Terry
Kay’s Shadow Song
Shadow Song is about the concept of what Terry
calls “giving way”; it is about those defining moments of our lives when we
make a choice, when we change some significant aspect of our lives in order to
follow another path. It is also about
one’s devotion to an ideal that can both inspire and enrich the mundanity of
daily living. Avrum Feldman comes each summer to the Catskills, to rest and
devote himself to the memory and magic of Amelita Galli-Curci, an opera diva
who had once summered in the mountains and whose music and person he had fallen
in love with years before. Feldman first
heard Galli-Curci sing on January 28, 1918, “sitting beside his annoyed wife,
listening to . . . ‘Ombra Leggiera’—the “Shadow Song” [from Dinorah]—the voice of the music spoke to
Avrum, and the power to wish, to dream, was released in him and he became
another man” (Shadow Song 3). Feldman loved both the diva and her voice,
devoting “his life to the celebration of that moment. It was a life of innocent fantasy and sweetly
endured anguish” (4). His devotion to
this ideal—to the romantic illusion of music, beauty, and art—is shared with
young Bobo Murphy during the summer of 1955 at Pine Hill resort, where Bobo has
come to work. Bobo explains, “Avrum Feldman
believed in the power of one grand, undeniable moment of change, and in the
voice of the music” (8). Avrum’s
influence on the boy and then the man is the substance of the novel, as a
middle-aged Bobo, now an artist, returns to Pine Hill to settle Avrum’s affairs
after the old man’s death.
As you read, consider why these well-to-do
Jewish folk, most of whom are immigrants or refugees from Germany during the
thirties and forties, find such solace
in Pine Hill and the beautiful Catskill setting. How does the sublime music of Galli-Curci
function as an antidote to what many of these people or their relatives
experienced before coming to
Certainly, for Bobo, Feldman himself represents the
idealism, the “visionary gleam,” the passion and nebulous but necessary
illusions of life which are important for most, but particularly so for the
artist. On the other hand, Bobo’s wife
Carolyn is an emblem for reality, “the common light of day,” the everyday
intruding upon illusion. Carolyn is the
familiar; Feldman, the dream. Bobo
thinks, as he recalls home and Carolyn: “Yes, I did miss home. I missed the chair that I loved. I missed the invasion of the children in my
home studio. I missed the feel of my
bed, the sound of Carolyn’s breathing in sleep, the taste of breakfast coffee
at my table” (188). How specifically do
these two levels of “reality” clash in the novel? Which reality does Bobo choose at the end of
the book? What is Kay’s prognosis for
happiness in making such a choice?
The book presents an interesting interplay between past and
present time, as Bobo considers a formidable change that will alter his life
forever. How does the little child appearing
now and then in the narrative function in this interplay between past and
present?
How do the reality of Galli-Curci and the ideal that Avrum’s
holds in his imagination compare? What
is the connection between Amy and Galli-Curci in the story? What is Kay suggesting about following our
dreams and ideals and the reality of daily living? Do you think the book is stronger or weaker
for its lack of specific clarity in its conclusions? Who is the better: Feldman for never
achieving his dream or Bobo for trying to live his dream?