Challenge 225

Say Who?

In the Middle Ages and even later, actors were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. We ought not to dismiss the prohibition too easily as a quaint superstition; the reason for it is easy to understand. If you don’t know an actor personally, how do you know who he is other than by the roles he plays?

The trap of confusing fiction and reality extends to our own time. The actor Leonard Nimoy once wrote a small book titled I Am Not Spock, referring to the Vulcan science officer of Star Trek fame. Well, yes, of course Mr. Nimoy is not Mr. Spock. But that’s quite beside the point. Mr. Spock is Leonard Nimoy: he owns the role; no one else can play it.

In Thomas B. White’s “Morphing Man,” the telemarketer Simon Sorter is, in person, mostly nondescript although somewhat grotesque. On the telephone and, one can easily imagine, on radio, he becomes a verbal virtuoso that the impressionist Robin Williams might envy.

On the surface, “Morphing Man” is a horror story about the fate of the hapless Rory at the hands of the unscrupulous John Jeffy and the brutal Simon Sorter. But isn’t the center of the story Simon Sorter’s peculiar talent and its potential for good and evil?

In that light, we have a few questions:

Simon Sorter is said to have multiple-personality disorder caused by an automobile accident at about age 40. The explanation is false
— BZZT — multiple personality intercept: Oh yeah? Says who? — BZZT
A review editor who happens to be a professional psychologist, thank you very much.
— BZZT — Oh, I see. Very well. Carry on, then. — Multiple personality intercept out — BZZT

What was that? Strange line noise... Anyway, it’s now called DID (dissociative identity disorder). It’s involuntary and is almost always due to childhood trauma.

Never mind that we have learned to distrust the word of Mr. Jeffy; is the explanation necessary? What does the cause matter, anyway? Couldn’t Simon Sorter be introduced as someone who happens to have a weird talent due simply to a personality quirk?
We don’t expect that any of you is or resembles Simon Sorter. But in writing fiction, to what extent is Simon Sorter you?
To what extent are your characters you; and you, your characters?

Responses welcome!