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What does “the beautiful mystery” of the title refer to? What are the powers and/or limitations of music throughout the novel?
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The title suggests the power of music and the power of silence…the Gregorian chants and the silence of the monks. People fascinated by music will appreciate this book! The church calls the chant the beautiful mystery. Scientists call it “alpha waves.”
In the book: “The monk examined Gamache. “You seem to believe, monsieur, that the music and the men can be separated. But they can’t. The community of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups is like a living chant. Each of us individual notes. On our own, nothing. But together? Divine. We don’t just sing, we are the song.” Gamache could see he believed it. Believed that on their own they were nothing, but together the monks of Saint-Gilbert formed a plainchant. The Chief had a vision of the halls of the monastery filled not with monks in black robes, but with musical notes. Black notes bobbing through the halls. Waiting to come together in sacred song.”
Louise uses musical terms throughout, such as walking into the monastery’s corridor with its’ dancing lights!
The limitations of music would be the Abbot wanting to return to the past and the Choirmaster wanting to go forth with their music.-
I think your last paragraph sums up the limitations, in a way. As much as the music defines who they are, creates a symbiotic relationship where each individual is needed to create the whole, they are still individuals with different aspirations, particularly the abbot and the choirmaster. To be fair, they may be the only ones who separate themselves in this way from the whole.
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The power of music, is it in the singing or the hearing? For centuries the Gilbertine monks sang “the Word of God sung with the Voice of God”, but no one was there to hear the beautiful music. Then they made a recording of the plainchant, and there was an audience to hear it. In all those years before the recording it didn’t really exist, except for the 24 monks who, together, created the Beautiful Mystery. After the recording, after being shared with the world, did it become something else? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
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Ooh, good points! And an argument that could have been used at the abbey when discussing the pros and cons of letting that music out into the world. Was that music intended to be shared with the world, or not? Should they be spreading the Word of God, or keeping it to themselves? They could have had a great debate going on that one!
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It makes me wonder if there were similar feelings when the “real life” monks came out with their chant hit years ago, if there was dissension in the ranks over it. Hmmm? What a great discussion!
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Yeah, I wondered about that, too! I wonder if anyone ever wrote a book or article about those monks…
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I got a couple of different thoughts about what the beautiful mystery was when I read this book. The first reference of it that I saw was about Dom Prosper on his deathbed, and for him it seems that the mystery to be solved was where did the music begin, and where to find it. But later in the book, there’s the conversation that Frere Sebastien and Gamache have about that physical and psychological effect the chants have on some people, enhancing their alpha waves and bringing them to a state of calm hyper-alertness, and the mystery being why these chants are so much more powerful than any other church music, and whether perhaps it was the voice of God. Then there’s the statement “The beautiful mystery. Finally solved.” in Cpt. 32, when they discovered the dot that signified that they’d found the beginning that Dom Prosper sought. So to me those were sort of separate mysteries, technically, and it confused me! As to the powers and limitations of music, there are no doubt many, but my basic take was— for some, it has the power to elevate to a sort of out-of-body, religious type experience, whereas to others, it doesn’t touch them the same way; they don’t “feel” it the same way. The monks all seemed to get it; so did Gamache. I found it interesting, though sad, that Jean Guy eventually felt the elevated experience, too, but only after taking drugs.
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Speaking of the power of music— it bothered me that I was having difficulty relating to the discussion in the book about the power and transcendence of music, because I used to love music of all sorts, played a few instruments, and had even bought an album of chants back in the day, but couldn’t really feel it lately; sort of like Beauvoir at an art show! I realized that, because of various reasons, I’d gotten away from music and it’s magic. So I cranked up some chants today, and ahh! I was reminded once again. Sometimes I need both audio and visual clues. I love that this book gave me such food for thought. Another reason why I love this series so much.
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