The Fifth Principle

The Fifth Principle is a piece of literature that takes as its subject aspects of the author's life between birth and eight years of age. However, it is by no means a conventional memoir or account of childhood. As a result, it would be misleading to think of it as autobiography or the case history of an individual. The writer and the individual written about are not the same person. It is a work that furnishes a penetrating account of the methods of a mind in its efforts to prevail in oppressive circumstances at a time of great vulnerability. One might say that the author has undertaken, on behalf of the subject, to provide a faithful, intelligible account of unintelligible events. The mind in question, in so far as it resembles other minds, will speak to the reader in ways that are recognizable, though some of the things that are written about may be unfamiliar. The extent to which the narrative finds a home in the mind and the imagination of the reader will be the measure of its worth.