Who Am I This Time: Uncovering the Fictive Personality

by Jay Martin

This exploration of the concept of fiction in human existence considers both the creative and the pathological uses of storytelling and make-believe, taking into account the thinking of famous writers, assassins and terrorists, actors, and the phenomenonof mass culture

Genres: Psychology

Hardcover

First published February 1, 1988

Reviews

[Neil Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erudite panoramic literary, and historical treatise, by a well read psychoanalyst, that if you think or even just say you are something, and represent it as the truth, then you can make others and sometimes yourself believe it is so, with examples from the title introductory story, to Stalin, and Faulkner, where people have been able to construct the view they want the world to have of them.

[Marlene Willinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a really interesting book!

[Seana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written before most people were even using the internet in any meaningful way, and well before on line personas took hold, Martin wrote about the way people, as a step in their development, adopt fictional alter egos. A normal part of maturation, it can also be taken to extremes of good and ill. It's a long time since I read this book--another post here prompted my memory, but I still remember the part on Faulkner, who turned out to be a wonderful liar, creating an imaginary history that would compensate him until he grew into himself and became the Faulkner we all think of. A lot of the book is also about the way these fictional ideas of ourselves can lead us astray, and I believe that the immediacy of television was one of the things he worried about. It would seem a good book to revisit now that so many more fictional possibilities are available to us.

There's a good if not wholly favorable review of the book from the New York Times here