GG: QITL review

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Here's a draft of a piece I'm writing for Mennonite Quarterly Review.  
All rights reserved...comments welcome.


Glenn Gould?s Solitude Trilogy: Three Sound Documentaries.  CBC Perspectives
PSCD 2003-3 (3 CD?s).  Available through the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (P.O. Box 500, Station A, Toronto ON M5W 1E6, or
?http://www.radio.cbc.ca?) or through Allegro Distributors (14134 NE Airport
Way, Portland OR 97230).  Approx. $40-50, depending on source. 

==========

The Solitude Trilogy is a series of hour-long radio documentaries which Glenn
Gould (1932-82) produced for the CBC.  All three deal with themes of
deliberate withdrawal from the world.  The first program, ?The Idea of North?
(1967), is a journey into solitude, through the metaphor of Northern
geography and climate.  ?The Latecomers? (1969) is a study of the isolation
of Newfoundland.  And ?The Quiet in the Land? (1977), Gould?s own favorite of
the three, is a portrait of Mennonite life: the identity of a community of
faith within a broader society. 

All three programs are not so much documentaries as compositions in Gould?s
unique genre of ?radio as music.? In each, Gould manipulates taped interviews
and sound effects into a complex dramatic montage:  often two or three
characters are speaking simultaneously, illuminating different aspects of
Gould?s themes.  This intense texture stretches the ear and mind beyond
normal expectations of comprehensibility, and can be perplexing at first. 
Repeated listening, however, reveals remarkable depth and subtlety. 

The primary focus of this review is the third program, ?The Quiet in the
Land: A Portrait of the Mennonites at Red River? (Winnipeg environs; any
distinction between Mennonite Brethren and Mennonites is blurred). Gould
evidently found Mennonite identity and faith worthy of intense attention. 
His program is an artistic portrait of how Mennonites appear to a lapsed
Presbyterian, looking in with sympathy and respect.  At the same time, the
tight focus of Gould?s magnifying lens may cause some discomfort; the program
raises frank questions about uneasy inconsistencies in Mennonite life.  Such
an independent evaluation of lifestyle, goals, and motivations can be a
useful measuring device against the ways Mennonites might perceive
themselves. 

Gould constructed QITL from nine taped interviews, most from a visit to the
Winnipeg area in August 1971.  He also used tapes of a church service
(Kitchener-Waterloo United Mennonite Church), rehearsals by the Mennonite
Children?s Choir, and other sound effects and music.  Gould?s estate and the
CBC archives contain more than a thousand pages of transcripts, letters,
sketches, and other documentation of the project, as well as more than a
hundred tape reels of his working materials.  The National Library of Canada
provides a searchable index of this material at the website
?http://www.gould.nlc-bnc.ca?. 

QITL has a structure of five ?scenes,? demarcated by parts of the church
service.  Some of the themes explored: 1. Separateness; materialism; fashion;
complexity of life; reluctance to question one?s own culture.  2. Lifestyle
increasingly urban and cosmopolitan; appearance becoming less distinctive; 
everything in moderation; challenges of philosophy and humanism.  3. Balance
between evangelism and isolation; general tendency to mistrust arts,
technology, and sophistication; discrimination among influences;
specialization of individuals.  4. Concern with others? well-being; peace
position; social concerns and politics; conflict.  5. Mennonite labels;
challenges; splits; unity; meeting others; taking Mennonite identity inside
oneself. 

Does this complex and thorough portrait have much relevance to Mennonites
today, twenty years later?  Indeed it does. These issues, challenges, and
conflicts are timeless.  According to Gould?s portrayal, Mennonites are a
sincere and generally admirable people, who find an effective but perpetually
delicate balance among opposing trends, influences, principles, and goals. 

If there is a negative side to QITL, it is that the use of Mennonite voices
is misleading. The program may sound like Mennonites speaking about
Mennonites, but it is not; Gould accurately credited himself as not only the
producer, but the writer.  During the production process, Gould altered his
participants? responses so thoroughly that these people became fictional
characters. The people are individuals, not a cooperative group in real
conversation.  All responses are to Gould?s careful probing rather than to
one another, yet Gould?s own voice is absent.  After his death, some of the
participants admitted dissatisfaction with the way that Gould excerpted and
transformed their words ultimately into his own.  That suggests several
perpetually relevant questions of conflict.  How much is the individual?s
integrity to be sacrificed to the goals of a group or enterprise?  What are
Mennonite communication styles, with or without the presence of an
inquisitive outsider, and are they effective?  How do Mennonites deal with
fragmentation? 

Since the 1992 release of this CD set, The Solitude Trilogy is receiving
increased attention from scholars of Gould?s career, most notably from Mary
Jo Watts, who is preparing transcriptions of the programs as part of her
dissertation work at Rutgers University.  But the programs (and especially
QITL) are valuable not only to historians, philosophers, and Gould fans; this
is remarkably rich material for general study and discussion, around issues
of group and individual identity, mission, and presence in the world.  They
can be useful resources for pastors, sociologists, psychologists, educators,
and church libraries. 

draft (c) Bradley Lehman, 16-Nov-96



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Bradley Lehman, bpl@umich.edu       http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/