The bedside scene in The Last Solos
In a late scene from Evelyn Marie Shantz’s The Last Solos, Errol Flynn asks Glenn Gould to play. There is no piano in the apartment. A radio cabinet stands in the sitting room. The stations it receives clearly are carrying traffic and hockey coverage.
Flynn asks for Bach. Gould brings a score into the hall and sits beside the bed. The chair is lower and softer than a piano bench. He puts his hands on his thighs and begins the aria without moving his fingers.
The scene gives the reader the sounds that remain in the room: the radiator, traffic, pipes, a trolley wire and Flynn’s breathing. Gould hears the music in relation to those sounds. Beverly Aadland cannot hear what he hears. She watches his hand instead. When a finger makes a small movement, Flynn opens his eyes.
The people in the room do not have the same access to what is happening. Gould follows an aria. Beverly follows a hand. The doctor watches Flynn’s breathing. Flynn appears to follow something and says the tempo is too fast. Gould stops, then begins again. The passage leaves room for the reader to consider what Flynn can hear and what the others can know.
Near the end, the doctor tells Gould that Flynn may not hear him. Gould says he is sitting with Flynn. The exchange keeps the scene close to the bedside. Its effect depends on what has already happened there, including the requests for water, the score, the absent piano and the difficulty of breathing.
The Last Solos is set around Flynn’s final days in Vancouver in October 1959. It is a novel of altered history, and Gould’s presence in this scene is part of that fiction. The passage should not be presented as a historical record of a meeting or performance.
This sample comes from Chapter 17 and involves serious illness.
Read the selected scene · Book editions
Questions for a reading group
- What sounds remain audible when there is no piano?
- Where does Gould place his hands, and how does that alter your expectation of a performance?
- What can Beverly observe that she cannot hear?
- What do you think Flynn is following when he says the tempo is too fast? Which details support your reading?
- Why does Gould answer Grant by saying he is sitting with Flynn?
- What remains unresolved when the scene ends? Does that make you want the surrounding chapter?