Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

B o o k s in R e v i e w
this novel harkens back to a pastoral, prewar
(WWi and 2) world, to a field full of
fair folk—"the field was the world"—in
which love and music can still be worn as
amulets against the disasters of that other
place beyond the field where the fight for
wealth translates into social status and war.
Blissed out by inter-uterine existence, Lily,
the piano man's daughter, "had taken up
dreaming in her [mother's] belly—dreaming.
. .and singing. Not singing songs a person
knew... .But songs for certain.
Music—with a tune to it. Evocative. A song
about self" (shades of pastor Whitman). "A
song about place. As if a bird had sung it,
sitting in a tree at the edge of the world."
Rumour has it that Findley conceived
this novel long ago and intended it to complete
a trilogy begun with Crazy People and
The Wars. Its emotional and psychological
landscape will be familiar to those who've
read the earlier novels, stories and the play
about crazy Cassandra, Can You See Me Yet?
The primary concerns of The Piano Man's
Daughter are anticipated in the 1981 conversation
between Findley and Whitehead,
"Alice Drops her Cigarette on the Floor..."
(Can. Lit. 91). Here, Whitehead talks about
"a particular view of insanity" as a theme
threaded through Findley's work "more
than any other." And Findley talks about
"someone close to me who had to be placed
in a mental institution" who was "brilliant"
and "had incredible insights into what was
really going on in the world around us."
Like the fugue, defined by Tovey as "the
mutual 'pursuit' of voices," Findley's new
novel is much concerned with voices, also
with songs, singing, "all kinds of music "
(literal and metaphorical) and musical
instruments: flute, violin and, of course,
piano. Indeed, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
poem, "A Musical Instrument," proves a
crucial clue in Charlie's quest for his
father's identity. Himself a piano tuner,
Charlie, the piano man's grandson, explains
that "Every piano has its own voice—
unique in its sound as the voice of a human
being. And when that voice begins to
waver—when it strays, the way human
voices do under stress—my job is to restore
its resonance—tighten its enunciation—
clarify its tone. I have an unerring ear for
these voices. That is my gift. In the music
business, we call it perfect pitch." These
words strike a homologous chord in my
reading ear, perhaps because I noticed that
Charlie, the narrator, and Findley, the creator,
share the same birthday: October
30th. A fictional character is a musical
instrument (for which the piano is both
synecdoche and symbol); Findley is a tuner
of instruments. His job is to restore resonance
to a wavering voice by tightening its
enunciation and clarifying its tone. The
crucial question, therefore, is this: Does
Findley have perfect pitch? Or, to put it differently,
Are all the instruments in tune?
Not as I hear them. I don't have perfect
pitch but know a false note when I hear
one, and wince when a voice sharpens or
flattens the note-as-written. I wince when
Ede, a strong woman and dedicated
mother, allows herself to be separated from
her daughter, Lily. Frederick Wyatt, the
man who takes over Ede's life and banishes
Lily, has a tinny voice (Monty Python fans
know that "tinny" is a derogatory word,
whereas "woody" is approbative). Tom,
Lizzie (short for Lisgard), Neddy and Karl
are all slightly off pitch. In fact, the male
section of Findley's fictional orchestra lacks
the resonance and clarity of the women's
voices. Most wavering of all is the narrator's
voice. Nothing in the narrative structure
prepares the reader for the fact that Charlie
has supposedly added the "Epilogue" after
completing his story of the piano man's
daughter. In the main text, he mourns his
wife's "passing from [his] life," but takes
consolation in the fact that no child of his
will inherit his mother's madness: "No
more Kilworth babies." In the "Epilogue"
we discover him reunited with Alex and
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