The Musical Novel: Imitation of Musical Structure, Performance, and Reception in Contemporary Fiction (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781571135926)

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 Carti駻, 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.

Author: Emily Petermann
ISBN-10: 1571135928
ISBN-13: 9781571135926
Publisher: Camden House (NY)
Language: English
Published: 05/01/2014
Pages: 250
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.12lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.63d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2014 pg. 429