"There was no more talk of doves and pigeons..."

Pilgrim by Timothy Findley

HarperCollins Publishers

1999: Toronto

I have only read one other book by Timothy Findley, and that book is Famous Last Words, which I enjoyed thoroughly.  It is, like Pilgrim, a dark and fantastically mysterious journey that mingles and copulates fact with fiction.  That is not to say that Findley portrays his work as some sort of documentary - far from it.  What it does mean, however, is that the reader is left with an oftentimes plausible alternative reality that is, most times, only fit for the page or the screen (as fortunate or unfortunate as it is).

We actually know quite a great deal about the novel before we open the first page, which to me is quite unfortunate.  I like to delve and discover a novel, which is why I have conflicted opinions on putting writing on the back covers of books.  I think sometimes they tell way too much; in this case, the back cover of Pilgrim told me way too much:  "Ageless.  Sexless.  Deathless.  Timeless.  Pilgrim - the man who has lived throughout human history..."  Those are things I would have loved not to know beforehand.  I digress...

The book opens darkly with the main character's, aptly named Pilgrim, suicide...or rather, attempted suicide.  Again we know it is attempted right away because of the back cover.  In any event, we are also treated to a foreboding in the person of Pilgrim's butler/assistant, Forster, who opines whether or not his master has succeeded this time.  Pilgrim, of course, has not and is promptly admitted to the Burgholzli Clinic in Switzerland for observation.  

During his stay, he is tended to chiefly by a young Dr. Carl Jung, whose career is just starting to grow and whose relationship with a one Dr. Freud has yet to fully falter into a schizm.  Jung is, in fact, quite an important secondary character with loads of depth and conflict:  he is confused about Pilgrim - a man, an entity - a thing he cannot explain nor understand fully.  The scientist in him doubts Pilgrim, but the Jung we know from his theory of the collective unconscious certainly needs to believe him.  Indeed, if anything, Pilgrim is just the man to prove Jung's theories.  

Jung comes into possession of Pilgrim's journals, which detail surprising and alarming facts about his supposed "lives."  One of which, as a woman, he posed for perhaps the most mysterious painting of all time by arguably the most interesting man of all time - "The Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci.  Findley takes some artistic liberty here in depicting da Vinci's sexuality and personality but it certainly works on a number of levels.  In another life, Pilgrim was a stained-glass shape cutter at Chartres Cathedral.  Interestingly enough, he worked on the famous blue glass in the Church - possibly the most beautiful colour of blue to be made from the appendage of a man.  Needless to say, Pilgrim is an interesting human being; tortured to be sure, but interesting nevertheless.

With the help of a comically undercover Forster, Pilgrim eventually escapes from the clutches of Jung and the Burgholzli Institute and treks across Europe with a mission in mind:  to destroy or upset all of the items, places, things that he has "touched" in his past lives (or as many as possible before he is killed, if that is even possible).  I'm being a little facetious here because his reasoning is a lot more nuanced that this - more on this later.

Forster and Pilgrim are able to arrange the theft of the Mona Lisa and set a fire in the Chartres Cathedral before an odd twist occurs:  Pilgrim is able to kill himself finally!  Or maybe not...it's not clear.  He definitely does disappear but his death is uncertain for lack of a body.  For such a long book, it ends quite abruptly and mysteriously - maddeningly so in fact.

Other Thoughts

The Dr. Jung character is probably the most interesting character in the book, followed by Pilgrim himself/herself and followed closely by Emma, Jung's embattled wife.

Jung is a deeply conflicted and tragic individual.  I don't know much about his real life but in the book he is fallible, passionate about his work, selfish, and thoroughly obstinate about almost everything.  He cheats on his wife, who has done nothing but everything for him, including reading his papers, editing, offering advice, bear his child, and read and interpret Pilgrim's journals for him (Jung becomes tired of reading the fantastic tales of Pilgrim and asks Emma to do it for him).  His science seems too inflexible to allow for someone, something like Pilgrim.  

Emma, on the other hand, lends Pilgrim a welcome touch of sensitivity and intelligence that is simply different in kind to that offered by Jung.  She deeply loved her husband, maybe still so, but after one particularly disturbing scene where she finds Jung's mistress giving the good doctor's dude piston a polish, she becomes empty and vacant to and for him.  Fair enough.  When you get down to it, both these figures are tragically entwined but you really only feel sorry for one of them, that being Emma.  Jung is, excuse my language, a selfish, close-minded cock, who had proof enough before him yet dismissed it as insanity.

The character of Pilgrim could have been better written I think, but it is possible that Findley was purposely keeping him opaque in order to foster a sense of Pilgrim's own mind.  We never know if Pilgrim was insane or not, or if he actually lived those lives and experiences that he wrote down.

Why did Pilgrim choose to destroy the Church and steal the Mona Lisa (among other things)?  Again, his reasoning is blurred by Findley's own wordiness and intentional confusion.  But here is my take on it...

Pilgrim, assuming he has experienced all the things we come to believe he has experienced, is tired of being unable to not live.  That is to say, he wants to die.  But he can't - how frustrating is that?!?  The one thing that humans have (or should have) complete and total control over is something that is unavailable to him!  Yet, let us wait - often people say that art is simply a language, a life, an extension of one's soul - if this is the case, Pilgrim would say, then some semblance of death is attainable.  

There are two sides to my argument or opinion on the matter:  First is the above idea: that Pilgrim is tired and wishes his soul to pass on into deathly permanence.  Second is the concept of art for art's sake.  Pilgrim doesn't really like that all these works of art and symbols of greatness and spirituality are hiding behind glass, or protected with armed guards for the stupid masses to ogle, blink, and chew their cud.  For example, the Mona Lisa should be in Italy where it belongs, not behind 2 feet of solid glass where people cannot appreciate its majesty and beauty.  It's wrong to him, unacceptable; if he is able to liberate it, he is liberating himself somehow.

This kind of idea is something that Findley can persuade us to think simply because of the cloudiness of Pilgrim's thinking and reasoning.  We don't know because Pilgrim himself is either incapable of such thoughts, or is in fact insane.

The beauty of the novel is that we don't know for sure - a characteristic of Findley's writings (not that I am anywhere close to an expert on his writing).  There are some negatives about the novel, one of them being his wordiness.  Pilgrim is also slow to develop in many areas without cause.  The biggest problem I have with it is that it just doesn't tell the reader enough information.  We just "don't know" too much.  That being said, for those with a penchant for mystery-history, it is an excellent read.  Just get used to "not knowing for sure."