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.