To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

So we have a simple little story, with a
straightforward "moral" about the perils of
sanctity; rather than seek "escape" in a
delusory quest for a religious absolute, the
surviving saints return "into the world,"
into the actual sites and arenas of human
action. "Surely when they fell," Nichol
wrote of his saints long before, "it was into
grace"—grace, that is, belongs in the here
and now, not in some imaginary
Cloudtown. For Ad Sanctos is also "to the
saints" in the sense that it is addressed,
intertextually, to the earlier books of The
Martyrology : the familiar characters reappear,
and st. reat's song ("that old chestnut")
is quoted from Book 1. So Ad Sanctos
continues the project (most evident in
Book 5) of re-reading and commenting on
the accumulating poem.
As such, Ad Sanctos is an ironic, rueful,
and sometimes bitter commentary. The
grand theme of The Martyrology has always
been community, the establishment of a
human "we." But in Book 9, "we" is just
one character among other fractious characters;
the community splits at the end into
three opposing directions, and it is "i," not
"we," who decides to return "into the
world." Within community, The
Martyrology had always celebrated diversity,
"fluid definition"; but the split in Book
9 occurs precisely over the attempt to
establish a single definition, a single site for
the tomb. The last words of the libretto
(which may also, distressingly, prove to be
the last words of The Martyrology) are
"bloody fools!"
The dilemma which Book 9 leads us into
may perhaps best be illustrated by the following
passage:
No path but the true path
should be taken. No road but the
holy road, the way. All other roads are
mistaken. When the true path is
taken, the way is clear, tho
the true path be not the near path
&the price be dear,
no path but the true path
should be taken. No road but
the holy road, the way. All other roads are
mistaken 81 when taken
lead to loneliness, lovelessness,
lead to emptiness, bitterness,
lead to nothingness, lead away.
Taken by themselves, these lines are
utterly beautiful; they exhibit Nichol's mastery
of lyric cadence and verbal music.
(Much of Book 9 is written very simply, not
to get in the way of Howard Gerhard's
music; this is one of the few passages where
Nichol unmistakably supplies the music
himself.) It is a moving statement on the
need to find a "true path," and on the desolation
of failure. And indeed, one was
actively encouraged to take these lines "by
themselves," since chey were previously
published as a separate postcard, printed as
a Christmas gift.
But in the context of the libretto, these
lines are very different. They are first sung
by two opposing characters, "she" and "he,"
each claiming a different "true path" to the
tomb of St. Valentine. They are then taken
up and sung by the whole chorus "as a
combination of a series of monologues and
conversation." The dramatic presentation
of difference completely undermines the
unity of the lyric statement; those who
believe what the music of the verse is telling
them (that there is one "true path") are
shown to be only "bloody fools."
The fact of Nichol's death, and thus the
sad possibility that Book 9 may be the final
volume of The Martyrology, gives a disproportionate
emphasis to this ending. In
comparison with the previous volumes,
Book 9 is slight—a sketch, notable chiefly
for the formal innovation of its status as a
libretto, and for its collaboration with
Howard Gerhard as composer. In all probability,
it would not have stood as any kind
of "last word" on the themes and concerns
of The Martyrology as a whole, but rather as
an aside (a temporary deflection, if you
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