Timothy Findley's Pilgrim is the story of a man who can't die even though he tries over and over to kill himself. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, in 1912 he's placed in a Zurich clinic where Carl Gustav Jung is hard as work trying to determine the perimeter of the collective unconscious. For Jung, this man becomes an embodiment of the psyche's mystery. Claiming to have no past history but to have simply arrived one day at consciousness, Pilgrim lives in a limbo outside individuality and subjectivity. He's everyone and no one. Is he a messenger? Or is he a basket case? As the novel gathers momentum, we realise that Pilgrim is a character much like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, traversing gender and time, a witness. But whereas Woolf is a feverish and emotional writer, Findley is philosophical and dry, playful and slightly pretentious. Imagining conversations between Pilgrim and Henry James, Leonardo da Vinci, and Oscar Wilde, this novel is like a party full of beautiful guests. Or a safe train trip through an exotic landscape of consciousness where men use cologne that smells like "moss ... lemons ... ferns" and schizophrenics are elegant and well dressed, like the old countess who believes she lives on the moon and asks her doctor, "Is this a ballroom? Am I being courted?" --Emily White, Amazon.com Timothy Findley's Pilgrim is the story of a man who can't die even though he tries over and over to kill himself. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, in 1912 he's placed in a Zurich clinic where Carl Gustav Jung is hard at work trying to determine the perimeter of the collective unconscious. For Jung, this man becomes an embodiment of the psyche's mystery. Claiming to have no past history but to have simply arrived one day at consciousness, Pilgrim lives in a limbo outside individuality and subjectivity. He's everyone and no one. Is he a messenger? Or is he a basket case? As the novel gathers momentum, we realise that Pilgrim is a character much like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, a witness traversing gender and time. Imagining conversations between Pilgrim and Henry James, Leonardo da Vinci, and Oscar Wilde, this novel is like a party full of beautiful guests. Or a safe train trip through an exotic landscape of consciousness where men use cologne that smells like "moss...lemons...ferns", and schizophrenics are elegant and well dressed, like the old countess who believes she lives on the moon and asks her doctor, "Is this a ballroom? Am I being courted?" --Emily White

Never has learning been so much fun!, 07 Sep 2003
Having read Findley's 'Spadework' and enjoyed it, I decided to try 'Pilgrim', which I knew would be totally different. What I didn't know, however, was how brilliant, original and truly timeless this novel would turn out to be.
Set convincingly in the backdrop of a Swiss mental hospital, Findley weaves seamlessly between fact and fiction, a summary of which is thoughtfully included at the back of the book. It features such illustrious characters as Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa herself, Oscar Wilde and various others. Although a lot of it is fact, Findley's incandescent imagination lights up periods and events of history which would appear so dull in a textbook. Not only was I enthralled and gobsmacked at this truly fantastic novel, I learned a lot too and it has affected me profoundly. There's something here for everyone, and the writer's style is accessible to all. I suggest that if you stumble across 'Pilgrim' on these webpages, you add it to your list and proceed to checkout before everyone else discovers the secret and it sells out! What a fabulous, fabulous novel!!!!

Pilgrim the Nietzchean hero?, 23 Aug 2001
This book has similarities with Woolf's 'Orlando' & Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' in that it's about a man who is immortal. But I felt Findley's novel goes further with its examination of Nietzche's ideas of the eternal return and the Ubermensch (the Superman).

Basically, the eternal return is the theory that there is infinite time and a finite number of events, and eventually the events will recur again and again infinitely. Consider the world as a super-complex chess game. If games of chess are played one after another forever, eventually a game will be repeated since there is only a finite number of possible games - it is the same with the world; eventually events will recur in the same order. The world is an eternal process of coming to be and passing away.

This idea is explored with the character of Pilgrim. Pilgrim has witnessed one war after another, for example, throughout his eternal life. He has witnessed the mistakes that we mortal human beings have made over & over again. And one of the novels main focuses is concerned with Pilgrim's prophecy of the Great War. As the novel finishes, we realise that we mortals are to go to war again - like we have done again, and again, and again in the past.

One way in which this endless cycle can be overcome is to smash the beliefs and ideals that we humans have followed throughout our history. This is where Nietzsche's idea of the the Ubermensch or Superman comes in. It is only by overcoming traditional religion that we can reach our true potential by becoming a race of Supermen.

This Nietzchean idea is explored, for instance, when Pilgrim sets out destroy the Madonna & Child image in the stained glass windows of Chartes cathedral. He believes that human beings must overcome the constraints of our longly held beliefs if we are to move on and escape the eternal recurrence. For the immortal Pilgrim, his quest is to aid mortals to move beyond their simplistic concepts of good & evil.

A seductive mystery of humanity., 16 Jul 2001
The book is misleading right from the start where it claims to be a story of a man who cannot die. We meet Pilgrim at the climax of his suffering when one of his many and varied attempts of suicide has failed. He is taken to the Alpine Insititute by a friend/believer/prophet/angel where he excites the interest of the radiantly arrogant Jung. As much the story of Pilgrim, this book follows the development of Jung, whose comfortable acceptance of his own faith and methods is gradually and painfully stretched, resulting in the flash of brilliance that becomes his understanding of the collective unconscious.

The book is like a rich, rude afternoon dream. Peopled with Saints, messengers, artists as diverse as Da Vinci and Oscar Wilde it is still the "real" humans in the book that give it honesty and that makes it as sad as it is funny.

Compelling., 22 Apr 2001
From it's somewhat (dark) atmospheric start the book unravels gradually to expose the (weird & wonderful) life of Carl Gustav Jung & the Alpine sanatorium where he practised. The tale of "Pilgrim" & his many lives is both entertaining & educational... I for one will look at the Mona Lisa in a different light from now on. Top Stuff.

An excellent and highly-recommended read, 04 Mar 2001
This is an excellent novel. Its subject is original,and the writing is excellent. Once you begin reading it, you will find it difficult to put down. It doesn't matter whether you have any prior knowledge of Jung and his work, or whether you're interested in it or not, as the story is in itself a masterpiece, and opens up many different avenues of knowledge to the reader. Don't take my word for it - buy this book! Truly amazing!

Never has learning been so much fun!, 07 Sep 2003
Having read Findley's 'Spadework' and enjoyed it, I decided to try 'Pilgrim', which I knew would be totally different. What I didn't know, however, was how brilliant, original and truly timeless this novel would turn out to be.
Set convincingly in the backdrop of a Swiss mental hospital, Findley weaves seamlessly between fact and fiction, a summary of which is thoughtfully included at the back of the book. It features such illustrious characters as Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa herself, Oscar Wilde and various others. Although a lot of it is fact, Findley's incandescent imagination lights up periods and events of history which would appear so dull in a textbook. Not only was I enthralled and gobsmacked at this truly fantastic novel, I learned a lot too and it has affected me profoundly. There's something here for everyone, and the writer's style is accessible to all. I suggest that if you stumble across 'Pilgrim' on these webpages, you add it to your list and proceed to checkout before everyone else discovers the secret and it sells out! What a fabulous, fabulous novel!!!!

Pilgrim the Nietzchean hero?, 23 Aug 2001
This book has similarities with Woolf's 'Orlando' & Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' in that it's about a man who is immortal. But I felt Findley's novel goes further with its examination of Nietzche's ideas of the eternal return and the Ubermensch (the Superman).

Basically, the eternal return is the theory that there is infinite time and a finite number of events, and eventually the events will recur again and again infinitely. Consider the world as a super-complex chess game. If games of chess are played one after another forever, eventually a game will be repeated since there is only a finite number of possible games - it is the same with the world; eventually events will recur in the same order. The world is an eternal process of coming to be and passing away.

This idea is explored with the character of Pilgrim. Pilgrim has witnessed one war after another, for example, throughout his eternal life. He has witnessed the mistakes that we mortal human beings have made over & over again. And one of the novels main focuses is concerned with Pilgrim's prophecy of the Great War. As the novel finishes, we realise that we mortals are to go to war again - like we have done again, and again, and again in the past.

One way in which this endless cycle can be overcome is to smash the beliefs and ideals that we humans have followed throughout our history. This is where Nietzsche's idea of the the Ubermensch or Superman comes in. It is only by overcoming traditional religion that we can reach our true potential by becoming a race of Supermen.

This Nietzchean idea is explored, for instance, when Pilgrim sets out destroy the Madonna & Child image in the stained glass windows of Chartes cathedral. He believes that human beings must overcome the constraints of our longly held beliefs if we are to move on and escape the eternal recurrence. For the immortal Pilgrim, his quest is to aid mortals to move beyond their simplistic concepts of good & evil.

A seductive mystery of humanity., 16 Jul 2001
The book is misleading right from the start where it claims to be a story of a man who cannot die. We meet Pilgrim at the climax of his suffering when one of his many and varied attempts of suicide has failed. He is taken to the Alpine Insititute by a friend/believer/prophet/angel where he excites the interest of the radiantly arrogant Jung. As much the story of Pilgrim, this book follows the development of Jung, whose comfortable acceptance of his own faith and methods is gradually and painfully stretched, resulting in the flash of brilliance that becomes his understanding of the collective unconscious.

The book is like a rich, rude afternoon dream. Peopled with Saints, messengers, artists as diverse as Da Vinci and Oscar Wilde it is still the "real" humans in the book that give it honesty and that makes it as sad as it is funny.

Compelling., 22 Apr 2001
From it's somewhat (dark) atmospheric start the book unravels gradually to expose the (weird & wonderful) life of Carl Gustav Jung & the Alpine sanatorium where he practised. The tale of "Pilgrim" & his many lives is both entertaining & educational... I for one will look at the Mona Lisa in a different light from now on. Top Stuff.

An excellent and highly-recommended read, 04 Mar 2001
This is an excellent novel. Its subject is original,and the writing is excellent. Once you begin reading it, you will find it difficult to put down. It doesn't matter whether you have any prior knowledge of Jung and his work, or whether you're interested in it or not, as the story is in itself a masterpiece, and opens up many different avenues of knowledge to the reader. Don't take my word for it - buy this book! Truly amazing!

"All I have written here is true. Except the lies", 28 Sep 2007
Dead frozen and misfigured, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is discovered, in the Grand Elysium Hotel up in the Austrian Alps by officers of the American army, in the last days of the Second World War. Scrawled over the walls of four rooms is his testament relating a story of ambition, corruption, conspiracy and failure set against a backdrop of war and death.

Whose history, whose story survives? In an elegant, precise, gripping prose, Timothy Findley addresses this central postmodernist question using well known historical characters within the context of a past accessible to us only through texts. "All I have written here is true. Except the lies", Mauberley writes on the wall. By playing upon the truth and lies of historical records and by using false "historical facts", Findley comments on the ficitional character of recorded history, the failure of memory, the impossibility of truth, the inaccessibility of the reality of the past: "No one can be made to state it was absolutely thus and so. Nothing can be conjured of its size. In the end the sighting is rejected, becoming something only dimly thought on: dreadful but unreal".

Were Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor ever involved in a plot called Penelope? (No, despite the evidence presented) Did Mauberley ever meet Ezra Pound? (Yes and no, he is a fictional character of one Pound's poems). The reader is constantly faced with the blurred borders between real and fictitious as the meaning-creating narrative prose of Mauberley is faced with the brutal events of the past.

Famous Last Words is an ingenious novel that moves between the historical and the literary and the fictitiousness of both.

Marvellous, exciting, enthralling, shocking, enlightening..., 01 Nov 2001
It's always exciting to find a new author and realise that there's a whole body of work out there to enjoy. Why on earth have we been deprived of Timothy Findley in Britain for so long? This novel was first published in Canada in the 80s, and "The Wars" in the 70s.
The main narrator of "Famous Last Words" is Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, and that conceit sets the tone - a profound and deep book which still plays with the reader teasingly. On one level, it is a wise, gripping and shocking analysis of the relationship of Mrs Simpson & the King - twining the greatest love-story of the 20th century in with the great evils of Nazism and war. But there is much more to it: reminds me of Eco at his best, e.g "Foucault's Pendulum".
AND - it's written literately in the past tense - a rare virtue these days!

Never has learning been so much fun!, 07 Sep 2003
Having read Findley's 'Spadework' and enjoyed it, I decided to try 'Pilgrim', which I knew would be totally different. What I didn't know, however, was how brilliant, original and truly timeless this novel would turn out to be.
Set convincingly in the backdrop of a Swiss mental hospital, Findley weaves seamlessly between fact and fiction, a summary of which is thoughtfully included at the back of the book. It features such illustrious characters as Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa herself, Oscar Wilde and various others. Although a lot of it is fact, Findley's incandescent imagination lights up periods and events of history which would appear so dull in a textbook. Not only was I enthralled and gobsmacked at this truly fantastic novel, I learned a lot too and it has affected me profoundly. There's something here for everyone, and the writer's style is accessible to all. I suggest that if you stumble across 'Pilgrim' on these webpages, you add it to your list and proceed to checkout before everyone else discovers the secret and it sells out! What a fabulous, fabulous novel!!!!

Pilgrim the Nietzchean hero?, 23 Aug 2001
This book has similarities with Woolf's 'Orlando' & Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' in that it's about a man who is immortal. But I felt Findley's novel goes further with its examination of Nietzche's ideas of the eternal return and the Ubermensch (the Superman).

Basically, the eternal return is the theory that there is infinite time and a finite number of events, and eventually the events will recur again and again infinitely. Consider the world as a super-complex chess game. If games of chess are played one after another forever, eventually a game will be repeated since there is only a finite number of possible games - it is the same with the world; eventually events will recur in the same order. The world is an eternal process of coming to be and passing away.

This idea is explored with the character of Pilgrim. Pilgrim has witnessed one war after another, for example, throughout his eternal life. He has witnessed the mistakes that we mortal human beings have made over & over again. And one of the novels main focuses is concerned with Pilgrim's prophecy of the Great War. As the novel finishes, we realise that we mortals are to go to war again - like we have done again, and again, and again in the past.

One way in which this endless cycle can be overcome is to smash the beliefs and ideals that we humans have followed throughout our history. This is where Nietzsche's idea of the the Ubermensch or Superman comes in. It is only by overcoming traditional religion that we can reach our true potential by becoming a race of Supermen.

This Nietzchean idea is explored, for instance, when Pilgrim sets out destroy the Madonna & Child image in the stained glass windows of Chartes cathedral. He believes that human beings must overcome the constraints of our longly held beliefs if we are to move on and escape the eternal recurrence. For the immortal Pilgrim, his quest is to aid mortals to move beyond their simplistic concepts of good & evil.

A seductive mystery of humanity., 16 Jul 2001
The book is misleading right from the start where it claims to be a story of a man who cannot die. We meet Pilgrim at the climax of his suffering when one of his many and varied attempts of suicide has failed. He is taken to the Alpine Insititute by a friend/believer/prophet/angel where he excites the interest of the radiantly arrogant Jung. As much the story of Pilgrim, this book follows the development of Jung, whose comfortable acceptance of his own faith and methods is gradually and painfully stretched, resulting in the flash of brilliance that becomes his understanding of the collective unconscious.

The book is like a rich, rude afternoon dream. Peopled with Saints, messengers, artists as diverse as Da Vinci and Oscar Wilde it is still the "real" humans in the book that give it honesty and that makes it as sad as it is funny.

Compelling., 22 Apr 2001
From it's somewhat (dark) atmospheric start the book unravels gradually to expose the (weird & wonderful) life of Carl Gustav Jung & the Alpine sanatorium where he practised. The tale of "Pilgrim" & his many lives is both entertaining & educational... I for one will look at the Mona Lisa in a different light from now on. Top Stuff.

An excellent and highly-recommended read, 04 Mar 2001
This is an excellent novel. Its subject is original,and the writing is excellent. Once you begin reading it, you will find it difficult to put down. It doesn't matter whether you have any prior knowledge of Jung and his work, or whether you're interested in it or not, as the story is in itself a masterpiece, and opens up many different avenues of knowledge to the reader. Don't take my word for it - buy this book! Truly amazing!

"All I have written here is true. Except the lies", 28 Sep 2007
Dead frozen and misfigured, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is discovered, in the Grand Elysium Hotel up in the Austrian Alps by officers of the American army, in the last days of the Second World War. Scrawled over the walls of four rooms is his testament relating a story of ambition, corruption, conspiracy and failure set against a backdrop of war and death.

Whose history, whose story survives? In an elegant, precise, gripping prose, Timothy Findley addresses this central postmodernist question using well known historical characters within the context of a past accessible to us only through texts. "All I have written here is true. Except the lies", Mauberley writes on the wall. By playing upon the truth and lies of historical records and by using false "historical facts", Findley comments on the ficitional character of recorded history, the failure of memory, the impossibility of truth, the inaccessibility of the reality of the past: "No one can be made to state it was absolutely thus and so. Nothing can be conjured of its size. In the end the sighting is rejected, becoming something only dimly thought on: dreadful but unreal".

Were Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor ever involved in a plot called Penelope? (No, despite the evidence presented) Did Mauberley ever meet Ezra Pound? (Yes and no, he is a fictional character of one Pound's poems). The reader is constantly faced with the blurred borders between real and fictitious as the meaning-creating narrative prose of Mauberley is faced with the brutal events of the past.

Famous Last Words is an ingenious novel that moves between the historical and the literary and the fictitiousness of both.

Marvellous, exciting, enthralling, shocking, enlightening..., 01 Nov 2001
It's always exciting to find a new author and realise that there's a whole body of work out there to enjoy. Why on earth have we been deprived of Timothy Findley in Britain for so long? This novel was first published in Canada in the 80s, and "The Wars" in the 70s.
The main narrator of "Famous Last Words" is Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, and that conceit sets the tone - a profound and deep book which still plays with the reader teasingly. On one level, it is a wise, gripping and shocking analysis of the relationship of Mrs Simpson & the King - twining the greatest love-story of the 20th century in with the great evils of Nazism and war. But there is much more to it: reminds me of Eco at his best, e.g "Foucault's Pendulum".
AND - it's written literately in the past tense - a rare virtue these days!

Well constructed, well written middleweight WW1 novel, 29 May 2002
At just over 200 pages, this is a book to be quickly consumed rather than lingered over. It has a fresh narrative form, appearing as research notes from various sources as the life of the central character is revealed.

What Findley does well is to demonstrate the effects of war both on a naive young Canadian officer confronted with the trenches of Ypres at just nineteen, and to a lesser degree the impact on those around him and his family back home. I liked this balanced approach, with a steady progression from "back home" to "at the front", though the writing is at its best as the combat is detailed. The conclusion was also pleasingly original.

Whilst this was an engaging read, the central character is interesting but not sympathetically drawn; he seemed to me to be too aloof for me to identify with him. His loss of innocence is on the whole convincing, with the exception of a couple of sex scenes which seemed gratuitous.

There is not a shortage of WW1 literature; those seeking something that stays with them a while after they have finished the book might also want to consider the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker, or Verdun by Jules Romains.

Never has learning been so much fun!, 07 Sep 2003
Having read Findley's 'Spadework' and enjoyed it, I decided to try 'Pilgrim', which I knew would be totally different. What I didn't know, however, was how brilliant, original and truly timeless this novel would turn out to be.
Set convincingly in the backdrop of a Swiss mental hospital, Findley weaves seamlessly between fact and fiction, a summary of which is thoughtfully included at the back of the book. It features such illustrious characters as Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa herself, Oscar Wilde and various others. Although a lot of it is fact, Findley's incandescent imagination lights up periods and events of history which would appear so dull in a textbook. Not only was I enthralled and gobsmacked at this truly fantastic novel, I learned a lot too and it has affected me profoundly. There's something here for everyone, and the writer's style is accessible to all. I suggest that if you stumble across 'Pilgrim' on these webpages, you add it to your list and proceed to checkout before everyone else discovers the secret and it sells out! What a fabulous, fabulous novel!!!!

Pilgrim the Nietzchean hero?, 23 Aug 2001
This book has similarities with Woolf's 'Orlando' & Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' in that it's about a man who is immortal. But I felt Findley's novel goes further with its examination of Nietzche's ideas of the eternal return and the Ubermensch (the Superman).

Basically, the eternal return is the theory that there is infinite time and a finite number of events, and eventually the events will recur again and again infinitely. Consider the world as a super-complex chess game. If games of chess are played one after another forever, eventually a game will be repeated since there is only a finite number of possible games - it is the same with the world; eventually events will recur in the same order. The world is an eternal process of coming to be and passing away.

This idea is explored with the character of Pilgrim. Pilgrim has witnessed one war after another, for example, throughout his eternal life. He has witnessed the mistakes that we mortal human beings have made over & over again. And one of the novels main focuses is concerned with Pilgrim's prophecy of the Great War. As the novel finishes, we realise that we mortals are to go to war again - like we have done again, and again, and again in the past.

One way in which this endless cycle can be overcome is to smash the beliefs and ideals that we humans have followed throughout our history. This is where Nietzsche's idea of the the Ubermensch or Superman comes in. It is only by overcoming traditional religion that we can reach our true potential by becoming a race of Supermen.

This Nietzchean idea is explored, for instance, when Pilgrim sets out destroy the Madonna & Child image in the stained glass windows of Chartes cathedral. He believes that human beings must overcome the constraints of our longly held beliefs if we are to move on and escape the eternal recurrence. For the immortal Pilgrim, his quest is to aid mortals to move beyond their simplistic concepts of good & evil.

A seductive mystery of humanity., 16 Jul 2001
The book is misleading right from the start where it claims to be a story of a man who cannot die. We meet Pilgrim at the climax of his suffering when one of his many and varied attempts of suicide has failed. He is taken to the Alpine Insititute by a friend/believer/prophet/angel where he excites the interest of the radiantly arrogant Jung. As much the story of Pilgrim, this book follows the development of Jung, whose comfortable acceptance of his own faith and methods is gradually and painfully stretched, resulting in the flash of brilliance that becomes his understanding of the collective unconscious.

The book is like a rich, rude afternoon dream. Peopled with Saints, messengers, artists as diverse as Da Vinci and Oscar Wilde it is still the "real" humans in the book that give it honesty and that makes it as sad as it is funny.

Compelling., 22 Apr 2001
From it's somewhat (dark) atmospheric start the book unravels gradually to expose the (weird & wonderful) life of Carl Gustav Jung & the Alpine sanatorium where he practised. The tale of "Pilgrim" & his many lives is both entertaining & educational... I for one will look at the Mona Lisa in a different light from now on. Top Stuff.

An excellent and highly-recommended read, 04 Mar 2001
This is an excellent novel. Its subject is original,and the writing is excellent. Once you begin reading it, you will find it difficult to put down. It doesn't matter whether you have any prior knowledge of Jung and his work, or whether you're interested in it or not, as the story is in itself a masterpiece, and opens up many different avenues of knowledge to the reader. Don't take my word for it - buy this book! Truly amazing!

"All I have written here is true. Except the lies", 28 Sep 2007
Dead frozen and misfigured, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is discovered, in the Grand Elysium Hotel up in the Austrian Alps by officers of the American army, in the last days of the Second World War. Scrawled over the walls of four rooms is his testament relating a story of ambition, corruption, conspiracy and failure set against a backdrop of war and death.

Whose history, whose story survives? In an elegant, precise, gripping prose, Timothy Findley addresses this central postmodernist question using well known historical characters within the context of a past accessible to us only through texts. "All I have written here is true. Except the lies", Mauberley writes on the wall. By playing upon the truth and lies of historical records and by using false "historical facts", Findley comments on the ficitional character of recorded history, the failure of memory, the impossibility of truth, the inaccessibility of the reality of the past: "No one can be made to state it was absolutely thus and so. Nothing can be conjured of its size. In the end the sighting is rejected, becoming something only dimly thought on: dreadful but unreal".

Were Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor ever involved in a plot called Penelope? (No, despite the evidence presented) Did Mauberley ever meet Ezra Pound? (Yes and no, he is a fictional character of one Pound's poems). The reader is constantly faced with the blurred borders between real and fictitious as the meaning-creating narrative prose of Mauberley is faced with the brutal events of the past.

Famous Last Words is an ingenious novel that moves between the historical and the literary and the fictitiousness of both.

Marvellous, exciting, enthralling, shocking, enlightening..., 01 Nov 2001
It's always exciting to find a new author and realise that there's a whole body of work out there to enjoy. Why on earth have we been deprived of Timothy Findley in Britain for so long? This novel was first published in Canada in the 80s, and "The Wars" in the 70s.
The main narrator of "Famous Last Words" is Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, and that conceit sets the tone - a profound and deep book which still plays with the reader teasingly. On one level, it is a wise, gripping and shocking analysis of the relationship of Mrs Simpson & the King - twining the greatest love-story of the 20th century in with the great evils of Nazism and war. But there is much more to it: reminds me of Eco at his best, e.g "Foucault's Pendulum".
AND - it's written literately in the past tense - a rare virtue these days!

Well constructed, well written middleweight WW1 novel, 29 May 2002
At just over 200 pages, this is a book to be quickly consumed rather than lingered over. It has a fresh narrative form, appearing as research notes from various sources as the life of the central character is revealed.

What Findley does well is to demonstrate the effects of war both on a naive young Canadian officer confronted with the trenches of Ypres at just nineteen, and to a lesser degree the impact on those around him and his family back home. I liked this balanced approach, with a steady progression from "back home" to "at the front", though the writing is at its best as the combat is detailed. The conclusion was also pleasingly original.

Whilst this was an engaging read, the central character is interesting but not sympathetically drawn; he seemed to me to be too aloof for me to identify with him. His loss of innocence is on the whole convincing, with the exception of a couple of sex scenes which seemed gratuitous.

There is not a shortage of WW1 literature; those seeking something that stays with them a while after they have finished the book might also want to consider the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker, or Verdun by Jules Romains.

One wonders why Findley wrote this book., 23 Dec 2002
From a writer whose publicity bills him as "Canada's greatest living writer," this book is both a surprise and a disappointment. Telling the story of a group of participants in Ontario's Stratford Festival, the book includes many subplots, all dealing with some issue of love--love from the past, young love, new love, love of children, homosexual love, thwarted love, love of self, love of career--and the extent to which the characters are willing to sacrifice for it.

While some of the dialogue, such as that in an early birthday party scene, pops and crackles, as one would expect in the writing of a playwright like Findley, other aspects of the book creak and groan, weighed down by irrelevant details and a shocking number of cliches. Ten pages into the book, Jane comments that she is the luckiest girl in the world. "I've got everything I wanted," she says. One is not surprised, then, when fate decides to teach her a lesson in the ensuing 400 pages.

The personal conflicts which evolve are too shallow to allow for the illumination of great themes, and the characters are one-dimensional, prone to observations one has read many times in many other novels. Upon seeing the Bell telephone man, Jane decides, "He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. But his beauty was more than physical. There was something...indefinable." Her psychiatrist has a print of Paul Klee's "Scholar 1933" on the wall, "his inner eye, his daily reminder...that life was full of endless mystery and that nothing was known." An outdoor love scene takes place against a background with "not a single cloud. And yet...There was thunder." And it is difficult to take seriously a reference to "the voice of a man she barely knew, but a man she also knew she loved."

For those who enjoy sentimental stories and can do not mind cliches, this novel provides a look at life in a theater company and a great many love stories, which end, literally, with "the sound of water flowing over the dam." Mary Whipple