Prodigy,

Sarah Robertson is the editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

Nancy Huston is a Calgary-born novelist and nonfiction author who has
lived in Paris since 1973, and writes in both English and French.

Her novels have earned critical acclaim and literary awards, including
the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, the Prix Elle (Quebec), and the Governor
General’s Award for fiction in French. In Prodigy, she revisits a
theme explored in earlier novels: the uncertain boundary between art and
reality.

The novella begins with the premature birth of Maya. As the baby hovers
between life and death, her mother, Lara, becomes obsessed with the
notion that her daughter will one day be “a phenomenal pianist.”
(Lara herself is merely an accomplished pianist.) Lara’s husband
Robert, “a man of science,” is disturbed by the “strange
symbiosis” that develops between mother and child.

Maya survives, Robert divorces his wife (but remains emotionally and
physically attached), and Lara guides her daughter’s inexorable
journey to musical genius. The self-consciousness that has always
hampered Lara’s musical expression is absent from her daughter’s
repertoire; the 10-year-old “play[s] for the sake of music,” not
audience. But as Maya begins to share her gift with the world, Lara
experiences mental collapse instead of the fulfilment she craves.

The novella is constructed as a series of short interior monologues. In
addition to Lara, Robert, and Maya, we hear from, among others, Lara’s
mother, lover, and pupil; Maya’s future piano teacher, “the great
Dianescu,” and her insect-loving friend, Benjamin; and a curmudgeonly
neighbor who considers piano playing a form of “torture.” These
characters engage the reader on an intellectual rather than emotional
level; their thought processes and preoccupations are of intrinsic
interest, but the uniformity of their formidably articulate voices
prevents us from relating to them as human beings.

Standing somewhat apart from the others is the prodigy herself. Maya’s
language is no less sophisticated, but her emotional expression is
limited to a relentless cheerfulness that, coupled with her total
blindness to her mother’s anguish, makes her—to this reviewer at
least—not just an irritating figure, but a chilling one as well. The
uncertainty as to whether Huston actually intends her titular heroine to
make us queasy may gratify readers who have a taste for ambiguity, and
frustrate those who don’t.