I Too Once Thought . . .: Problematizing Identity and Ordering the So-Called Chaos in Alanis Morissette's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

We find ourselves at a transitional time in culture, encouraged from the youngest age to apply defining labels to ourselves. Sometimes it seems that everybody is fighting for the smallest pigeonhole. An alternative paradigm, celebrating complexity and multiplicity in personal identity, may be found in a surprising source: Alanis Morissette's 1998 album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. In this book, critic Brett Alan Dewing makes a case for the album as a masterpiece that challenges popular thinking on the nature of our very selves. Through a close reading of the entire album, its deceptively chaotic structure is shown to be a carefully planned form that orders surprisingly rich thoughts on who and how we are, always brimming with lessons both therapeutic (through Morissette's engagement with the Internal Family Systems model) and practically theological. Dewing interweaves his analysis with examples of his own battle to not let the world steal his complexity.

Brett Alan Dewing is a critic, poet, playwright, and teacher living in Pennsylvania. Along with I Too Once Thought . . ., he is the author of multiple self-published poetry collections, plays, and criticism. His reviews may be found at www.b-a-dreviews.com.