Review of HOW TO BE MULTIPLE
What is it like to be one of two?
Tl;dr – A curious read about the experience of twins but limited to identical twins. The latter half of the book feels unfocused on the topic of the book. Might be interesting to those specifically interested in philosophy but not of general interest in my opinion.
Okay, you all know I have twins at this point. So, naturally, I have been drawn to learning more about nature’s curiosity. What will my girls’ experience as a twin be like growing up? What is it like having a built-in best friend by your side as you go through life? I don’t exactly know, as I am not a twin.
When I learned of this book, How to be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins by Helena de Bres I naturally gravitated toward it. As an identical twin herself, de Bres explores the curiosities of being a twin by taking both her own perspective, but also that of singletons who look on at twins.
The book is organized as a collection of five essays, each focusing on a question of twinhood. de Bres focuses on the experience of being constantly mixed up with another person; the experience of being perceived as a package, rather than as individuals; the special bond between twins; and two other questions that, honestly, I didn’t quite understand as questions of twinhood. More on that in minute.
This is a curious book and I thoroughly enjoyed the first two chapters that addressed having a double of oneself in the world and also the philosophical question of whether a twin is an individual if their genetics are the same as another persons. But there is a limitation to these chapters, however. Although she states in the introduction that the book is about twins in general, though ‘some’ experiences discussed may only be applicable to identical twins, I found nearly nothing applicable to fraternal twins. Which was disappointing to me given that my girls are fraternal.
Also the final two chapters seemed far less focused on the philosophy of twins and more on her and her sister’s experience as queer and disabled, which was not clear to me how these topics are specifically relevant to twinhood in general. Overall, I really wanted to like this book more than I did but it didn’t quite meet my expectations. Perhaps it just wasn’t for me.
Published: November 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Format: Audio
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind (2019) by Annaka Harris
Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive (2021) by Carl Zimmer
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