with the idea that it's impossible to "reform the original whole"... but not entirely. There is no set way that multiple personalities are formed. It may be that one personality shatters and forms fragments that "grow" into their own personalities. There is also the idea that the "original" personality at some point slipped into a dissociative state, and that the parts of consciousness that dealt with the events eventually grow into people through repeated use or exposure. In that sense, the other personalities are considered extraneous to the original.

The reason in the first case that it is supposedly impossible to reform the original whole is that there are now several "wholes", which is sort of the basis of the concept of multiple personalities. But it is not that the original whole no longer exists; after all, the idea hinges on all the parts coming from the same person. I think the reason integration doesn't really work in this case has more to do with the idea that you can't just tape a bunch of people together and expect them to act like one person. Ultimately they well all end up splitting apart again because they are just too separate from one another.

Integration might seem especially dangerous in the latter case since it treats the other personalities as being unnecessary or unimportant in comparison to the original or "core" personality. The idea that those other personalities need to be erased of course seems very threatening and at least somewhat morally questionable. Therapists who insist that the other personalities are delusions or try to unearth memories in order to somehow "get rid of" the other personalities I definitely think do more harm than good. It might possibly help some people, but I can see why most people would want to avoid it.

I actually tried to look for the book the other day when I was at a bookstore but didn't see it. Where did you get your copy?