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Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook
Timothy Findley is on the bestseller lists — again. Pilgrim , hisnewest and most ambitious novel yet, has gone like a bullet to the upperechelons of all the Canadian lists. Findley fans are out in full force, and manywill be looking for another Findley fix. Inside Pages from a Writer’sNotebook will satisfy the craving with equally wonderful doses of memories,love and laughter. Now repackaged in the popular new Perennial Canada imprint, InsideMemory invites the reader to share Findley’s life and work. Drawing fromhis personal journal entries and eclectic reflections, recollections and even anout-take from one of his early novels, the award-winning author shares hisextraordinary life with his readers. From his early days as an actor in London’s West End, through to histransition to a writer, Findley entertains with the fascinating people and reallife settings that have shaped his life. At the same time, he reveals thecreative landscape of his mind and his work, a journey that shows how memoryinforms and infuses every aspect of his books. Above all, Findley tells greatstories, showing once again that he is a true master of his craft.
325 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Timothy Findley
57 books354 followersTimothy Irving Frederick Findley was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.
One of three sons, Findley was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Allan Gilmour Findley, a stockbroker, and his wife, the former Margaret Maude Bull. His paternal grandfather was president of Massey-Harris, the farm-machinery company. He was raised in the upper class Rosedale district of the city, attending boarding school at St. Andrew's College (although leaving during grade 10 for health reasons). He pursued a career in the arts, studying dance and acting, and had significant success as an actor before turning to writing. He was part of the original Stratford Festival company in the 1950s, acting alongside Alec Guinness, and appeared in the first production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker at the Edinburgh Festival. He also played Peter Pupkin in Sunshine Sketches, the CBC Television adaptation of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
Though Findley had declared his homosexuality as a teenager, he married actress/photographer Janet Reid in 1959, but the union lasted only three months and was dissolved by divorce or annulment two years later. Eventually he became the domestic partner of writer Bill Whitehead, whom he met in 1962. Findley and Whitehead also collaborated on several documentary projects in the 1970s, including the television miniseries The National Dream and Dieppe 1942.
Through Wilder, Findley became a close friend of actress Ruth Gordon, whose work as a screenwriter and playwright inspired Findley to consider writing as well. After Findley published his first short story in the Tamarack Review, Gordon encouraged him to pursue writing more actively, and he eventually left acting in the 1960s.
Findley's first two novels, The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969), were originally published in Britain and the United States after having been rejected by Canadian publishers. Findley's third novel, The Wars, was published to great acclaim in 1977 and went on to win the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction. It was adapted for film in 1981.
Timothy Findley received a Governor General's Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, an ACTRA Award, the Order of Ontario, the Ontario Trillium Award, and in 1985 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, and a president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International.
His writing was typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic style — Findley, in fact, first invented its name — and was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology. Mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His characters often carried dark personal secrets, and were often conflicted — sometimes to the point of psychosis — by these burdens.
He publicly mentioned his homosexuality, passingly and perhaps for the first time, on a broadcast of the programme The Shulman File in the 1970s, taking flabbergasted host Morton Shulman completely by surprise.
Findley and Whitehead resided at Stone Orchard, a farm near Cannington, Ontario, and in the south of France. In 1996, Findley was honoured by the French government, who declared him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et des lettres.
Findley was also the author of several dramas for television and stage. Elizabeth Rex, his most successful play, premiered at the Stratford Festival of Canada to rave reviews and won a Governor General's award. His 1993 play The Stillborn Lover was adapted by Shaftesbury Films into the television film External Affairs, which aired on CBC Television in 1999. Shadows, first performed in 2001, was his last completed work. Findley was also an active mentor to a number of young Canadian writers, including Marnie Woodrow and Elizabeth Ruth.
One of three sons, Findley was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Allan Gilmour Findley, a stockbroker, and his wife, the former Margaret Maude Bull. His paternal grandfather was president of Massey-Harris, the farm-machinery company. He was raised in the upper class Rosedale district of the city, attending boarding school at St. Andrew's College (although leaving during grade 10 for health reasons). He pursued a career in the arts, studying dance and acting, and had significant success as an actor before turning to writing. He was part of the original Stratford Festival company in the 1950s, acting alongside Alec Guinness, and appeared in the first production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker at the Edinburgh Festival. He also played Peter Pupkin in Sunshine Sketches, the CBC Television adaptation of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
Though Findley had declared his homosexuality as a teenager, he married actress/photographer Janet Reid in 1959, but the union lasted only three months and was dissolved by divorce or annulment two years later. Eventually he became the domestic partner of writer Bill Whitehead, whom he met in 1962. Findley and Whitehead also collaborated on several documentary projects in the 1970s, including the television miniseries The National Dream and Dieppe 1942.
Through Wilder, Findley became a close friend of actress Ruth Gordon, whose work as a screenwriter and playwright inspired Findley to consider writing as well. After Findley published his first short story in the Tamarack Review, Gordon encouraged him to pursue writing more actively, and he eventually left acting in the 1960s.
Findley's first two novels, The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969), were originally published in Britain and the United States after having been rejected by Canadian publishers. Findley's third novel, The Wars, was published to great acclaim in 1977 and went on to win the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction. It was adapted for film in 1981.
Timothy Findley received a Governor General's Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, an ACTRA Award, the Order of Ontario, the Ontario Trillium Award, and in 1985 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, and a president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International.
His writing was typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic style — Findley, in fact, first invented its name — and was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology. Mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His characters often carried dark personal secrets, and were often conflicted — sometimes to the point of psychosis — by these burdens.
He publicly mentioned his homosexuality, passingly and perhaps for the first time, on a broadcast of the programme The Shulman File in the 1970s, taking flabbergasted host Morton Shulman completely by surprise.
Findley and Whitehead resided at Stone Orchard, a farm near Cannington, Ontario, and in the south of France. In 1996, Findley was honoured by the French government, who declared him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et des lettres.
Findley was also the author of several dramas for television and stage. Elizabeth Rex, his most successful play, premiered at the Stratford Festival of Canada to rave reviews and won a Governor General's award. His 1993 play The Stillborn Lover was adapted by Shaftesbury Films into the television film External Affairs, which aired on CBC Television in 1999. Shadows, first performed in 2001, was his last completed work. Findley was also an active mentor to a number of young Canadian writers, including Marnie Woodrow and Elizabeth Ruth.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 16, 2017
An excellent read. After having a copy of Not Wanted On The Voyage signed by T.F. I had given him a note about telling him how much I loved the book and had a very strong connection with it. I believe I asked what it was that he was feeling when he wrote it. Unfortunately, I could not read the inscription he wrote. In Inside Memory, one of his first comments was about how his writing is illegible at best and I had to agree. When I reached the section on my favourite book I immediately knew what it was he had written and checked the inscription to confirm. Indeed, there it was, clear and legible, agony and despair. That was how I had been feeling too at the time I read it. A very powerful insight into the workings of this writers mind.
April 18, 2020
There are few things I enjoy more than a theatrical memoir, and the first part of this book delivers that in spades. Tiff had so many brushes with great stage thespians. Alec Guinness, Vivian Leigh, among them. He also knew character actor Wilfred Lawson and mentions his performance in the movie The Wrong Box as a must see performance if only for Mr. Lawson's voice. Having seen the movie many times, I know exactly what he is referring to and couldn't agree more.
Ruth Gordon (of Harold and Maude fame) also figured prominently in Tiff's early life as a mentor to his writing career. He also worked with her on stage and it is clear from his writings that her ego was formidable. Thornton (Our Town) Wilder was also a key figure in Tiff's formation as a writer.
The book is honest about his struggles with alcohol and his writing career (real success did not come until his mid forties) The book appears as a series of journal entries, and one minor quibble is that they appear out of chronological order. Obviously, Tiff felt that they would read better in this particular order, but I can't say that I always agreed. And the entries - how shall I put this - vary greatly in their potential appeal to the reader. That's probably the nicest way to put it. I love the theatre stories, I love his literary accounts, but the ones concerning life around his adopted hometown of Cannington? Well - I think you had to be there.
Some of the stories are quite touching. A brief account about a visit to the New York City zoo on the day of Robert Kennedy's death and the dignity of a female gorilla the author sees there in the face of children's laughter comes immediately to mind. Also, standing out in the cold November rain for hours in a well meaning attempt to experience what it must have been like for soldiers in WWI.
There’s a marvelous section where Findley is “interviewed” by his life partner, Bill Whitehead, where he discusses the creative process. Shortly after that, he writes in defense of books and Salman Rushdie (this was during Rushdie’s Fatwa years). Then he talks about Canadian journalist June Callwood. I could go on and on. This book is like a patchwork quilt of events and people so different that you couldn’t imagine that they could all fit into the same book. And yet, when you read the finished product, you see that they do. And with great precision and effect.
Ruth Gordon (of Harold and Maude fame) also figured prominently in Tiff's early life as a mentor to his writing career. He also worked with her on stage and it is clear from his writings that her ego was formidable. Thornton (Our Town) Wilder was also a key figure in Tiff's formation as a writer.
The book is honest about his struggles with alcohol and his writing career (real success did not come until his mid forties) The book appears as a series of journal entries, and one minor quibble is that they appear out of chronological order. Obviously, Tiff felt that they would read better in this particular order, but I can't say that I always agreed. And the entries - how shall I put this - vary greatly in their potential appeal to the reader. That's probably the nicest way to put it. I love the theatre stories, I love his literary accounts, but the ones concerning life around his adopted hometown of Cannington? Well - I think you had to be there.
Some of the stories are quite touching. A brief account about a visit to the New York City zoo on the day of Robert Kennedy's death and the dignity of a female gorilla the author sees there in the face of children's laughter comes immediately to mind. Also, standing out in the cold November rain for hours in a well meaning attempt to experience what it must have been like for soldiers in WWI.
There’s a marvelous section where Findley is “interviewed” by his life partner, Bill Whitehead, where he discusses the creative process. Shortly after that, he writes in defense of books and Salman Rushdie (this was during Rushdie’s Fatwa years). Then he talks about Canadian journalist June Callwood. I could go on and on. This book is like a patchwork quilt of events and people so different that you couldn’t imagine that they could all fit into the same book. And yet, when you read the finished product, you see that they do. And with great precision and effect.
October 16, 2017
My very favourite Findley book...to read again and again...I love his honest and humorous insights into the craft of writing and everyday life.
June 25, 2016
"Amazing 1st chapter"
Inside Memory - a memoir of Timothy Findley, his journey in literature and his personal encounter of the books he wrote from an author's perspective. I have come to love Timothy Findley's works greatly. For someone like me, who has never been big fan of memoir, I am totally enthralled by the first chapter: Remembrance. Beautiful language that lift your mind to another level. Even when I was not completely enticed by the whole book, I have no choice but to be captivated by that amazing first chapter.
Inside Memory - a memoir of Timothy Findley, his journey in literature and his personal encounter of the books he wrote from an author's perspective. I have come to love Timothy Findley's works greatly. For someone like me, who has never been big fan of memoir, I am totally enthralled by the first chapter: Remembrance. Beautiful language that lift your mind to another level. Even when I was not completely enticed by the whole book, I have no choice but to be captivated by that amazing first chapter.
September 12, 2018
I have trying to catch up with notable Canadian writers and Findley, author of Famous Last Words and Not Wanted on Voyage and The Wars which I've missed until now. The end papers show his hideous handwriting in a reminder of how publishers' readers and editors had to cope in the pre-wordprocessor days and with those writers who chose not to write with a typewriter.
Findley began his career as an actor, appearing under the great Canadian director, Tyrone Guthrie and in Britain under Peter Brook who made him the whipping boy in his production of Hamlet, and with most of the famous British actors of the 1950's and sixties. He remembers in this memoir the kind of anecdotes that actors delight in and particularly, the one where the terrifying Ruth Gordon, having read one of his first attempts at a short story, calls him to her dressing room and tells him, 'You must give up acting as fast as you can.' However, the good news is that she gives him a portable typewriter because he must fulfill his talent for writing.
He was also encouraged over many years by Thorton Wilder, who in one memorable encounter after he had read Findley's first playscipt, invited him to dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London with the un-nerving message, 'Gird your loins. I talk tough'. This session begins a lifetime of good writerly advice that began with this one to write narrative, not playscripts and 'In writing – the craft is all'. He should remember that the characters should not know what happens next.
Many chapters are entitled with the names of his novels and discuss their gestation.
'Q: Why must we always disguise truth as fiction?
A: Truth slips in through whatever door it can find.'
In discussing censorship with Salman Rushdie, he remembers how his novel Famous Last words could not be published in Britain or France for six years because of a possible libel action by the Duchess of Windsor. In his novel The Wars, he was strongly advised by his editor to delete a rape scene which he used to reflect on the Bible story of Abraham and Izaak and Wilfred Owen's poem set to music by Benjamin Britten on those young men of World War I:
'But the old man would not do so – and slew his son...
And half the seed of Europe, one by one...'
He explains that a 'generation of young men were raped, in effect, by the people who made that war. Basically their fathers did it to them...
It was rape.
The scene stays.'
There is good advice about how to end writer's block and 'Stop explaining. Explain nothing – merely reveal.'
'My duty as a writer is to remain – to some degree – naive.' Like Rushdie and Wilder, he believes that the imagination is the greatest gift for writers. The imagination can play out 'all the great debates of society 'in ways that society itself forbids.'
Moving in and out of chronology from his beautiful farm 'Stone Orchard' in Ontario, Findley gave me these and many other insights into the craft of writing and a lively account of how he wrestled with those problems that writers either overcome or stop writing altogether. I am keen now, to find these novels and devour them.
Findley began his career as an actor, appearing under the great Canadian director, Tyrone Guthrie and in Britain under Peter Brook who made him the whipping boy in his production of Hamlet, and with most of the famous British actors of the 1950's and sixties. He remembers in this memoir the kind of anecdotes that actors delight in and particularly, the one where the terrifying Ruth Gordon, having read one of his first attempts at a short story, calls him to her dressing room and tells him, 'You must give up acting as fast as you can.' However, the good news is that she gives him a portable typewriter because he must fulfill his talent for writing.
He was also encouraged over many years by Thorton Wilder, who in one memorable encounter after he had read Findley's first playscipt, invited him to dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London with the un-nerving message, 'Gird your loins. I talk tough'. This session begins a lifetime of good writerly advice that began with this one to write narrative, not playscripts and 'In writing – the craft is all'. He should remember that the characters should not know what happens next.
Many chapters are entitled with the names of his novels and discuss their gestation.
'Q: Why must we always disguise truth as fiction?
A: Truth slips in through whatever door it can find.'
In discussing censorship with Salman Rushdie, he remembers how his novel Famous Last words could not be published in Britain or France for six years because of a possible libel action by the Duchess of Windsor. In his novel The Wars, he was strongly advised by his editor to delete a rape scene which he used to reflect on the Bible story of Abraham and Izaak and Wilfred Owen's poem set to music by Benjamin Britten on those young men of World War I:
'But the old man would not do so – and slew his son...
And half the seed of Europe, one by one...'
He explains that a 'generation of young men were raped, in effect, by the people who made that war. Basically their fathers did it to them...
It was rape.
The scene stays.'
There is good advice about how to end writer's block and 'Stop explaining. Explain nothing – merely reveal.'
'My duty as a writer is to remain – to some degree – naive.' Like Rushdie and Wilder, he believes that the imagination is the greatest gift for writers. The imagination can play out 'all the great debates of society 'in ways that society itself forbids.'
Moving in and out of chronology from his beautiful farm 'Stone Orchard' in Ontario, Findley gave me these and many other insights into the craft of writing and a lively account of how he wrestled with those problems that writers either overcome or stop writing altogether. I am keen now, to find these novels and devour them.
November 3, 2017
Beautiful book!
November 4, 2012
Findley is a great writer!
Some good tidbits in there...One of my favourite stories is when he describes the inner life of his dogs and how he spent an evening following them...The image is so vividly conjured and the experience so moving. It's so great to get inside his head.
Some good tidbits in there...One of my favourite stories is when he describes the inner life of his dogs and how he spent an evening following them...The image is so vividly conjured and the experience so moving. It's so great to get inside his head.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews