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Pilgrim: A Novel

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Pilgrim: A Novel

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Overview

Carl Jung encounters a remarkable man who seems to have lived for millennia in this “exhilarating . . . mystifying and expertly crafted” novel (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

On April 17, 1912—ironically, only two days after the sinking of the Titanic—a figure known only as Pilgrim tries to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree. When he is found five hours later, his heart miraculously begins to beat again. Pilgrim, it seems, can never die.

Escorted by his beloved friend, Lady Symbol Quartermaine, Pilgrim is admitted to the famous Burgholzli Psychiatrist Clinic In Zurich, where he will begin a battle of psyche and soul with Carl Jung, the self-professed mystical scientist of the unconscious.

Slowly, Jung coaxes Pilgrim to tell his story—one that seemingly spans 4,000 years and includes such historical figures as Leonardo da Vinci and Henry James. But is Pilgrim delusional? Are these his memories merely dreams . . . or is his immortal existence truly a miracle?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061854439
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	604,756
File size:	938 KB

About the Author

Timothy Findley's recent titles include Pilgrim, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize and his first published in the United States; You Went Away; Dust to Dust; and The Piano Man's Daughter. He was also the author of the acclaimed Headhunter, Not Wanted on the Voyage, Famous Last Words, and The Wars. His most recent play, Elizabeth Rex, won the Governor General's Award for Drama. His work has won innumerable honors, including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Edgar Award. He was the only three-time recipient of the Canadian Authors Association Award, bestowed for fiction, nonfiction, and drama. He was an Officer of the Order of Canada and, in France, Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He split his time between homes in Stratford, Ontario and the south of France. He died in France in June 2002 at the age of 71.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Inside the front doors of the Burgholzli Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich, a nurse named Dora Henkel and an orderly whose name was Kessler were waiting to greet a new patient and his companion. Their arrival had been delayed by a heavy fall of snow.

To Kessler it seemed that two wind-blown angels had tumbled down from heaven and were moving towards the steps. The figures of these angels now stood in momentary disorientation, reaching out with helpless arms towards one another through windy clouds of snow, veils, shawls and scarves that altogether gave the appearance of large unfolded wings.

At last they caught hold of one another's hands and the female angel led the male' whose height was quite alarming' beneath the portico and up the steps. Dora Henkel and Kessler moved to open the doors to the vestibule, only to be greeted by a gale of what seemed to be perfumed snow. It was nothing of the kind, of course' but it seemed so. The female angel -- Sybil, Lady Quartermaine--had a well-known passion for scent. She would not have dreamt of calling it perfume. Flowers and spices are perfumed, she would say. Persons are scented.

For a moment, it seemed that her male companion might be blind. He stood in the vestibule staring blankly, still maintaining his angel image -- six-foot-six of drooping shoulders, lifeless arms and wings that at last had folded. His scarves and high-necked overcoat, pleated and damp, were hanging draped on his attenuated body as if at any moment they might sigh and slip to the marble floor.

Lady Quartermaine was younger than expected -- not by any means the dowager Marchioness she had seemed in herrigid demands and almost military orders' issued by cablegrams five and six times a day, to be delivered by Consulate lackeys. In the flesh, she could not have been more than forty -- if that -- and was possessed of a presence that radiated charm and beauty with every word and gesture. Dora Henkel instantly fell in love with her and, in some confusion, had to turn away because Lady Quartermaine's beauty had made her blush. Turning back, she bobbed in the German fashion before she spoke.

"Most anxious we have been for your journey, Lady Quartermaine," she said, and smiled -- perhaps with too much ingratiation.

Kessler moved towards the inner doors and pulled them open' stepping aside to let the new arrivals pass. He would call this day forevermore the day the angels fell. He, too, had been smitten by Lady Quartermaine and her romantic entry with a giant in her wake.

In the entrance hall' an efficient figure in a white coat came forward.

"I am Doctor Furtwangler, Lady Quartermaine. How do you do?"

She offered her hand, over which he bowed. Josef Furtwangler prided himself on his "bedside manner"-- in all its connotations. His well-practised smile, while popular with his patients, was suspect amongst his colleagues.

Turning to the figure beside her, Lady Quartermaine said: "Herr Doktor, ich will Ihnen meinen Freund Herrn Pilgrim vorstellen. "

Furtwangler saw the apprehension in his new patient's eyes. "Perhaps, Lady Quartermaine," he said' "for the sake of your friend' we should continue in English. You will find that most of us in the Burgholzli speak it fluently -- including many of the patients." He moved forward' smiling, with his hand extended. "Mister Pilgrim. Welcome."

Pilgrim stared at the proffered hand and rejected it. He said nothing.

Lady Quartermaine explained.

"He is silent, Herr Doktor. Mute. This has been so ever since ... he was found."

"Indeed. It is not unusual." The Doctor gave Pilgrim an even friendlier smile and said: "will you come into the reception room. There's a fire, and we will have some coffee."

Pilgrim glanced at Lady Quartermaine. She nodded and took his hand. "We would be delighted," she said to Furtwangler. "A cup of good Swiss coffee is just what the doctor ordered." She gave an amused shrug. "Which way do we go?"

"Please, come with me."

Furtwangler flicked his fingers at Dora Henkel, who scurried off to the dining-room across the entrance hall to arrange the refreshments while Kessler stood by, trying his best not to look like a bodyguard.

Lady Quartermaine led Pilgrim forward. "All is well"' she told him. "All is well. We have safely arrived at our destination and soon you will rest." She slipped her arm through his. "How very glad I am to be with you, my dear. How very glad I am I came."

Reading Group Guide

About the Book
In an ironic twist of fate, shortly after more than 1,000 people perish on the Titanic, a man named Pilgrim hangs himself without success. When his faithful butler, Forster, cuts Pilgrim down from the tree, all signs of life have gone from his body. For five hours he remains certifiably deceased. And then, remarkably, he revives. This has happened before.

His life-long confidant, Lady Sybil Quartermaine, whisks Pilgrim away to the famous Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich, to receive psychoanalytic treatment at the hands of the young doctor Carl Gustav Jung. There, confined to a ward of lunatics, including the eccentric Countess Blavinskeya, who believes she belongs on the moon, Pilgrim yearns only for death. As he reveals to Jung, Pilgrim has lived many past lives over the last four thousand years, as both men and women, and he has personally played a key role in many of the most historically significant moments of humankind. He has inspired St. Teresa of Avila, posed for Leonardo da Vinci, helped build Chartres cathedral, and befriended Oscar Wilde. And now Pilgrim is tired of the human condition. He has hopes that his latest incarnation will be the last and he is eager to swiftly end it.

As Jung grapples with his own doubts and his crumbling marriage, Pilgrim leads him on a journey into the life of one of "humanity's most interesting minds." Stretching Jung's imagination and his conception of reality, Pilgrim challenges Jung to reassess everything he ever thought he knew about the human mind. Pilgrim's detailed journals recounting his dramatic past lives prove to be the inspiration that spurs Jung to create his theory of the collective unconscious.Just as Jung begins to grasp the import of Pilgrim's words, Pilgrim effects a dramatic escape from the clinic. With assistance from Forster, he sets out to destroy mankind's greatest works of art, believing that their absence will draw attention to the fact that human creativity always seems to lose out in the face of human destructiveness.

Exploring the timeless questions of humanity and consciousness, Pilgrim is Timothy Findley's most fascinating novel to date.

Topics for Discussion

One of the central questions of Pilgrim is the main character's sanity. Does your opinion change throughout the course of the novel? How does Findley make the reader constantly reevaluate that assessment? By the end do you think Pilgrim is a visionary, or mad? Could he both?

What is your interpretation of Pilgrim's journals? Are they actual memories, or a detailed fiction? Do you believe the authenticity of their stories? Why are most of the entries labeled as "dreams"? Is there any common thread between the different people Pilgrim claims to have been? How is the narrative voice of the journals different from the rest of the novel, and what does it reveal about the character of its author?

What is Sybil Quartermaine's relationship to Pilgrim? Is she insane? How was the attractive couple at the hotel Baur au Lac involved in her death? What does she mean by her parting words, "In the wilderness, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD... And I have made my sacrifice accordingly"?

What is the significance of Pilgrim's name? What is his pilgrimage and what does it mean to be a pilgrim? Jung, while reading the journals, is inspired to see his own journey as a pilgrimage: "I shall carry my notebook, of course. And perhaps a staff." What ultimately is Jung's pilgrimage? Does it change through the course of his work with Pilgrim, and does Jung reach his destination?

What kind of a husband is Jung? How is the state of his marriage a reflection on the state of his mind, and on his work? Do you agree with Jung when he tells Freud that marriage must allow for polygamous affairs? What is the price he pays for his own affairs? How does Jung repeatedly fail the women in his life: Emma, Sybil, Countess Blavinskeya?

Pilgrim bemoans, "I am tired of being captive to the human condition. Of being so endlessly a human being." What aspects of human life does he specifically find wearying? Most people would enjoy living multiple lives. Why do you think Pilgrim does not?

Pilgrim coaxes Jung to release an imaginary butterfly out a window, saying, "there it goes... you have set your imagination free at last." Does Pilgrim succeed in opening up Jung's imagination? To what degree does Jung come to believe in Pilgrim and his story, and what prevents him from believing fully? How does Pilgrim and Jung's relationship evolve, and at what point does Pilgrim become the doctor, and Jung, the patient?

How is Pilgrim's case an inspiration for Jung's theory of the collective unconscious? What does Jung's theory make of Pilgrim's "memories"? What does his revelation do to his relationship with the rest of the psychoanalytic community? What do you think the difference is between a mental breakdown and a mental discovery?

After a traumatic dream of the future, Pilgrim attacks the instruments in the clinic's Music Room, screaming, "damn all music! Damn all art! Damn all beauty! Kill! Kill! Kill!" Why does he have such antipathy toward art? Why does he attempt to burn Chartres? When he steals the Mona Lisa, why does he think, "She is free... I am free. We are free."?

Did the inclusion of the Author's Note at the end of the novel affect your appreciation of Findley's book? Were you surprised by the extent of historical realities in the novel? Was it difficult to digest a fictionalized account of real historic figures, or did the fact that many characters actually existed lend the novel a greater impact?

About the Author: Timothy Findley has received the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Edgar Award, and the Chalmers Award, and is the only three-time recipient of the Canadian Authors Association Award, honored for fiction, non-fiction and drama. Among his nine novels, three short story collections, two books of non-fiction and three plays are Dust to Dust, The Piano Man's Daughter, Headhunter, Famous Last Words, Not Wanted on the Voyage, From Stone Orchard, and The Wars. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada as well as Chevalier de I'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. Timothy Findley lives in Stratford, Ontario, and the south of France.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

Pilgrim's Progress
It is April 17, 1912, and an art historian named Pilgrim is pronounced dead after he hangs himself in his London garden. Five hours later, his heart begins to beat again. But as miraculous as it seems, it's not the first time this has happened. Pilgrim has lived forever, and it appears he cannot die. Acclaimed Canadian author Timothy Findley himself has worked nothing short of a miracle in Pilgrim, a provocative and intelligently crafted novel that succeeds in being every bit as entertaining as it is ambitious. And it is very, very ambitious. Told through many voices, real and imagined, in many times and places, Pilgrim is a powerful exploration of the nature of reality, our unconscious knowledge, the meaning of history, and our own humanity.
Revivified, but refusing to speak, Pilgrim is brought to the Bürgholzli Psychiatric Clinic in Zürich, where Carl Gustav Jung, now in his late 30s (and in spite of his disagreement with Freud on the sexual nature of the unconscious, a slave to his own libidinous passions), has already achieved some fame for his studies in schizophrenia. In Pilgrim, Jung sees a future prize patient: a man who has made multiple suicide attempts (each of which have failed under extraordinary circumstances) and who claims to be eternal—ageless, sexless, having lived many lives. Pilgrim believes he remembers the sum of humanity's experience, an unbearable and seemingly endless psychic burden of witness, and a fate he cannot escape, even in death. He believes himself "a voyager...denied my destination." Having seen the past, Pilgrim now claims to suffer phantasmagoric visions of the future, and he desperately believes, "[K]nowing what I know of the past, my discomfort with the future is a burden I think I cannot bear." His vision of the world is that of "[a]n abattoir, I fear, and we the sheep." But in a Europe on the verge of war, is this the outlook of a suicidal disenchanted with humanity, or the prescient dark knowledge of a visionary? Or, as his orderly (and former Bürgholzli patient), Kessler, believes, is Pilgrim an angel?
When Pilgrim refuses to speak (except in dreams, crying out in voices which are not his own), his lifelong friend Lady Quartermaine gives Pilgrim's journals to Jung, in the hope that he will begin to understand the nature of Pilgrim's "dread necessity of self—an identity whose burden he can no longer bear." More importantly, she encourages Jung to believe Pilgrim, as impossible as his tale appears. But nothing could have prepared him for Pilgrim's journals, which seem to contain the voices of people throughout the history of mankind—extraordinary eyewitness accounts of the lives of everyone, it seems, but the mysterious and silent middle-aged man in Jung's care. The voices are male and female, of all ages and stations in life—who have been friends with Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and St. Teresa of Avila, and witnessed the death of Hector in the Trojan War. Most remarkably, his journals include the account of a transvestite woman who, having disguised herself as her brother, is then brutally raped by her brother's lover (Leonardo da Vinci), only to sit before the artist years later, when she is immortalized as the subject of his "Mona Lisa."
All these events are recorded as "Dreams," and although he is puzzled by the vividness of the journal's entries, Jung is unsure of their nature—whether they are dreams, fictions, the rants of a schizophrenic, or the voices of channeled spirits. Jung wonders, "Had it all been a dream? All of it? Or was it that Pilgrim—if truly a medium—sometimes recovered his voices in what he called dreams? Calling them dreams, but meaning something else. Meaning conjurings—gleanings—messages. Disturbances. Other voices, not his own, intruding on his reality.... Like a house invaded by marauders, while the owner—helpless, watches, and listens."
In Pilgrim, Jung is faced with a patient who tries his own theories of the collective unconscious, challenges Jung's understanding of the nature of self, and ultimately, forces the doctor to confront his own "madness"—for Jung, too, is haunted by other voices, dreams, and visions, and a taunting conscience. But while Jung's theorizing provides a philosophical backbone for the tale, Pilgrim is aimed at the general reader. It is told through multiple points of view, alternately in Jung's thoughts; in the mind of his estranged wife and academic collaborator, Emma, as she reads and attempts to interpret Pilgrim's journals; and in glimpses through the eyes of countless others, each of whom is at odds with his or her own identity.
For Jung, in his approach to Pilgrim's disturbance, and for all the characters in Pilgrim, the goal is the individual's ultimate realization of self. But Findley poses the question of whether the essential "self" is the "owner," as Jung describes it—or is it the house, where many lives come to rest? Ironically, of all the characters in Findley's novel, it would appear that those who truly know themselves (or claim to) are deemed mad: a woman who believes she is a resident of the moon, a man who thinks he is a dog, and Pilgrim himself, who wishes only to escape his endless identity. Mad or not, like the woman who would become Leonardo's "Mona Lisa," each of Findley's characters struggles to reconcile the "I" by which they know themselves, in a world which knows them only by the masks they wear.
Pilgrim brings to mind the adage, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But Findley points to a truth this statement overlooks: Sometimes, even those who can remember the past are condemned, for the fate of humanity is a shared responsibility. He knows that ultimately, "We none of us can be cured. Not of our lives." But as much as we bear the weight of the darkness of history and suffer from the inevitable blindnesses that lead us into the future, humanity also offers light. Findley reminds us that if the self—if life itself—is an incurable condition, it also offers—through art and imagination—the power to heal, to lift the spirit, to learn, and to one day find rescue.
—Elise Vogel
Elise Vogel is a freelance writer living in New York City.

bn.com

Timothy Findley's Pilgrim is a spellbinding novel abouth truth and the intricacies of human consciousness.
— USA Today

Anne Stephenson

A dazzling, heartbreaking piece of literary alchemy.

Newsday

It's rare to find an author in which the moralist and entertainer cohabit so naturally.

New York Times Book Review

What is most appealing about this meganovel is that despite its daunting display of the intellectual evolution of the world through literature, art, politics and history, it remains endlessly enjoyable and never fails to engage the reader. Pilgrim endlessly rewards the reader with luxuriant prose, complex characters and challenging ideas. It is an adventuresome ride well worth taking.

Chicago Tribune

Findley is a thinking person's storyteller.

Houston Chronicle

Provocative.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

Findley spins a fine tale...[his] powers of description are truly extraordinary. Pilgrim is an impressive creation.

Wall Street Journal

Impressive.

Denver Rocky Mountain News

Pilgrim is an entertaining book, as visual as the artists depicted in it.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Soaring...[Pilgrim is] a gorgeously complex novel of ideas and a rousing good read.

Ruminator Review

In the early hours of April 17, 1912, two nights after the sinking of the Titanic, a man named Pilgrim, author of a renowned book on Leonardo da Vinci, steps into the garden of his London home and hangs himself. Amazingly, five hours later his heart starts beating again, and he revives. Findley (Headhunter; The Telling of Lies) is at his peak in this story of a man who cannot die, but has grown so weary and despairing of life that he longs only to escape it. Pilgrim, under the care of his wealthy friend Lady Sybil Quartermaine, is removed to the B rgholzli Psychiatric Clinic in Z rich, where Carl Jung, a principal doctor, is persuaded to take on his case. Is Pilgrim mad, or is Jung, struggling to find himself as a theorist and to sustain his uneasy marriage, the one who is deluded? Did Pilgrim dream of the fate of the Titanic victims, and is he dreaming now of the carnage of the coming world war? Did he, as his journals attest, know da Vinci, know St. Teresa of Avila, help build the great cathedral at Chartres? The story moves back and forth from Pilgrim's mind to Jung's, to Pilgrim's journals as they're being read by Emma Jung--who seems to understand Pilgrim's dilemma far better than her husband does. Ambitious doesn't half describe a novel that includes an eyewitness account of the death of Hector in the Trojan War, appearances by Henry James and Oscar Wilde, and both the woman who posed for the Mona Lisa and her reincarnated self as the man who's just stolen it from the Louvre. Aimed at the general reader, not James scholars, Jungians or fans of Virginia Woolf's similarly premised Orlando, this is a polished and exhilarating entertainment that's challenging, mystifying and expertly crafted, even if its kaleidoscopic perspective is no longer entirely fresh. 4-city author tour. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Pilgrim shows up at a famous psychiatric clinic in Zurich in April 1912 after failing to hang himself in the garden of his London home. His entourage includes lovely personal friend Lady Quartermaine and some servants, but the details of his circumstances are mysterious and slow to trickle out. This inventive novel mixes many historical figures, from the not-yet-famous Carl Jung--who treats Pilgrim--to Gertrude Stein, as well as some more ancient personalities. Pilgrim, it turns out, is immortal, and he (or sometimes she) has witnessed and perhaps been had a hand in many important events in history, which his diary captures. This colorful novel by a noted Canadian novelist probably won't appeal to everyone, but it is still very entertaining and decidedly offbeat.--Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Though at first it may seem overloaded with symbol and metaphor, in the long run the prolific Canadian writer Timothy Findley's dense, ambitious new novel carries its weight easily. Questioning whether individual sanity can have any relevance in a world ravaged by madness, ''Pilgrim'' is an intense, bewitching mix of mystery, religion, history, psychology and philosophy that challenges and provokes while still managing to entertain. Findley's images and his book's convoluted design—a straightforward (if bizarre) narrative disrupted by wormholes of additional plot—wind up filling the text with unexpected depths and insights.
—The New York Times Book Review

James Polk