The musical novel : imitation of musical structure, performance, and reception in contemporary fiction
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The musical novel : imitation of musical structure, performance, and reception in contemporary fiction
（European studies in North American literature and culture / edited by Reingard M. Nischik）
Camden House, 2014
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Analyzes two groups of "musical novels" -- novels that take music as a model for their construction -- including jazz novels by Toni Morrison and Michael Ondaatje, and novels based on Bach's Goldberg Variations.
What is a "musical novel"? This book defines the genre as musical not primarily in terms of its content, but in its form. The musical novel crosses medial boundaries, aspiring to techniques, structures, and impressions similar tothose of music. It takes music as a model for its own construction, borrowing techniques and forms that range from immediately perceptible, essential aspects of music (rhythm, timbre, the simultaneity of multiple voices) to microstructural (jazz riffs, call and response, leitmotifs) and macrostructural elements (themes and variations, symphonies, albums). The musical novel also evokes the performance context by imitating elements of spontaneity that characterize improvised jazz or audience interaction.
The Musical Novel builds upon theories of intermediality and semiotics to analyze the musical structures, forms, and techniques in two groups of musical novels, which serve as case studies. The first group imitates an entire musical genre and consists of jazz novels by Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Xam Wilson Cartier, Stanley Crouch, Jack Fuller, Michael Ondaatje, and Christian Gailly. The secondgroup of novels, by Richard Powers, Gabriel Josipovici, Rachel Cusk, Nancy Huston, and Thomas Bernhard, imitates a single piece of music, J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.
Emily Petermann is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Konstanz.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Theorizing the Musical Novel
Elements of Sound in Jazz Novels
Structural Patterns in Jazz Novels
The Performance Situation in Jazz Novels
Structural Patterns in Novels Based on the Goldberg Variations
Composition, Performance, and Reception in Novels Based on the Goldberg Variations
Conclusion
Appendix: Diagrams of Intermediality in Selected Novels
Works Cited
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
