A MYSTERY AND POWER ALL OF ITS OWN

MUSIC in literature, as in life, has a mystery and power all of its own.

In The Woman in White, Laura Fairley is a skilled musician, and uses music to say to Walter Hartright what she cannot say to him in words. Not allowed to love him by social convention, Laura plays the piano their last night together to express her pain but also to declare her undying love.

The scene is mystical and eerie, and the same goes for two other beautiful scenes with the piano in literature.

In Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian's exquisite and mournful playing of Chopin in the penultimate chapter, moves the novel, together with Dorian's life, to a close and an end. There is something almost magical about Wilde's writing in that scene.

In E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian is also a talented pianist. Like in The Picture of Dorian Gray, the scene where Ana finds him playing the piano is suggestive and fraught with meaning; like in The Woman in White, Christian's music contains a truth about himself, his past and his life, that he cannot properly express with words.

More about these lovely novels, and about music, in later posts!