Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #133: Fame and Simplicity: What Debussy Wrote for the Guitar

Ernest Hemingway’s famous advice is “write one story about each thing you know.” I have done him better on this because I’ve written dozens of stories about music and musicians. I’ve played guitar since I was a teenager and have performed with bands, in bars, folk clubs, and festivals; I’ve played in musicals (Fiddler on the Roof, Sound of Music, Man of LaMancha, just to name a few); even today I play weekly at various Celtic jams. I love to play and love to write about people whose lives are caught up with playing music. “What Debussy Wrote for Guitar” is one of the many tales I’ve written that center around music. But this one is a little different. It explores a musical story—or legend.

If you know much about French impressionist music, you can easily answer the question, What did Debussy write for the guitar? Answer:  Nothing. The guitar was starting to be recognized as a legitimate instrument that could play complicated classical music. Several guitarists were working to demonstrate the instrument’s possibilities. Francois Tarrega amazed people with his abilities on the fretboard; Napoleon Coste played in Paris; Dionisio Agaudo was an Italian guitar master of considerable ability. And then there was Miguel Llobet. But we will get to him later. Now a little bit on the story.

Peyton is a music student. One night at a coffee bar, he hears his friend Tito Salinas, who is from Ecuador, play what he describes as some “new pieces of music.” He is convinced by the configurations of the music that it is by Debussy. He also knows Tito is somehow related to the late guitarist Miguel Llobet.   

Artist's sketch of Miguel Llobet

Llobet had made his name as a guitarist in the late 1800s. He toured Europe and spent some time living, performing, and teaching in Paris. Claude Debussy, who was at the height of his powers as a composure and the undisputed master leader of the Paris music scene, heard Llobet perform, approached him after the concert and said, “Why don’t you come to my house for dinner some night; afterwards, you can show me what the guitar can do.” But Llobet was shy and Debussy had the reputation of being very gruff. He was afraid to follow up on the invitation and never went to be Debussy’s guest. Guitarists lament:  If he had gone and demonstrated the guitar’s musical possibilities to Debussy, the composer might have written some pieces for the instrument. Llobet never went. Debussy never wrote anything for guitar.

Or did he?

Peyton is convinced he did. He goes to Caroline, another guitar student, one with much greater ability than he. The two have dated on and off, and she also knows Tito. Peyton urges her to ask him about the compositions. If Tito released them, Payton says, his career would be made. Caroline tells him their mutual friend is planning to return to Ecuador to get married. Peyton thinks Tito doesn’t know the value of the compositions and urges her to try to get him to give them to her.  They spend the night together. In the morning, they talk more about the matter:

When Peyton woke in the morning he heard her in the kitchen two floors down. He smelled bacon cooking. Peyton dressed and groggily descended. She had dressed and stood at the stove. “I’m not sure I want to go through with this,” she said as he sat at the table and poured a cup of coffee.

“Can you think of an alternative way of getting the music?”

“How about asking him? Let him know he’s in possession of some valuable works of art and let him take it from there.”

                        “You’ll lose the opportunity.”

                        She went on cooking bacon and did not reply.

Caroline asks about the music. To Peyton’s astonishment, he says that he knows what the music is, that it is valuable, and that it will make his career. Then he gives it to her. They even go to a notary public, sign a contract officially transferring ownership of the music to Caroline, and have it notarized. He hands the scores over to her to do with as she pleases.

Peyton is astonished and wants to find out why Tito is willing to give the scores away. He is vague and tells them both, at different times, that he wants to return to South America, marry, and live a simple life. He leaves. His wife answers Caroline’s letters. After a while the letters are returned with “Address Unknown” stamped on them.

Peyton and Caroline take the music to a musicologist. He does some testing, finds out the paper is the sort of paper used in Paris in Debussy’s time. Handwriting experts examine the signature and conclude that it is authentic. The pieces are genuine. They are written by Debussy. Tito, for whatever reason, has given away hand-written manuscripts Llobet passed on to his relatives which he—Tito—eventually ended up in owning.

Caroline receives offers of up to a million dollars for them from music publishers. She negotiates to premier the pieces in Paris. Classical guitar magazines interview her. Owning the music, Peyton sees, will make her career. She asks him to go to Paris with her for the concert, partially because he speaks French, partially because they are in a relationship that is deepening. As he sits in the audience and watches her play, he wonders at Tito’s choice and at his decision for a simple life in contrast to a life of fame as a guitarist who has made a profound musical discover.

Maybe Tito is just as shy as his ancestor. And maybe just as free.

"What Debussy Wrote for the Guitar" appeared in Bangalore Review, an Indian journal; it was reprinted in Blue Bear Review. Blue Bear Review maintains and archive and you can read the story here.

Read my latest novella, Sinfonia:  A Painted Lady. Here is the web address.

Happy reading.

Dave’s Anatomy: My History as a Writer #132: Paradise Found: “The Way to Shangri-La.”

The human imagination has many different doors that open in various ways. I got the idea for the the story under discussion here from a library book, Last River: The Tragic Race for Shangri-La by Todd Balf, the tale of a group of American explorers who raft down the Yarlung Tsangpo, known in paddling circles as the "Everest of rivers." It was a fascinating book, especially because the territory through which they move is rumored to be the location of Shangri-La, the legendary land of spiritual magic and enchantment. My story took a little bit of a different direction. It did not turn out to be a story on rafting or on exploration, but rather a story on spiritual enlightenment and one of the few stories I’ve written where there is a major disaster that changes the course of human history.

I don’t like “dystopian” fiction. Novels that trace the history of the human race after a war, plague, or natural disaster kills almost everyone don’t appeal to me that much, though this story ended up being about a nuclear war—not between the major powers in the Western World but between India and China. Both of those nations are in the infamous “nuclear club,” they share disputed borders, and they have fought each other before (in ancient times and as recently as 1962).

“The Way to Shangri-La” centers around a young Indian woman, Jeevitha Mitra. From an early age, she has sought spiritual enlightenment and ends up living in an ashram (a sort of Hindu convent). She is devoted to this way of life and plans to live in celibacy (she sees sex as something that distracts from spiritual pursuits). Her devotion causes her to excel as an ashram girl. As she enters her late teen years she began to have frightening visions. They are “of fire … desolate, charred ground, and poisoned air, water, and soil … burned corpses and landscapes silent because the life on them had been stilled by poisonous air.” She confides what she has seen to the Abbess of the Ashram, who suggests she go to Pemakö an area on the border of  China and India and considered to be a sacred place.

Jeevitha walks for a month. Her level of spirituality protects her from wild animals and other harms. And as she goes along, her notions of the spiritual begin to change. She arrives at a village and eventually begins a relationship the Abbot of a Buddhist monastery and bears a child by him. She leaves the child with a friend and continues on until she comes to a cave high in the mountains near the border of China and India, who, she is told, are now at war. She journeys to the falls of the Tsangpo River and finds a cave to live in.

The magnificence of the setting stuns her:

Beauty lay all about her, stunning and magnificent, like nothing she had ever seen. Mountains rose toward the sky, stretching granite peaks into the blue where clouds brushed the summits. Thick jungles spread out in valleys. Patches of rhododendrons filled sunny vales, their red vivid against the grey and green. The Tsangpo River rushed madly down to the plains, cutting through narrow stone channels. Huge flocks of pigeons, solitary white herons and golden eagles flew through the sky. She saw takin, tigers, blood pheasant, and, once, a snow leopard. The beauty of the land awakened her to its sacred promises. She resolved to enter to the beauty.

This is another phase of her spiritual enlightenment. And a new revelation come to her. She must begin to live as the Hindu holy woman Madaeviyakka, who, hundreds of years ago, traveled the land as a wandering sage and teacher and wore no clothing.

Jeevitha thinks she must have gone mad but obeys the vision. Soon she is know as a holy teacher. People come to her to know wisdom and for healing. The people to whom she ministers tell her the war has spread and the Chinese have entered the province. She meets refugees. People advise her to leave the area but she stays.

One day she finds a young man, an American, wandering deliriously near her cave. She takes him in (and puts on a garment), heals his frostbite, and gives him what little food she has (Jeevitha hardly eats because her spiritual energy renews her body). The young man tells her the war has worsened:  there has been a nuclear exchange. Millions have died and several near-by cities had been hit. The nuclear fallout, he says, will settle there soon.

Her views change once more. She begins a relationship with the young America. She also is compelled to seek the place where the Goddess Dorje Drolo lives. She is, Jeevitha knows, a dangerous goddess, but feels compelled to go. Eventually she finds the pool of Dorje and her cave which is rumored to be the entrance to Shangri-La. She goes to fetch her boyfriend Alastair. There is an earthquake. The steep path to the cave is covered with debris that forms a ramp to the entrance.

The two of them go there. Soon they see refugees: tribal peoples, the mixture of peoples who live in the area, but soon Europeans, Africans, an endless procession of people and animals. She realizes they will go into the cave and into paradise. The poisoned radiation will not harm them there. They will be the beginning of a new race. She and Alastair, she knows as she watches all people enter, will be the last ones in. After that, the door will close.

The story appeared in Black Denim Review, a journal that is no longer published (this seems to be a trend for me). They do not maintain an archive.

You can, however, read my stories. I maintain links on my Facebook Page; and my latest novella, Sinfonia:  A Painted Lady, a vampire story, is available on Amazon with other of my books. Get it here.

Happy reading.