English Music by Peter Ackroyd

Source of book: I own this.

I have enough books in my library that I can’t always remember where I got them and when. This is such a book. My best guess is that I found it at a library sale at least five years ago. It is a Franklin Library hardback signed by the author - and it matches copies of Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Crichton - so I am pretty sure I found them together. After all, it is hard to pass up a really nice hardback.

What I am less sure of is that I had any idea who Peter Ackroyd was when I got the book. I may have been vaguely aware of him, but he wasn’t on any of my reading lists. In any event, he is still living and writing, and is best known for having a wide variety of subjects and styles, from well respected biographies to fiction spanning a range of genres.

English Music is a somewhat unusual book. One could even argue that it is two books in one and that either part could stand alone.

The odd numbered chapters form one of the parts: they are a first person narrative by the protagonist, Timothy Harcombe, of his life. That part of the story is essentially a coming-of-age story as well as a tale of a boy and his complex relationship with his father. Clement Harcombe is a former circus performer turned faith healer, who has raised Timothy alone since birth - Timothy’s mother died in childbirth. Although the character has all the hallmarks of a charlatan, Clement actually does have the ability to heal - as long as he has Timothy to assist him. (It is never clear to the reader or to the characters exactly how much of the ability belongs to Clement and how much to Timothy - although it does seem that the two of them have to work together.) Timothy is taken from his father to go live with his maternal grandparents - and get a real education and grow up as a normal child. He ends up seeing his father again a few times during childhood and then as an adult - and eventually goes back to working with his father. Their both loving and dysfunctional relationship forms the core of the narrative - and it is clear that Timothy is torn between his two natures: his conventional aristocratic mother, and his self-taught bohemian father. These two natures are represented in a rather metaphorical way by the art which forms the second part of the book. Timothy’s father teaches him during his childhood using English literature. When he goes to live with his grandparents, he discovers his mother’s collection of classical music - primarily English composers. The author combines these traits in Timothy, and literature and music in what he calls “English Music,” which is really the entire art of the English people, from painting to music to literature to poetry.

The second part of the book is rather distinctive. The even numbered chapters represent dreams (or visions or hallucinations) that Timothy has during his unconscious spells which afflict him during times of stress. These dream sequences are told in the third person, who observes Timothy as he interacts with various representatives of “English Music.”

So, for example, in the first one, Timothy finds himself in a world which is a mashup of Pilgrim’s Progress and Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Yes, that is as odd as it sounds. Furthermore, Ackroyd writes these sequences in the style of those stories - and yes, Bunyan and Carroll mixed together does make for a bizarre style.

That is just one example. Other chapters feature Great Expectations, Robinson Crusoe, Morte d’Arthur, and Sherlock Holmes. The poetry of William Blake gets a chapter, as does the gallery of great English painters. William Hogarth gets a chapter to himself - a harrowing vision of Gin Alley and Bedlam. Composer William Byrd gets a chapter as well. There are other authors and books that get at least small references.

Ackroyd has been criticized for his choices in putting together his English pantheon. Women are barely mentioned (just George Eliot and Emily Bronte), and his idea that English art forms a single, coherent narrative is both a stretch and a bit jingoistic. On the other hand, you can tell Ackroyd loves the artists he selects, and is intimately familiar with their works. This isn’t just a greatest hits list, but an exploration of the artists that made Ackroyd who he is. I myself have mixed feelings about this, because I am an Anglophile myself. If I were to pick, I would say that English literature has been the most consistently influential and best written (on average) for the last 500 or so years. But of course, I am biased both because my native language is English, and I grew up immersed in the English language classics. Music and the visual arts, however, are different - England has a few distinguished names, but is hardly a leader in those areas.

As for the book itself, I thought it was good, but not great. The writing is excellent of course - Ackroyd is a craftsman of words. The dream interludes were quite interesting, whether or not you agree with his theory. I would go so far as to say that his ability to write “in the style of” is quite impressive - the poetry in particular is spot on. Where I felt it fell a bit flat was in the basic concept. The faith healing just feels kind of weird, as it is never given an explanation or a reason for existing. The book isn’t written like Magical Realism, and it has no other supernatural elements - or even the acknowledgement of any. We are just to assume that within an otherwise realistic book that two characters can heal people without knowing how they do it, or with any natural or supernatural explanation suggested. I also found Timothy to be annoyingly directionless. He never does seem to have any idea what he wants to do with his life. And that includes even in his old age. He never really does find himself or get beyond his tendency to expect that others will give his life direction. For that reason, it was difficult to warm up to him as a protagonist. I kept waiting for him to grow or discover something about himself. But it never really happens.

I am rather curious to read some more Ackroyd, however, because he is clearly a skilled writer, and his other books are apparently quite different from this one and from each other.

***

So, a few things from the book:

A number of paintings become part of the story. Here is one I particularly like, “Landscape With A Castle” by John Martin. 

William Byrd wrote nearly 500 works - a prodigious output to be sure - and also taught extensively. He is one of the few of his time to live long enough to see his works go out of style. In recent times, his music has been rediscovered. Here is a taste of his skill:

Although it doesn’t make it into the book, I figure I might link one of my favorite English composers, Ralph Vaughn Williams. This work is a bit more obscure, but it is one I have played - and it is quite fun.