'The Idea of North' - Glenn Gould

From "The Idea of North": an Introduction

‘When I went to the North, I had no intention of writing about or of referring to it even parenthetically in anything that I wrote. And yet, almost despite myself, I began to draw all sorts of metaphorical allusions based on what was really a very limited knowledge of the country and a very casual exposure to it. I found myself writing musical critiques, for instance, in which the - the idea of the North - began to serve as a foil for other ideas and values that seemed to me depressingly urban oriented and spiritually limited thereby.’

‘Admittedly, it's a question of attitude, and I'm not sure that my own quasiallegorical attitude towards the North is the proper way to make use of it or even an accurate way in which to define it. Nevertheless, I'm by no means alone in this reaction to the North; there are very few people who make contact with it and emerge entirely unscathed. Something really does happen to most people who go into the North - they become at least aware of the creative opportunity which the physical fact of the country represents and - quite often, I think - come to measure their own work and life against that rather staggering creative possibility: they become, in effect, philosophers. ‘