TIMOTHY FINDLEY - PILGRIM (1999)

Timothy Findley

Title: Pilgrim

Publisher: Harper Collins
Genre: Fiction





Pilgrim may well be the culmination of Findley's work in fiction. Published in 1999, it wasn't his greatest work but there a number of things that make it a great book.
Findley had a masterful hold on several aspects of fiction writing throughout his life. His pacing could be awkward and his transitions were at times purposefully mysterious but his prose and descriptions could at times hypnotize the reader as though it were music. His themes carry forward in Pilgrim with reference to dark secrets and mental illness. He even goes as far this time to place much of the story within the confines of a Swiss mental institution where the legendary Carl Jung worked at the beginning of the 1900s.
The story purports to base itself around a character, Pilgrim, who suggests he cannot die. Doctors have made note that he was without a heartbeat during multiple suicide attempts, only to have him miraculously revived and unaided too, several minutes later. Whether the reader believes him or not, is a decision solely up to each person who opens the book.
Findley was wise to attempt not to outright persuade his readers one way or another. Throughout his career, he has brought characters to life (often characters based on real people), put them in situations and let the reader make up his or her own mind about them. In Pilgrim, many of the main characters have their flaws, their dark sides and secrets. Jung himself would have later called this the Duality of Man, a concept that is repeated throughout the book. We care for Jung to a certain degree, even though he is not always the hero we would wish him to be. Likewise for Pilgrim and for Jung's wife, the latter of whom appears to make a decision that some readers will find unforgivable.
Undoubtedly, there are aspects of Findley's personal life that have seeped into the novel. Gay and sexually ambiguous characters make appearances throughout the tale and the relationships and sex that do show up are not the pristine variety found in romance novels. To be certain, Pilgrim is more reflective of the real world than that. Legendary and iconic figures we would think untouchable are shown to be deeply flawed and what makes it all the more delightful is the way in which Findley puppeteered it all.
The components of Findley's typically wonderful prose is all in place. He often took real places and real people and real events and put them together in a fictional story that almost could have been real. If you know Toronto, you can picture the streets and homes and institutions that make up the setting in books like Headhunter and The Piano Man's Daughter. Read Famous Last Words and you can envision the encroachment of the Nazis onto Europe's doorstep.
Pilgrim takes Findley's penchant for these realities and turns it up another notch. It is a brazen and risky move and something that Findley excels at. Many of the characters, many of the places, simply were. Findley did his homework with this novel and where there were gaps in truth, his imagination tied the facts together in a very compelling tale that when taken as a whole, is essentially fiction that is very believable. Such a notion - I would think - is the goal of the majority of fiction writers.