Survey of Authors and Secondary Sources

Author:


Timothy Findley


Title:


Pilgrim


What made you interested in this Author:


  I became interested in Timothy Findley when I learned from my teacher that he was Canadian, and that one of his recurring theme's was mental illness. Prior to reading Pilgrim I had no other knowledge of the author or his themes.


Brief background of the author:


  Findley was Born on October 30th, 1930 in Toronto, Ontario to Allan Gilmour Findley and, Margaret Maude Bull. When he was a child one of his siblings died and his father enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. He never finished his secondary education, partly because of illness, and began an acting career. At some point as an adult he began writing stories; this became his second career. Findley was briefly married to the actor Janet Reid, but the marriage was annulled. After this he got together with his longtime friend Bill Whitehead; they would remain together for the rest of their lives. In his life he worked as a playwright, book writer, scriptwriter, and radio broadcast journalist. He died in France on June 21st, 2002, age 71.


Other published works and genres:

Novels

• The Last of the Crazy People
• The Butterfly Plague
• The Wars
• Famous Last Words
• Not Wanted on the Voyage
• The Telling of Lies
• Headhunter
• The Piano Man's Daughter
• Pilgrim
• Spadework

Novella

• You Went Away

Short stories

• Dinner Along the Amazon
• Stones
• Dust to Dust

Drama

• Don't Let the Angels Fall
• The Whiteoaks of Jalna
• The Newcomers
• Can You See Me Yet?
• The Stillborn Lover
• The Trials of Ezra Pound
• Elizabeth Rex
• Shadows

Memoirs

• Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook
• From Stone Orchard
• Journeyman: Travels of a Writer

Genres

• Southern Ontario Gothic
• Historical Fiction
• Psychological Realism

Places, Time Periods, and Events of Influence or Interest to Timothy Findley

  Jungian Psychology was a big influence on Timothy Findley. Much of his writing featured insanity, madness, and and the madness of the world as major themes. This is shown very clearly in my novel Pilgrim, in which the main character is thought to be insane, but eventually the reader is left questioning the sanity of the world as well. Another influence on Timothy Findley was war, this is attributed to the fact that his father left his family to join the military when he was young. This influence shows most clearly in his novel The Wars, based during WWI, which also deals with sanity as a theme. His own home (Ontario, Canada) was also a big influence on him.

Themes Favored By Timothy Findley

  

  Some of the themes which are commonly seen in writings by Timothy Findley are mental illness, sexuality, gender, madness, and fear.