Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning

Much of the novel is set in a classroom; the room with two pianos where

Keller attempts to teach Paul to be great. It becomes clear that he knows

early on that Paul is not capable of achieving greatness, but perhaps because

Paul reminds Keller of his son, he persists. It is a strange series of lessons

because Keller has learned to be suspicious of the very thing he loves. The

music of the Romantics that were his passion has become to Keller's mind the

music that Hollywood stars kiss to. As dismissive, in its way, as Paul's

comment that rock music is 'Music to shit to.' And yet Keller is not really free

of his love for this type of music. It haunts him. He removed his own finger as

part of his promise to himself to reject certain pieces of music and then he

learns to play as well without it.

Keller is teaching very complex lessons about music. And Paul is

ultimately unable to learn them. He cannot understand that he needs to

interpret music and give the composer credit for what he has created. For the

young Paul music is a show designed to give the artist accolades. It is where

the audience gives him appreciation, not where he gives the audience the gift

of the music. He learns to be a good 'forgery.' He picks up the rhetoric and

learns to be 'technically perfect.' He blusters for some years convinced of his

own greatness and squanders his parents' money on a fruitless tour of

Europe and exploits Rosie's love by demanding her support for his self

indulgent dreams. But he knows what real music is, and he cannot even

convince himself that he truly has the gift. His finest performance, a

performance filled with passion to convince Henisch that Keller lives too fails.

By failing to demonstrate the sure hand of his teacher, he finally has to face

the truth about his musical talent. And yet much of what Keller taught the

young Paul is with him and