Patron Pick

Anne shares her thoughts on why you may want to check out a copy of Timothy Findley's 'The Piano Man's Daughter' next time you are in the library.

If I am going to champion a book, my first and most important criterion is that it must be written by a Canadian. We don’t brag about our authors nearly as much as we should... we have so many brilliant writers. I could have chosen Anne-Marie MacDonald, or Miriam Toews, or Esi Edugyan, so many to choose from but I decided to go back in time a little to those on whose shoulders modern day writers stand.

I love the work of Timothy Findley, or TIFF he is fondly known. You have many books from which to choose – including The Last of the Crazy People, The Wars (1977) (winner of the Governor General’s award), Famous Last Words (1981), Not Wanted on the Voyage 1(984) and my choice The Piano Man’s Daughter (1997).

Born and raised in Toronto, Tiff was first an actor, he was part of the first Stratford Festival Company in the 1950’s. He declared his homosexuality in his teens, briefly married a woman and then partnered with writer Bill Whitehead till the end of his life in 2002. In 1985 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, and a president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International.

His writing was typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic style – Findley, in fact, invented that term. was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology. Mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His protagonists often struggle to find the moral and ethical and rational course of action in a situation that had spun wildly out of control. His characters often carry dark personal secrets.

The Piano Man’s Daughter is a complex and compelling story. The writing is lyrical. The language he uses is evocative and beautiful. Consider this passage:

In the summer of 1910, on a still June morning, he took me up the river to the town. Not a sound. No people. Only the splash of a frog or turtle sliding from the bank. And the reeds all silent on the shore beneath the shade of the willow trees. And yet, when I listened down, I heard a whispering chorus of insects making a seething noise. We drifted there almost an hour and neither of us spoke. In the town, he went away and I never saw him again. And yet...

The sun on the hill forgot to die

And the lilies revived, and the dragonfly

came back to dream on the river.

If only...

(from the prelude to The Prelude.)

Are you there with the narrator? You know you are on the water without it being said. And the words listened down, how perfectly does that describe what you do when all is quiet and you want to hear everything, you listen down. The word seething is so right for the sound he tells us about, a just-under-the-surface-steady-buzzy- hum, you know you have heard the seethe. The punctuation makes you read slowly and makes you breathe.

The story is compelling, mysterious, and layered. Findley crafts his characters, they are full of fault and doubt and conscience, real authentic people grappling with issues that have faced human beings for centuries. Perhaps his early life as an actor gave him the tools to wrap us into the scenes in which these 3 dimensional characters play.

In another passage he describes the appearance of an old house:

The road was wide and dusty – a high-summer road much stirred and flustered by a season’s worth of wheels. The clapboard front of the house and the screens on the windows had taken on the patina from its billows of grit. In the driest of times, the house took on the colour of golden brown sugar.

(page 44)

It is prose that is poetic, Fundley could have said that tourist season traffic has kicked up dust but instead uses stirred and flustered to say it in a way that paints a picture and then paints the house in the colour of golden brown sugar. Such lovely use of language.

The Piano Man’s Daughter gives us a story to get lost in. The writing reaches into the heart and uses language to express so much more than words alone can say.