Voice of Self

There are, at John Self's count, four distinct voices in his head. He tells us this on page 104, and in attempting to dissect his narrative voice, the qualification of his internal polyphony is invaluable. As readers, we can search through the cacophony of the narrator's head (that is, the voices he speaks in which may not be rendered directly on the page) in order to discern what is driving the voice that he presents. John Self presents his voices by order of their primacy within the internal dialogue, which could be thought of as the relative volumes at which these different voices speak. Which one factors most into the final voice? Which one is most powerful? Which one is the most 'Self'? These are questions to be answered by delving into the voices, as John himself presents them:

'First, of course, is the jabber of money, which might be represented as the blur on the top rung of a typewriter,' Self says. If, as readers, we take this at face value, then John's most base level of thought is gibberish--it is devoid of letter-symbols, and consists of the symbols that, when taken on their own, imply something unspeakable, profane. Money, the voice, is the drone of the profane. Clearly, however, this wordless drone is not the narrator on the page--were it, there would be only symbols.

The second voice is Pornography--the explicitly profane. Self initially describes this voice as rhythmic: 'the way she move has got to be good news, can't get loose till I feel the juice--suck and spread, bitch, yeah bounce for me baby...And so on.' Porn possesses a more definite structure than Money (it rhymes, it is composed of recognizable words), at least in the first instance that is provided. There is hope for Porn to be the driving voice--But no! Porn descends out of language as well; it becomes an 'incomprehensible yet unmistakably lecherous...gurgled monologue,' a progression of sounds that imply meaning, but that do not allow for particular meaning to be discerned. So Pornography, as well, drones beneath Self, the narrator, but is not John's narrative self.

And then things get interesting, as there is the 'third, the voice of ageing and weather, of time travel through days and days, the ever-weakening voice of stung shame, sad boredom and futile protest...' This is the voice that would seem to govern the narrative progression, or at least the idea of progression in the narrative: it is the voice that starts the process of interpretation. As John Self could not become a narrator without being aware of the progression of the events he finds himself in, this voice is the bridge. It is the voice of Self's awareness in the moment, but were this voice alone the narrator, the text would lack the language confidence that it possesses. Were it merely the self-deprecating, depressed internal voice, the narrator would accomplish nothing.

Which leads to the final voice, 'the real intruder.' This voice seems to take on the role of blending the first the voices together, and presenting them on their own terms, albeit in mode specifically designed to call attention to their, the voices', farce: 'it has the unwelcome lilt of paranoia, of rage and weepiness made articulate in spasms of vividness: drunk talk played back sober.' Indeed, if there were a single most-apt manner of describing John Self's narrative voice, it would be 'drunk talk played back sober.' It is the honest truth, the unabashed facts simultaneously witnessed through both their initial determination and reflective contemplation. John Self, in his voice, is both convinced of the rightness of his actions and aware of their depravity, their detestability.

So which voice is most Self? They all four mix together, to form an aggregate of Self, yet it seems undeniable that the third and fourth are the most prominent. After all, they're the only two made of words.