An interesting line about the selves manufactured by spies (that seems to me to have currency for all people who have cause to narrativise their lives in one way or another) from John Le Carré’s rather blandly-titled (but also rather good) new novel Absolute Friends:
But who is Mundy Three, when Mundys One and Two have gone to bed? Who is this third person who is neither one of the other two, who lies awake while they sleep, and listens for the chimes of country bells he doesn’t hear? He is the silent spectator. He is the one member of the audience who doesn’t applaud the performances of his two familiars. He is made up of all the odd bits of his life that are left over after he has given the rest away.