University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

Summer 2000

The Musical Landscape Of Sinclair Ross's As For Me And My House

Philip R. Coleman-Hull Bethany College - Lindsborg

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly

Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons

Coleman-Hull, Philip R., "The Musical Landscape Of Sinclair Ross's As For Me And My House" (2000). Great Plains Quarterly. 2153. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2153

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS'S AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE

PHILIP R. COLEMAN,HULL

In his essay "Sinclair Ross in Letters and Con­ Dante, El Greco, or Michelangelo's Pieta, versation," David Stouck recounts Ross's because he had no conscious intention of humble reactions to the array of criticism given making them part of the design of his book. l to his first and most famous novel, As For Me and My House: That the articles Stouck and Ross refer to deal chiefly with the diaristic novel's immersion in "You understand the [Bendeys] perhaps bet­ and reference to the artistic worlds of painting ter than I do, or at least did when I was and music should come as no surprise to those writing. For when I waS writing I was par­ familiar with the text, for it is a novel about ticipating and when you participate you art and artists. As For Me And My House holds often don't understand or see. More was a position in the Canadian literary canon simi­ coming I suppose than I knew." In this same lar to the fiction of American Great Plains vein he has often remarked that critical authors O. E. Rolvaag or Frederick Manfred articles about the novel amaze him-dis­ with its realistic and threatening portrayal of cuss ions of Chopin and George Sand, of prairie life. Dick Harrison, in his seminal work Unnamed Country, even places the novel in the forefront of Canadian prairie fiction be­ cause "Ross's narrator, Mrs. Bendey, expresses so well the reactive, defensive function of the PhiliP R. Coleman-Hull is Chair of English and imagination confronting the prairie."2 Communication at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. His recent work includes studies of Walt As Ross states, much has been written on Whitman and Paul Hindemith, published in Walt his deliberate use of artists or painters in the Whitman and Modem Music: War, Desire, and novel, and criticism has often singularly the Trials of Nationhood (Garland Press). treated El Greco, Chopin, or Michelangelo. I would like to suggest an even greater deliber­ ateness on the part of the author in choosing [GPQ 20 (Summer 2000): 211-241 a variety of composers (Chopin, Debussy, Liszt

211 212 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000 and Beethoven) and painters (Gauguin, Rom­ since "generally speaking diaries are not con­ ney, El Greco, and Gainsborough) who cross sidered art." Mrs. Bentley often is depicted as artistic boundaries, demonstrating in their art the undedicated "dilettante" contrary to affinities toward music and painting. As these Philip's committed artist.4 intersections are explored, we discover fur­ But if these critics insist on investing one ther to what extent Ross was "participating" character with greater artistic talent, with cre­ in the construction of his text, violating the ating an artistic hierarchy in which Philip is Emersonian advice not to pay homage to the privileged, at least Barbara Godard acknowl­ European muses, and looking with Eastern edges the differences in the couple's artistic eyes. Harrison defines this exclusively Cana­ views: "Mrs. Bentley embraces an expressive dian mindset when discussing the nineteenth­ theory of art, wherein she stresses the artist's century prairie traveler, Sir William F. Butler. bond with his public; Philip advocates formal­ At a loss for metaphors to define his experi­ ism, wherein art refers only to itself."s And ences, he "draw[s] from the old culture the while she admits, quoting Maurice Beebe, an familar seascape which would have been part artistic "scale of values" in which "the com­ of the experience of most of his intended Brit­ poser would rate higher than the performer, ish readership"3-an image that recurs in the the original painter higher than the engraver works of Cather, Rolvaag, Richter, Ross, or copyist," nevertheless, "art has been the Stegner, and Kroetsch, to name a few. With keystone of the Bentleys' marriage . . . the the musical and artistic references in As For metaphor of harmony is thus linked with both Me and My House, we discover Ross engag­ marriage and artistic themes."6 Rarely does ing in a similar looking back at the old cul­ Godard actually center on Mrs. Bentley's art; ture, looking back with Eastern eyes as a way reference is made to her piano playing, and to broaden his audience, make the prairie ex­ she dominates the narrative, but Philip stands perience more accessible, and make his as the primary artist, and so Godard chooses Saskatchewan novel part of the larger Cana­ to focus primarily on the connections to El dian-and therefore, European-canon. Greco, Gauguin, Gainsborough, and Romney. Through this process of assimilating European It is not until we read Frances Kaye's percep­ painting and music traditions with the Great tive analysis of Sand and Chopin as models for Plains experience, Ross gives his readers a the Bentleys that we discover an interpreta­ text whose richness and depth of meaning in­ tion of the novel that indeed "emphasizes Mrs. creases, and his readership discovers an au­ Bentley's abilities both as an artist in her own thor who knew and cared about art and music right, and as a successful and benevolent, if so well that he could choose appropriately not always comprehending, guardian of her artists, musicians, and compositions without husband Philip's artistry."7lfGodard and Kaye actually consciously "choosing." help in uncovering some of the complex artis­ The criticism that discusses Mrs. and Philip tic patterns in As For Me and My House, they Bentley's roles as artists invariably centers on do so, in my opinion, by completing half the the conflict or lack of cohesiveness in their circle-at best creating a whole when consid­ relationship, interpreting their artistic gifts not ering the two interpretations together. as interlocking, complementary, or recipro­ Of the four painters Ross mentions in his cating, but as incompatible and dissonant as novel-Romney, Gainsborough, El Greco, and their marriage. Harrison, for example, isolates Gauguin-all have storied connections to mu­ Philip as "the artist about whom we are most sic, whether drawing on it for inspiration, us­ concerned"; "sketches and paintings" serve as ing it as a form of entertainment, or boasting an "anti-journal" to Mrs. Bentley's text, some historical connection to musical history. "contradict[ing] her point of view"; while "the Godard deals only cursorily with Romney and artfulness of writing" is veiled in the novel Gainsborough in her essay "El Greco in THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS 213

Canada," simply noting that, like them, "Philip response in Philip: "He stood waiting for me specializes in landscapes and portraits. "8 These afterwards, erect and white-lipped with a pride affinities to an English tradition prove "life­ he couldn't conceal. And that was the night denying" for the "Canadian artist who must he asked me to marry him."14 However, this cope with the Canadian landscape as it is," distant event seems to represent the emotional and like the dog, EI Greco, who becomes apex of their relationship as well as the height "tamed and domesticated" by the Bentleys, of Philip's emotional response to music. In­ Philip figures as the manipulated artist unable stead of enjoying Mrs. Bentley's piano music, to fully "cope with the wilderness."9 But finding in it a stimulus for his imagination and Philip's correspondences to Gainsborough run artwork like Gainsborough and Romney, he deeper. Of the eighteenth-century painter, retreats to his cold study, "refus[ing] to come biographer Isabelle Worman writes, "He was out where it's warm with me" (141). very musical, passionately interested all his In naming the two artists, Mrs. Bentley, in life in every aspect of music."10 So much so effect, projects upon Philip the kind of artist that he joined a local music club in Ipswich, she would like him to be: emotionally con­ where he met the famed violinist Felice nected to her art, unified in a symbiotic rela­ Giardini. And while he never really had the tionship between painting and music. But if talent to seriously pursue a career as a musi­ anyone mirrors Gainsborough's and Romney's cian, a friend "readily acknowledged that he love for music, it is Mrs. Bentley, not Philip. was 'possessed of ear, taste, and genius'" when As a young girl learning to play piano, she too it came to music, and another remarked that discovers an attraction to the violin, played "he may have been 'too capricious to study by the neighbor boy, Percy Glenn. "He had a music scientifically' but his ear was so good, squint, and red hair, and skinny knees" -hardly and his natural taste so refined."ll the kind to elicit a passionate response; but A contemporary of Gainsborough, George they "helped each other studying harmony and Romney not only shared Gainsborough's love counterpoint," and during an exchange of let­ for Giardini but also apparently flirted more ters with Percy years after her marriage Mrs. seriously with pursuing a career in music: hear­ Bentley "worried Philip with amorous atten­ ing the violinist Giardini play "had a [pro­ tions in the middle of the afternoon" (77). found] effect upon Romney, who, for some Having experienced the rapturous effect an­ little time after hearing him perform, hesi­ other artist can have on one's work, Mrs. tated whether to make music or painting his Bentley hopes that her music inspires her hus­ profession."12 Though he chose painting, Rom­ band and draws him out of his cocoon. But ney "retained his love of the sister art through­ instead we witness a greater distancing as out his life," joining a music club, playing a Ross's use of Gainsborough and Romney violin (of his own making), and drawing upon stresses the ever-widening gap in their rela­ music as a source of inspiration for his pic­ tionship. The more those artists fail to repre­ tures. 13 s~nt Philip, the more they parallel Mrs. These two artists, while mirroring Philip in Bentley's life, or what could have been: she, the subject matter presented in their painting, too, fell in love with the violin at an early age only vaguely resemble him in their passionate and longed to pursue music as a career-or pursuit of music. Formalistic in painting style, pursue music with Percy; and she desires to Philip is equally staid in his musical tastes, see a greater emotional link between her opting for what Mrs. Bentley considers the husband's art and her own-she longs for unity, drier Bach over Debussy and Chopin. But it is wishes music to help "break through the tangle music that brings Philip and Mrs. Bentley to­ grown between us," whereas all it does is em­ gether, her precise rendering of a Liszt rhap­ phasize gaps in their relationship, create more sody that produces an obvious emotional division, and, on the isolated prairie, serve to 214 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000 isolate Mrs. Bentley further as she becomes it's always when a man turns away from this walled out from her husband (141). common-sense world around him that he Additionally, Mrs. Bentley makes a verbal begins to create, when he looks into a void, and written attempt at strengthening the bond and has to give it life and form.' (112) between her and Philip. Her examples repre­ sent artists who are drawn passionately toward While this theory juxtaposes religion and art, music. Yet in Philip we discover an aversion it should also impress upon us how these views to music and thus a weakening in his parallels reflect Philip's musical tastes. According to to them. Certainly it was music that brought Mrs. Bentley, Philip prefers the dry, religious the two of them together, but now it appears Bach-perhaps one of the quintessential that music contributes to pulling them apart. church music composers-over the romantic Godard asserts that Philip's artistic sensibili­ strains of a Chopin or Debussy. Bach, at least, ties are most in line with EI Greco, and musi­ compels Philip to "listen patiently a while, cally this is true as well. Pal Kelemen mentions trying to be one of us" before retreating to his that not only did musicians play while the study (68). And in the church choir it is Judith artist dined but also his Cretan heritage tied West's singing that captivates Philip during him to a long tradition in Orthodox church the service: "It's seldom he listens to music, music-notably the Byzantine chant. IS Such but as soon as she began tonight he turned in affinities to music, and especially church mu­ his chair behind the pulpit and sat with his sic, can be found in EI Greco's masterpieces. eyes fixed on her all the way through the hymn. Many of his religious artworks, among them ... Even after she had finished he sat a few The Annunciation and The Martyrdom of St. minutes without stirring" (38). Just as Bach Mauritius, depict an angelic choir singing from represents, for Mrs. Bentley, the antithesis of an antiphonary (drawn with clear, readable Chopin and Liszt, so too is Judith the antith­ musical notation) and playing on traditional esis of Mrs. Bentley. This rare musical allure is instruments: recorders, virginals, lutes, viols, consummated in Philip's affair with Judith and and harps. So while EI Greco himself was not the birth of their bastard son, signaling a pas­ necessarily enraptured by church music per se, sion and product of that passion that remains his paintings and family tree indicate an im­ noticeably and painfully absent from the mersion in this tradition. Bentleys' marriage. "The irony of the juxtaposition of religion If Ross's use of painters in the novel offers and art cuts deeper," Godard explains, "when insight into the personalities of and relation­ Philip Bentley is compared to the religious ship between the Bentleys, equally fascinat­ painter, EI Greco."16 But the Philip-EI Greco ing are his references 0 the composers Liszt, parallel gains even more credence when con­ Chopin, Beethoven, and Debussy. Besides sidering both artists' connection to religious what Frances Kaye has already related con­ music. In one of the more definitive state­ cerning the George Sand-Frederic Chopin re­ ments about Philip's art in the novel, Mrs. lationship, very little needs to be said about Bentley quotes Philip concerning his philoso­ the first three composers and their works. Of phy on the nexus of religion and art: Liszt, Kaye reminds us that, unlike Chopin and Beethoven, he "was never a goal, but al­ 'Religion and art,' he says, 'are almost the ways a means"; a way for Mrs. Bentley to ma­ same thing anyway. Just different ways of nipulate people's emotions and, at the age of taking a man out of himself, bringing him twenty-two, to win Philip's affectionsY That to the emotional pitch that we call ecstacy Liszt's rhapsody goes unnamed throughout As or rapture. They're both a rejection of the For Me and My House is oflittle concern when material, common-sense world for one that's speaking generally of the works, for they all illusory, yet somehow more important. Now exhibit fairly similar characteristics as all were THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS 215 written to capture the flavor of gypsy music. The lights on the street and in the houses The Liszt rhapsody proves a logical choice for are helpless against the black wetness, little Mrs. Bentley, for it not only reflects her own un illuminating glints that might be painted artistic emotionalism, as outlined by Godard, on it.... Close to the parsonage is the but, with its affinities to gypsy music-impro­ church, black even against the darkness, visation, free cadenzas, and a spontaneity-it towering ominously up through the night has the potential for expressing a wide range and merging with it .... Above, in the high of emotions and manipulating the senses. If cold night, the wind goes swinging past, anything, Liszt's rhapsody characterizes the indifferent, liplessly mournful. It frightens early ecstacy Mrs. Bentley and Philip feel upon me, makes me feel lost, dropped on this first meeting: the pulling together of two art­ little perch of town and abandoned. (5) ists, anticipating a promising future, ready, themselves, to live a life of spontaneity and However, just as Beethoven's sonata segues "free cadenzas." That Mrs. Bentley fails to re­ into a steady, methodical cadence, Mrs. capture that energy in their relationship and Bentley's diary entries settle in to a momen­ win Philip back using the same song merely tary hopeful rhythm as her energies turn to­ intensifies, once again, the failure of their ward nurturing Steve, forging a friendship with marriage and the stifling effect of moving from Paul, and stashing money away for their even­ one Horizon to the next. tual escape from Horizon to open a bookstore. While Mrs. Bentley carries the Liszt rhap­ Just when things seem more hopeful, when sody with her into marriage and tries to use it life beyond Horizon seems likely, and that to resurrect a dying relationship, Beethoven's hopefulness prompts Mrs. Bentley to support Appassionata Sonata, op. 57, and Chopin's Philip's artwork more emphatically, mirroring Polonaise in A-Flat Major, op. 53, serve as ado­ the "contemplative and dreamlike" middle lescent goals that, once achieved, are super­ sections of the sonata, those visions are equally seded by another goal: conquering Philip's "abruptly shattered ... by the first hint of affections. But even if these pieces receive brief action": Philip's affair with Judith. 19 The re­ mention in Mrs. Bentley's text and are never turn, for Beethoven and Ross, is to the tragic played again after her marriage to Philip, ech­ and the mysterious, the hushed and the open­ oes of their musical patterns and themes re­ ended. And like the conclusion to the sonata, verberate throughout her life and the text. Ross's conclusion has proven problematic for Giving a brief description of the sonata, Rob­ many critics because of its open-ended nature, ert Hatten states that "The Appassionata so­ its lack of resolution, and its conveyance of nata cycle as a whole moves from a tragic first tensions into a void where the author does not movement to a transcendent second move­ take us. Mrs. Bentley's final written words­ ment before returning ... to the tragic for an "That's right, Philip. I want it so" (165)­ obsessive finale. Thus, the tragic frames and assert her presence and at the same time hide governs the expressive genre of the complete her motives. 2o Thus, her final line figures as an work."18 The form of the novel loosely follows expression of hope and duplicity, resolution that of the Beethoven sonata: As For Me and and complication, endings and beginnings, My House opens with a diary entry that ex­ presence and absence, silence and communi­ presses several of the themes and tensions to cation, and movement and stasis. be explored throughout the novel-art and While Frances Kaye has discussed the im­ religion, the Bentleys' shaky marriage, false portance of Frederic Chopin in As For Me and fronts, dreams of escape, expectations of the My House, little has been said of the impact townspeople, Philip's love of boys, and the other works besides the "Raindrop Prelude" isolation of the prairie-and couches them in have throughout the novel, notably the seemingly tragic fashion: polonaise. Most likely, Ross's reference to 216 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000

Chopin's Polonaise in A-flat major refers to to dance a waltz properly .... My piano has Op. 53, the "Heroic" polonaise-an esteemed heard only mazury."23 And the mazurkas are work in the Chopin canon and a favorite indeed a native Polish dance; Chopin wrote among pianists and concertgoers alike-not them while in exile and did not think of them the Polonaise-fantaisie, Op. 61 (also written in as dance tunes. Thus, the pieces Mrs. Bentley A-flat major). A Polish dance, the polonaise shares with Steve express gaiety, yet submerged was often used by Chopin to express any num­ behind them are stories of exile, foreignness, ber of feelings toward his homeland-anger, alienation, and separation. The mazurkas and frustration, sentiment, pride. And while sev­ waltzes, like the false-fronted buildings in eral present a "stark juxtaposition of extremes" Horizon, become "pretentious, ridiculous" (4), throughout, Op. 53 "[sidesteps] this dichotomy exemplary of the charade Mrs. Bentley and by concentrating more intently on a single Philip are committing in their relationship. Affekt," perhaps best described by its subtitle, And so when "he let me," and Ross records the "Heroic."2l only sexual encounter between the Bentleys' This polonaise, in sound and title, captures after she plays the Chopin, Mrs. Bentley re­ Mrs. Bentley's attitude prior to her marriage marks: to Philip. James Methuen-Campbell, writing on the history of Chopin in performance, notes I didn't know anything like that could hap­ that "the Ab major Polonaise, Op. 53, was a pen to me. It was as if once, twelve years potent symbol of liberty," and it represents a ago, I had heard the beginning of a piece of form of liberty for the young Mrs. Bentley, music, and then a door had closed. But top.22 Prior to Mrs. Bentley meeting Philip, within me, in my mind and blood, the mu­ the piano was one of the "essentials," and she sic had kept on, and when at last they had set goals to learn the works of Chopin and opened the door again I was at the right Beethoven. But trapped on the prairie, con­ place, had held the rhythm all the way. fined in a marriage where her artistry suffers, (69) and no longer experiencing the liberty of Chopin's polonaise, all she can do is recall While Chopin's mazurkas "do themselves such freedom: "And that's the hard part, re­ dance, and part of their fascination lies in membering how strong and real it used to be, their compositional appropriation of dance having to admit it means so little now.... My gestures,"24 the Bentleys themselves do dance fingers are wooden. Something's gone dead" and appropriate sexual gestures; however, as (151). evidenced in Mrs. Bentley's diary entry, those The only other time we find Mrs. Bentley gestures are neither expressive of a regular playing Chopin she is entertaining Steve and pulse, nor indicative of any positive step in trying to interest Philip in the music. Rather mending their relationship. The door again than polonaises, Mrs. Bentley pulls out will close; the rhythm will again hide away marches, waltzes, and mazurkas to entertain in her mind and blood. the boy. Though described as "brisk" and Just as Godard's discussion of Ross's use of "lifey," for Mrs. Bentley (and for Chopin) the EI Greco and Kaye's unraveling of the Chopin­ pieces hardly capture the same sense of free­ Sand relationship in As For Me and My House dom and liberty as expressed in the more pa­ focus primarily on one artistic strand in the triotic polonaise. Concerning waltzes, letters novel-either painting or music-my own dis­ that Chopin wrote while in Vienna communi­ cussion of art, to this point, has treated them cate a sense of foreignness-almost an aver­ largely as parallel, yet nonintersecting, enti­ sion-to the form: "Here waltzes are called ties. But if Godard and Kaye see EI Greco and works! ... I don't pick up anything that is Chopin-Sand, respectively, as two of the more essentially Viennese. I don't even know how prominent controlling images in Ross's text, I THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS 217 would like to suggest that it is through the reminiscent of the circus clowns, Mrs. Bird, works of Claude Debussy that Ross most de­ while perceived by herself and others as cul­ liberately and articulately brings together the turally elite in Horizon, can only be described disparate worlds of Mrs. and Philip Bentley. in clownish terms by Mrs. Bentley: "She's a Certainly readers of the novel recall his men­ short, round, tubby woman, with horn-rimmed tioning of the French composer's Gardens in glasses .... She has on an odd, old-fashioned the Rain (1903), but Ross also specifically little tweed hat, and a khaki-green jacket buck­ names Golliwog's Cakewalk (1908) and The led in so tight above her hips that the tail Sunken Cathedral (1910), employing all these stood out as if she were going to use that side tunes as a way of intensifying images presented to make a curtsy" (21). throughout the novel and crossing boundaries Another feature of Golliwog's Cakewalk, between the musical and plastic arts. located toward the middle of the piece, is the Although named later in the novel and parody of the first several bars of the Tristan composed toward the end of Debussy's life, chord of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. One of Golliwog's Cakewalk and The Sunken Cathedral Wagner's most studied and famous operas, are perhaps best discussed first, since the third Tristan recounts the story of Isolde the Fair piece appears to have a much more profound, and Prince Tristan, who have fallen in love in albeit no more or less important, relationship spite of the death of Isolde's lover at the hand to the novel. Written in 1908 as part of a of Tristan. Despite their mutual affection, series of works called The Children's Corner Tristan marries Isolde of the White Hands that celebrates Debussy's devotion to his while Isolde the Fair weds King Mark, and in daughter, Chouchou, Golliwog's Cakewalk the end a tangle of events leads to the death of takes its name from a black doll and repre­ both Tristan and Isolde the Fair-broken­ sents, with its bouncy, jazzy, humorous sound, hearted yet eternally in love. In Golliwog's the puppet shows and circus acts enjoyed by Cakewalk, Debussy introduces the Tristan Chouchou in the park. chord principally in the sixty-first measure, When we are introduced to Golliwog's not as a complete unit but broken up in a Cakewalk (and The Sunken Cathedral) in As series of eighth and sixteenth notes (e.g., msr. For Me and My House, Mrs. Bentley relates 91). By splitting up the Tristan chord and add­ that Mrs. Bird espied the French-titled works ing a ninth, Debussy parodies Wagner, in a sitting on the piano. After having the titles sense poking fun at the seriousness with which translated, Mrs. Bird decides they are just so many treated Wagner's music at that time. what she needs for "atmosphere" at her formal It would be incorrect to say that As For Me tea. But playing the jocular Golliwog and the and My House, too, represents a complete and more melancholy Cathedral would seem to cre­ deliberate parody of Tristan and Isolde; how­ ate the wrong type of atmosphere, two ex­ ever, neither are the Bentleys modeled after tremes that hardly communicate elegance. the star-crossed lovers. Rather, their marriage The associations between Mrs. Bird and appears as a gross parody of the mysteries of Golliwog serve to heighten our impressions of love and unconsummated passion. True, Mrs. the doctor's wife as an absurd, clown-like fig­ Bentley and Philip rarely make love, but in­ ure. 25 Just one of several women-Mrs. Finley, frequent intercourse results from a distinct lack Mrs. Wenderby, Miss Twill, Mrs. Ellingson of passion, not from circumstances barring among them-who live in Horizon and put on them from regular sexual encounters. So while airs and belong to the Ladies Aid Society, Mrs. on one level Ross's inclusion of Debussy's Bird fashions herself as the most intellectual, Golliwog's Cakewalk exposes Horizon for what most refined, and therefore most culturally it is, a town full of people who are performers isolated and deprived of them all. But like in a circus act, clowns and puppets, false­ Golliwog's Cakewalk, absent of elegance and fronted performers; on the other hand, it points 218 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000 to the Bentleys' relationship as an equally pa­ those in Ys feel as they watch a cathedral rise rodic performance~but one that seems as in­ as a warning against impiety.3o Indeed, the evitable and dismal as the end of Tristan. prairie signifies a bland, expressionless region The other Debussy composition Mrs. Bird where artistic accomplishments are stifled, and requests, The Sunken Cathedral (La Cathedrale Mrs. Bentley recognizes the need to escape; engloutie) , belongs to his first collection of but, as if mirroring the closing measures of La preludes, written between December 1909 and Cathedrale, "the feeling of suffocation mounts" February 1910. Inspired by French legend, La in As For Me and My House. 3! Like the French Cathedrale stands as a musical representation cathedral destined to rise every hundred years, of the tale of the village of Ys on the Brittany the Bentleys appear caught in a cycle of Hori­ coast. There, during the fifth century, the zons, illegitimate sons, and failed artistic goals sorceress Dahut governed the town, and be­ fated to repeat itself. cause of her wicked deeds and the "impious Virginia Raad writes at length about an­ attitude" developing among many of the other possible source of inspiration for cathedral's parishioners, the church suppos­ Debussy's La Cathedrale engloutie: French im­ edly sunk into the sea. 26 Only once a century pressionist Claude Monet's series of twenty is the church allowed to rise out of the ocean, paintings on Rouen Cathedral (see fig.1).32 serving as an example to others. So as the However direct or indirect an influence piece progresses, one gets a sense of the church Monet's paintings may have had on this par­ rising out of the water and fog, receding again ticular Debussy piece is unsubstantiated, but toward the end; overall, the mood is sombre it is well known that artwork generated by and bleak: "sometimes [through] the rootless­ many of the great French painters of his time ness of ... common chords ... a bland, almost had a profound effect on several of his works. expressionless region is then suggested, the Having spent part of his childhood near the bleak hinterland of the imagination."27 sea while in Cannes, Debussy for a time toyed While Saskatchewan is landlocked, the with the idea of becoming either a sailor or a prairie in As For Me and My House exhibits painter. Although he pursued neither of these the same expansiveness as the ocean. Laurie as a career choice, influences of water and Ricou, in Vertical Man/Horizontal World, as­ impressionist art can be found throughout his serts that the town "Horizon itself ... takes its canon. name from a dominant feature of the prairie Debussy himself never denied the connec­ landscape," where "the dream must confront tion between his compositions and impression­ the inalterable reality."28 Similarly, this is the ist paintings; however, with his music often feature of the sea that Debussy remembers from being described as impressionistic, he resented his childhood: "the sea stretching out of the the term and, like many of the impressionist horizon ... the railway came out of the sea or painters, thought it an unfair and inaccurate went into it ... whichever you like."29 For description of his work. He preferred to be both, there is that sense of the bleak hinter­ called a symbolist. Whatever category we use land that simultaneously threatens and in­ to describe Debussy's compositions, their re­ trigues. Ross's inclusion of The Sunken Cathedral, lationship to painting cannot be gainsaid. And with its attendant legend, reinforces the sense while La Cathedrale's alliance with Monet's of exposure felt on the ocean-like prairie. Like work is weak, the third Debussy piece Ross the Brittany cathedral, Horizon's church stands refers to, Gardens in the Rain (Jardins sous la "black even against the darkness, towering pluie), has more substantiated links to the ominously up through the night and merging painter's brush and canvas. with it" (5). Frightened, "insignificant and Completed in 1903, Gardens in the Rain is waiting to be reclaimed," Mrs. Bentley un­ the last of three extended piano pieces that doubtedly experiences on the prairie what make up the grouping titled Estampes, mean- THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS 219

FIG. 1. Rouen Cathedral Facade and Tour d'Albane (Morning Effect), 1894, by Claude Monet (French 1840-1926), oil on canvas, unframed 106.1 x 73.9 cm (41 13/16 x 29 1/8 in .) . Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Tompkins Collection, 24.6. 220 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000

ing "prints" or "engravings." According to Paul successfully displayed his prints elsewhere, or Roberts, Debussy's interest in this topic, given a Toulouse-Lautrec who deftly combined color contemporary artistic currents, should not sur­ and action to define the modern poster tradi­ prise us, although "the title Estampes on the tion. They are "printing and lettering"-some­ front cover of an album of piano music would thing Philip hates; yet, like the Japanese print have had a resonance and breadth of sugges­ whose image is presented so compactly, it is tion quite lost on us today."33 At the time of an activity that falls within the narrow bor­ Estampes' composition, color technology had ders of Horizon. And for Philip, advanced to the point where color reproduc­ tion became quite inexpensive, thus making There have always been Horizons-he was the poster industry both popular and some­ born and grew up in one-but once they what lucrative. Perfected in the 1890s, the were a challenge. Their pettiness and cramp color poster flourished under the talents of stung him to defiance, made him reach far­ such artists as Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and ther. Now in his attitude there's still a de­ Pissarro (see fig. 2). Fascination with posters fiance, but it's a sullen, hopeless kind. These derived, in part for the symbolists, from the little towns threaten to be the scaffolding Japanese print, whose "delicacy and precision of his life, and at last he seems to know. of the visual image ... draws attention to (17) colour and line as much as to the subject de­ picted ... a certain rightness of design which But the potential for success ultimately lies has pared away everything superfluous to the beyond Horizon, resides with a more appre­ presentation of a distinct picture."34 In other ciative public, and exists in Mrs. Bentley's words, the Japanese, and in turn French poster imagination. She imagines the possibility of artists, concentrated on showing enough of an living in a world beyond Horizon but cannot image to create an impression in the viewers' fathom the specifics. Action, hope, and a sense minds, allowing their imagination to fill out of redemption exist beyond the limits of the the landscape and action beyond the canvas poster page, but rather than being clear im­ or paper. ages they are still obscure, ill-defined goals While Mrs. Bentley speaks of Gardens in the that fade and evaporate into the horizon: al­ Rain in connection with herself and Percy ways scaffolding and false fronts; never solid Glenn, Philip is indeed the poster artist cast foundations and well-formed structures. in the mold of Gauguin. The Gauguin refer­ Gardens in the Rain finds its antecedent in ence, made by Paul, is oblique: "Why there the Images of 1894, which comprise of a sketch was a French artist who decided one day he "inspired by the gardens (in the rain) of the couldn't stand his business or family any longer, Hotel de Croisy at Orbec (Calvados)."35 Of and just walked off and left them" (128). that much we are certain. Drawing on seg­ Godard contends that Paul issues this state­ ments of two popular French nursery rhymes, ment to reassure "himself that Mrs. Bentley is "Debussy unerringly paints the French scene, a black romantic of the Gauguin type who will and includes in it the presence of children."36 abandon her partner. Later Mrs. Bentley makes Though somber in the opening, the piece even­ the same association with Philip when she is tually resolves to the major mode, painting a aware of his involvement with Judith" (65). scene of "sparkling brilliance" as the children In temperament, Philip is the brooding, moody seemingly return to play in the garden after Gauguin, and in action he commits to making the storm.3? some posters for the playa local ladies group Consistent with Ross's use of music through­ will be performing. While he works at produc­ out As For Me and My House, his presentation ing an artful poster, these are not the posters of Gardens in the Rain conjures up several of of a Gauguin who, booted from the Paris Expo, the controlling images in the novel. Mention THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS 221

FIG. 2. Jane Avril, 1893, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901). Brush and spatter lithograph in five colors. Image size: 50 liz x 37 in. Courtesy of the San Diego Museum of Art (Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation). 222 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000 of Gardens occurs not while Mrs. Bentley sits enjoys "walking in a drizzle" and admits "[t]here at the piano or converses with Philip, but dur­ was a safe, peaceful swish on the windows" ing a walk with Judith and Paul toward the during a rainstorm, Debussy's composition railroad track to make dust angels. As the music nevertheless helps us anticipate the downward recalls a spring rain, growth, and refreshment, spiral of Mrs. Bentley's life (118). Arpeggios and even as "the sound of raindrops punctu­ and staccato punctuate Jardins, producing ates" the novel,38 W. H. New reminds us that "The overall impression left by the book is the ecstatic, whirlwind pieces in quick certainly one of aridity: of dust and heat, the tempo, in the nature of a perpetuum mo­ Depression on the prairies and the drought bile, spiral-like constructions which, how­ which went with it."39 Mrs. Bentley frequently ever, for all their animation, do not proceed speaks of her own garden but describes it prin­ towards a goal. ... [The] music ... seems to cipally as an arid, barren, scorched plot of plunge into space [using] [e]ffects calculated ground. Ideally the garden would represent a to produce an impression of space and dis­ place of solitude and escape, Mrs. Bentley's tanceY own plot of land to cultivate and nurture. In essence it did: when Mrs. Bentley was younger, In like fashion, it is the drumming of rain that playing Gardens in the Rain with Percy in a accompanies us and Mrs. Bentley as she, too, recital, she shared the carefree sense of possi­ does not proceed toward a goal. Her aspira­ bility exhibited in the song. However, unlike tions have been jettisoned, and the rain stresses Debussy's garden, which echoes with the laugh­ the accumulating voids in her life: the pros­ ter of children after the storm, Mrs. Bentley's pect of living in Horizon, another dead-end garden now echoes with the emptiness of the town; the loss of Steve; her discovering Philip wind, paralleling the emptiness and barren­ with Judith; and the lasting impression of "the ness-physical and psychological-that she bare, rain-stained walls" as they leave Horizon feels in her life. Along with the fuchsias, gera­ for the unknown (164). Thus, the "impression niums, onions, and potatoes that die slowly, of space and distance" created in the music Mrs. Bentley experiences a simultaneous dy­ finds its counterpart in Mrs. Bentley's life as ing of her artistic passion: "I haven't roots of rain highlights moments of separation and my own any more ... I dry and wither. My intensifies feelings of isolation and despair on pride's gone" (151). the prairie: "It frightens me, makes me feel As with La Cathedrale, the dominant image lost, dropped on this little perch of town and in Jardins sous la pluie is water, specifically fall­ abandoned" (5). ing rain. Kaye, during her discussion of Sand Debussy's "gyratory virtuoso music," it must and Chopin, cleverly and cogently connects be remembered, creates not only the sensa­ the legend behind Chopin's "Raindrop Pre­ tion of aimless spiraling but also mirrors the lude" to the cumulative melancholic effect rain carefree spirit of children playing in the rain, has throughout the novel. If La Cathedrale, as evidenced in his use of nursery rhymes.43 with its funereal mood, suggests the sense of Adolescence marks a time of dancing, of cel­ loss, hollowness, and oppression with which ebration; and though a spring storm, with its rain is associated in As For Me and My House, ominous thunder claps, inspires fear, those then Gardens in the Rain, as Kaye remarks, re­ fears soon dissipate when the sun comes out. flects "Mrs. Bentley's abandoned career as a As stated above, when Mrs. Bentley refers to concert pianist."40 "Contentment is associated the song, it recalls her promising adolescence with the impressionistic vision of rain inJardins and occurs when she is making dust angels~a sous la pluie," and one might project a more decidedly juvenile activity~and reflects her content life for Mrs. Bentley had she stayed by desire to have children of her own. Whereas Percy Glenn's side.41 And while Mrs. Bentley childhood for Debussy still retains its ideal is- THE MUSICAL LANDSCAPE OF SINCLAIR ROSS 223 tic stripe in jardins, for Ross, children, often anything like an Impressionist landscape on the cusp of adulthood, lead or anticipate painting-is essentially an exercise in bro­ complicated and unsettling lives. Mrs. ken chords assembled in a certain order.44 Bentley's artistic aspirations are compromised on the eve of adulthood; Steve, still very much As For Me and My House is essentially a di­ a child, becomes the target of a denomina­ mensionless surface covered with words as­ tional tug-of-war. The teenaged Paul, an in­ sembled in a certain order: flat like the prairie tellectual and wordsmith, "suffers" in a town land it describes. But music aids in adding tex­ that offers no outlet for his intellectual ener­ ture and relief to the novel, helping to as­ gies, and he straddles the fence between im­ semble more coherently the broken chords maturity and maturity through his infatuation within the book. And in As For Me and My of Mrs. Bentley and "a kind of avowal" of love House, a book filled with a cast of characters for her (161). Philip, who idolized his father who live lamentable, pathetic lives, some es­ and resolved to be a artist-preacher, is a bas­ sence of assembly, of order, of dimension needs tard child who fathers a bastard child seem­ to occur. Laurie Ricou speaks of the pioneer's ingly destined to continue the cycle. If youth need to assert oneself on the barren, flat, empty promises free-spiritedness, Ross ultimately landscape-that people and artificial human­ counters that idealism with the growing com­ built structures become symbols of dominion plications of getting older. Debussy's ideal­ and presence. In a similar fashion, music func­ ism, in a sense, shatters before the harsh tions as a device that asserts itself throughout realities not only of prairie life but of life in the book, bringing together art and music to general. form a composite whole. Ross reaches out to Again, whether Ross's use of music in As an audience that may at first envision the col­ For Me and My House constitutes a calculated ors and sounds as indistinct and unrelated, and deliberate attempt on his part to weave but may ultimately use the musical texts to together more intricately the threads coursing construct and reconstruct their own warhorses, through the novel is suspect-and moot. Cer­ nudes, and anecodotes. tainly Mrs. Bentley's avocation as pianist and Philip's as painter are central to understand­ REFERENCES ing and interpreting the text, but Ross's nam­ ing specific composers and painters whose 1. David Stouck, "Sinclair Ross in Letters and talents cross artistic boundaries, at first glance, Conversation," in From the Heart of the Heartland: seems inconsequential. However, what Ross The Fiction of Sinclair Ross, ed. John Moss (Ottawa: accomplishes with the blending of the musi­ University of Ottawa Press, 1992), p. 13. 2. Dick Harrison, Unnamed Country: The cal in the literary text echoes in the words of Struggle for a Canadian Prairie Fiction (Edmonton: Maurice Denis and Paul Roberts's extrapola­ The University of Alberta Press, 1977), p. xi. tion of those ideas: 3. Ibid., p. 6. 4. Ibid., p. 149; Ryszard Dubanski, "A Look at 'Remember that a painting-before it is a Philip's 'Journal' in As For Me and My House," Journal of Canadian Fiction 24 (1979): 89; Pamela warhorse, a nude woman or some anec­ Banting, "Miss A and Mrs. B: The Letter of Plea­ dote-is essentially a flat surface covered sure in The Scarlett Letter and As For Me and My with colours assembled in a certain order.' House," North Dakota Quarterly 54, no. 2 (spring Denis's words need little transcribing to be 1986): 31; Dubanski, "A Look," p. 92. an apt description of Debussy's Estampes. 5. Barbara Godard, "E1 Greco in Canada: Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House," Mosaic The pianist should remember that a piece 14, no. 2 (spring 1981): 61. such as '}ardins sous la pluie,' before it is an 6. Ibid., p. 60. aural depiction of rain, or even the evoca­ 7. Frances W. Kaye, "Sinclair Ross's Use of tion of a mood-and certainly before it is George Sand and Frederic Chopin as Models for 224 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2000 the Bentleys," Essays On Canadian Writing 33 (fall Polynesian peoples, emphasizing their racial dif­ 1986): 100. ference. Furthermore, the cakewalk, now a main­ 8. Godard, "EI Greco" (note 5 above), p. 66. stay at church bazaars and fairs, had its beginnings 9. Ibid. as entertainment among black slaves and soon 10. Isabelle Worman, Thomas Gainsborough: A found its way into the black minstrel shows. Given Biography 1727-1788 (Suffolk, England: Terence this history, Ross's inclusion of Golliwog' s Cakewalk Dalton Ltd., 1976), p. 30. may also speak of Horizon's self-righteous attitude 11. John Hayes, Gainsborough: Paintings and toward Steve, Judith, Paul, and to a certain extent Drawings (London: Phaidon Press, 1975), p. 15. Mrs. and Philip Bentley. 12. Arthur B. Chamberlain, George Romney 26. Reginald Hache, "The Legendary Cathedral (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), of Brittany," Journal of the American Liszt Society 19 p. 15. (June 1986): 67. 13. Ibid. 27. Ibid., p. 241. 14. Sinclair Ross, As For Me and My House (Lin­ 28. Laurence Ricou, Vertical Man/Horizontal coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), p. 141. World: Man and Landscape in Canadian Prairie Fic­ Subsequent references to As For Me and My House tion (Vancouver: University of British Columbia are given in parentheses in the text. Press, 1973), p. 82. 15. Pal Kelemen, EI Greco Revisited: Candia, 29. Hache, "Legendary" (note 26 above), p. 67. Venice, Toledo (New York: Macmillan, 1961), p. 30. Ricou, Vertical (note 28 above), p. 83. 129. 31. Ibid., p. 87. 16. Godard, "EI Greco" (note 5 above), p. 65. 32. See Virginia Raad, "The Cathedrals of Monet 17. Kaye, "Sinclair" (note 7 above), p. 100. and Debussy," Clavier 25, no. 3 (March 1986): 11- 18. Robert S. Hatten, Musical Meaning in 14. Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpreta­ 33. Paul Roberts, Images: The Piano Music of tion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), Claude Debussy (Portland, OR: Andrews Press, p.91. 1996), p. 45. 19. William Kinderman, Beethoven (Oxford: Ox­ 34. Ibid., p. 98. ford University Press, 1994), p. 91. 35. Marcel Dietschy, A Portrait of Claude 20. For a more extended discussion of these ideas, Debussy, ed. and trans. by William Ashbrook and see Anne Compton, '''As If I Really Mattered': Margaret G. Cobb (Oxford: Clarendon Press, The Narrator of Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My 1990), p. 90. House," Studies in Canadian Literature 17, no. 1 36. E. Robert Schmitz, The Piano Works of Claude (1992), pp. 62-77, and Richard Cavell, "The Un­ Debussy, Ed. Merle Armitage (New York: Duell, spoken in Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House," Sloan and Pearce, 1950), p. 89. Letteratura Lingua Idee 14 (1980), pp. 23-30. 37. Ibid., p. 90. 21. Adrian Thomas, "Beyond the Dance," in The 38. Kaye, "Sinclair" (note 7 above), p. 101. Cambridge Companion to Chopin, ed. Jim Samson 39. W. H. New, "Sinclair Ross's Ambivalent (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, World," Canadian Literature vol. 40 (spring 1969): 1992), p. 152. 28. 22. James Methuen-Campbell, "Chopin in Per­ 40. Kaye, "Sinclair" (note 7 above), p. 102. formance," in Cambridge Companion, ibid., p. 201. 41. Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and 23. Quoted in Thomas, "Beyond" (note 21 Mind, Vol. II, 1902-1918 (New York: The above), p. 153. Macmillan Co., 1965), p. 279. 24. Ibid., pp. 155-56. 42. Ibid., pp. 235-36. 25. As the description in the golliwog doll above 43. Ibid., p. 236. suggests, this popular toy belittled the African or 44. Roberts, Images (note 33 above), pp. 101-2.