Last night, I read the first 120-ish pages. I really enjoyed reading it, but of course it left me really unsettled and switchy, jumpy even. But I liked it enough to keep reading. It's unusual to find a fiction book about multiples, let alone one written well and not casting a multiple in the role of a crazy serial killer or something. Or at least, I don't think this book is going to go that way.
"[Some people] wonder how I could have an age without having a past. But I get puzzled, too: most people I know can't remember being born, and what's more, it doesn't bother them that they can't remember."Not remembering is part of being a person. I can't remember most of my life before my mid-twenties. I know the facts of it, but don't really have memories. Paul & Stephanie remember things that happened to different bodies. Most singletons can't remember their first few years. We keep some memories, files others as facts, and lose great piles of bland moments. So my 'keep' pile is several different piles, is all.
"Something else that puzzles me about other people is that a lot of them don't know their purpose in life. This usually dos bother them - more than not being able to remember being born, anyway - but I can't even imagine it. Part of knowing who I am is knowing why I am, and I've always known who I am, from the first moment."Not all of us came into being with a purpose, but some most certainly did. Cherish is here to belong to Boss, heart, soul, and body. Stephanie is here to suffer for him. Gracelyn exists to organize and support.
"We rented part of the first floor. The space was large but cluttered, clutter being an inevitable side effect of multiplicity, even if you make an effort to keep real-world possessions to a minimum. Just lying there in bed, and without even turning my head, I could see: Aunt Sam's easel, brushes, and paints, and two blank canvases; Adam's skateboard; Jake's stuffed panda; Seferis's kendo sword; my books; my father's books; Jake's little shelf of books; Adam's Playboy collection; Aunt Sam's stack of art prints..."It goes on with the list. Everyone wants to have a few (or a lot of) things of their own. When you have several people in a body, that turns into a lot of things. I have two rooms of my own. Upstairs is the kids' room, with Paul's legos, my Star Trek stuff, Kiara's books, colors, and toys, Baby Paul's toys, Paul's bootblacking stuff, some of my childhood and theatre mementos, and everyone's stuffed animals, and a closet full of theatre costumes, Paul's clothes, and Kiara's clothes. Downstairs is my 'office', with my books and musical instruments and clothes, along with anything owned by Cherish, Stephanie, Gracelyn, Sam, Silent One, or Rubi. All of them are pretty low-space on belongings, so that's primarily 'my' room.
"Jake [a child alter] really enjoys brushing for some reason, so I let him do it, stepping back into the pulpit and giving him the body. I stayed alert. Jake, as I've mentioned, is a child; but Andy Gage's body is adult and five-foot-seven, and hangs on Jake's soul like a suit of clothes many sizes too big. he moves clumsily in it, and often misjudges the distance between his extremities and the rest of the world; and as we've only got the one skull between us, if he bends over to get a dropped toothpaste cap and bashes his head on the corner of the sink, it is a group tragedy."Body disphoria sneaks in everywhere. When your arms are a couple of inches shorter or longer than you expect, everything becomes clumsy. Same with legs. Paul actually seems to handle it best; perhaps because adolescents are already dealing with that issue, so it's just more-so. Kiara drops things a lot, but is pretty cheerful about it.
"This is one of those metaphysical issues that people who aren't multiple have a hard time grasping. obviously in creating me, my father [another alter] had given me a great deal of practical knowledge. I [came about] knowing how to speak. I had a concept of the world and at least some of what was in it. I knew what dogs, snowflakes, and ferryboats were before I ever saw a real dog, snowflake, or ferryboat. So it may seem natural to ask, if my father could give me all that, why couldn't he also give me the know-how to [do his job]? For that matter, why couldn't he give me Aunt Sam's understanding of French, Seferis's martial-arts prowess, and Adam's knack for lie-dectecting?"There is a very disjointed set of knowledges in a multiple system. There's knowledge that everyone has, and then each person has their own set of knowledge. For instance, Kiara can barely type. She and Paul both hunt and peck, but his spelling is much better than hers. Then again, she's six; who expects her to be able to type? But why not? After all, I can type and spell extremely well. But when she looks at the keyboard, she can figure it out using some of my knowledge and some of her own.
Anyway, I'll continue reading the book when I'm stable enough to do so. I think reading it in shorter bursts may result in less switchiness.
