Suspend and believe that the consuming, passionate love of Myrnaloy Trask has in fact become defined and centered as a small homunculoid presence inside Barry Dingle, a doll-sized self all its own, with the power of silent speech and undisguised ambitions to independent action. Barry Dingle’s love sees itself as the catalyst that can transform Barry Dingle from a neutral to a positive charge in life’s delicate equation. It sees itself as having the power to remake, reform, reconstitute Barry Dingle. In fact — since facts are the commodity at issue, here — Barry Dingle’s love of Myrnaloy Trask wants in some ultimate sense to be Barry Dingle, and has lately launched an aggressive campaign to assume control of Dingle’s life, to divert and even divorce Dingle from his seven-year definition as manager of The Whole Thing, from his hard-learned disposition to passivity and mute fear: in short, for those who know him, from the very Dingleness of Barry Dingle.
