GG: The Maestro

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

About a year ago on f_minor, somebody recommended a book for young
teenagers in which a Gould-like persona was a main figure.  The book is
called _The Maestro_ by Tim Wynne-Jones and I mention it because I was
in Montreal this weekend and was finally able to get a copy of it. 
It rightly won the Canada Council's Governor General's Literary Award
for 1995.

(It was published in the US 10/96 in hardcover for US$16.95, ISBN
0531095444.  My Canadian copy is paperback ISBN 0888992637, CDN $6.95 on
Groundwood Books: Toronto, 1995.  I can't vouch for a US paper edition.)

This is the most interesting portrait of GG I've ever seen.  It's a
complete fiction but the details offer the humor and humanity that I
find utterly lacking in 32 Shorts. Maybe because it's written for
children, there's an especially deep sense of emotion to it. The Gould
figure is not judged for his eccentricity, his pianism, or his fame. 
None of his habits is explained away or justified as the manner of a
great artist. His behaviour is described with the awe and anger of a
young boy who needs a hero. 

Basic plot: An intelligent young boy from the north of Ontario named
Burl Crow has been abused all his life by his father.  His sister died
mysteriously and his mother is passive, a Valium addict. After an ugly
incident the boy looks up and sees a grand piano wrapped up under a
helicopter headed north.  Burl runs away only to stumble on a secluded
unfinished and unwinterized cottage, piano music pouring forth. 
Nathanial Orlando (nice touch!) Gow, the owner, is a world famous
pianist who's had enough of The Shadow, as he calls Toronto, and has
retreated to the north to complete his musical stab at immortality, an
oratorio based on the book of Revelation. (GG's own idea, BTW.) He's
sketched out the whole piece and has finished most of the parts when
Burl intrudes.  In one short day, the Maestro (in various vocal
disguises such as the Baron von Liederhosen) teaches Burl the first
chords of the oratorio and its plan and meaning, the meaning of
"take-two," why he left the concert stage for the recording studio, that
he hates cruelty to animals (specifically fish in this case!), the joy
of arrowroot cookies, and that life is often difficult to cope with. 
The Maestro has marked mood swings. In one scene, Burl angily pitches
the Maestro's pills into the lake.  Finding the situation impossible,
the Maestro leaves it all behind to Burl and catchs a cargo train out of
his Solitude. He has supplies airlifted to Burl with the intention of
returning himself, but a month later the world mourns Gow's unexpected
early death by a series of massive strokes.  

The second half of the book is wildly dramatic. (I keep reminding myself
the audience for the book is the 11-13 set.)  Burl looks enough like the
Maestro that he could be his son.  Should he masquerade as a "love
child" in order to get legal possession of the Maestro's cabin?  What
about the Maestro's untold millions and formidible lawyer? And this
letter from someone named Reggie Corngold of the CBC sent to the Maestro
at the Plaza Hotel in New York that remains on the desk in the cabin? 
What about the immortal oratorio?

Burl meets the man:
 	"He was stooped a bit, balding and dressed in a heavy grey coat, a
scarf and a flat hat.  He took a cookie out of a box but paused with it
halfway to his mouth, as if struck by a thought.  He raised the cookie,
held it poised in the air, and then he began to wave it around. Not
waving, thought Burl. Conducting.  As if he were not on a deck at all
but on the podium of a music hall and there was an orchestra below him
on the lake.  The man was wearing gloves with the fingers cut out of
them.
	The man was humming, lost in music.  Burl plucked up his courage and
waded towards him, cutting the corner of the bay now, splashing to give
fair warning. The man-- cookie baton raised-- stopped conducting,
stopped humming.   He looked towards Burl, fixed him in his gaze.  He
didn't speak until the boy was standing directly below him.
	'Hi," said Burl.
	The man scratched his whiskery chin.
	'Let me guess who you are,' he said. His face hovered above Burl. It
was haggard, but his eyes were alert and blue-berry blue.
	'You are, by ze looks of you, a second bassoon player,' he said in an
imperious voice. 'Vell, I'm sorry, you're too late. Ze position has
already been filled. Good day.'
	He dismissed Burl with a wave of his hand. But Burl did not move. 'I
wonder--"
	'No, vait!' said the man. He took another cookie from the box, an
arrowroot cookie, and took a thoughtful bite.  'I've got it wrong. 
You're ze new public relations fellah from Columbia Records-- zey get
younger every year-- and you've got a slate of interviews with ze press
lined up for me. Ja?'
	Burl looked behind him.
	'Oh, zey vill be arriving any minute-- by limo-canoes, no doubt-- and
you want me shaven und shorn und looking my best or you'll never be able
to sell ze new album.' He grabbed the throat of his coat together in his
fist, and his voice rose in mock panic.
	Burl's attention to this performance was distracted by the box of
cookies.
	'No, no!' said the man, clicking his fingers.  He leaned deeply over
the railing to better look into Burl's eyes. 'You're a _child_. Am I
correct?'
	Burl swallowed hard.  'I'm fourteen.'
	'I talked to a child once,' the man replied. 'He drank a glass of milk
while I ate breakfast. Scrambled eggs, I think it was.'"


-Mary Jo