session from June 2006: Proust and Pinocchio

Doctor: Good morning. You have a book with you today.

M: Proust! I had mentioned him last week- I find a lot of his material to be relevant to Asperger's- and I wanted to read a few things if that's okay.

Doctor: Of course.

It's the second volume of Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time. I open it up and start reading, I'll re-print a few of the passages here. In the first one, he's describing his loathing of changes in routine...the way they heighten both his perceptions and his discomfort. The narrator is beginning a vacation and has just, for the first time, entered the hotel room where he will be staying (p-245):

"As our attentiveness furnishes a room, so habit unfurnishes it, making space in it for us. In that room of mine at Balbec, 'mine' in name only, there was no space for me: it was crammed with things which did not know me, which glared my distrust of them back at me, noting my existence only to the extent of letting me know they resented me for disturbing theirs. Without letup, in some unfamiliar tongue, the clock, which at home I would never have heard...went on making comments about me, which must have sounded offensive to the curtains, for they stood there without a word in a listening posture, looking like the sort of people who will shrug their shoulders to show they are irked by the mere sight of someone...And in the part of me that is more private than those used for seeing and hearing, the part where one is aware of shades of smell, almost inside the self, an assault by perfume threw me back on my deepest defenses as I tried to repel it, in my tiredness, with a pointless, repeated and apprehensive sniffing. Deprived of my universe, evicted from my room, with my very tenancy of my body jeopardized by the enemies about me, infiltrated to the bone by fever, I was alone and wished I could die."

I'm laughing as I read this, at how self-deprecating it is, but the second quote is more difficult because it touches upon the subject of detachment, introversion. In it, the narrator has met a fellow vacationer named Robert (p-316):

"It was very soon agreed between us that we had become firm friends forever, and each time he said 'our friendship' it was as though he spoke of some important and delightful entity existing outside of ourselves...Such talk saddened me in a way, and I never knew how to respond to it: for, in spending my time chatting with him, I felt none of the happiness I was capable of deriving from being without company...It was only when I was alone that I would be swept on occasion by one of those impressions that brought with them such deeply satisfying feelings. But I only had to be in the presence of someone else- talking with a friend, for example- for my mind to face the wrong way; and thoughts going in that other direction never afforded me any enjoyment. No sooner had I left the company of Robert than I sought words with which to tidy up the disordered minutes I had just spent with him: I assured myself that I had a close friend and that a close friend is a rarity; yet what I felt was the exact opposite of the mode of enjoyment natural to me, the opposite of the pleasure that could come from finding something lying deep within myself, from bringing it out of its inner darkness and into the light of day."

The last two sentences from this passage kill me: "I had no difficulty in convincing myself that I should really be happy about all this, and my hope that such happiness would never leave me was as strong as my knowledge that I had never in fact felt it. The joys we most dread losing are those that have remained outside us, beyond the reach of our heart."

I won't quote them here, but I read from two more sections before finishing.

Doctor: One of those in particular sounds pertinent.

M: Right. The friend.

Doctor: What was it you used to say? "I like the idea of being around people, never the reality."

M: Also I thought the bit at the hotel room was nice, especially in reference to AS: the fear of change, the need for sameness. He was supposed to be on vacation, relaxing, yet felt tormented by all of the new objects. "The clock is talking about me." It's a funny section, but it's...I don't know.

Doctor: Familiar. Thanks for sharing that. Is there anything in particular you were wanting to discuss in reference to it? You've never brought in a book before...I'm just wondering if there's a specific goal you had in mind.

M: There's no goal. I just thought you might enjoy some of the sections that relate to our discussion. It's always nice to find inner experiences articulated in a good description. Speaking of that...

I hand the Doctor a few typed pages.

M: I'm sick of how resistant and repetitive I've been and I wanted to try a thought experiment. I re-wrote our last session. It's our words, but the conversation is between Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy. I thought that might be funny.

(It's this session)

Doctor: You know, that story never even occurred to me.

M: Me neither...and it's strange we haven't referenced that. A marionette who hates his condition, wants to become a "real" boy? I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the Blue Fairy were to push Cognitive-Behavioral psychology instead of magic.

Doctor: Did you want to read this today?

M: No. I just wanted to give you a copy. I'm trying to think of it as an exorcism, a way of getting the toxins out; lighten some of the suicidal stuff by having a fictional character say it.

I laugh a little bit. I'm talking about "getting the toxins out"- I'm trying to be more positive- but I'm also thinking of the history behind the writing of Pinocchio.

M: Do you know anything about the story? How it was originally supposed to end?

Doctor: I don't.

M: Pinocchio was not supposed be a children's book. It was very grim, very bleak, and the first version of the story ends with Pinocchio's murder.

Doctor: Er. Was he transformed at that point? Was he killed as a marionette or a child?

M: He was a marionette. Which sort of seems less dark, since he wasn't a kid, but on the other hand he dies having never achieved his one goal. All he wants is to be a real boy and he's killed before that can happen. I'm trying to remember what happens at the end. He has these gold coins or something and these thieves beat him, steal his gold and execute him. They hang him from a tree. Actually, this scene is still in the book. It's Chapter 15. It was supposed to end there, but apparently the author was talked into continuing the story and ending it in a happier, more saccharine way. Like an editor or somebody talked him into making it an upbeat children's book. Ugh.

Doctor: A story with two endings. I wonder which one M prefers?

I stare at the back of my hand.