The books we have read in class almost all mention music, and if not specifically sound organized into music, sound itself plays a role in all of the literature we have studied.
Absalom, Absalom!
While the great American writer, Faulkner, may not include many specific musical references in his story Absalom, Absalom, his writing is rich in sounds themselves and auditory descriptions play a large roll in his work. Every sentence of Faulkner’s writing is filled with description. Description of sight, feel, scenery, smells, tastes, and certainly sound. See if you can notice the auditory presence in this short excerpt:
“It’s just incredible. It just does not explain. Or perhaps that’s it: they don’t explain and we are not supposed to know. We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales, we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature, in which men and women who once lived and breathed are now merely initials or nicknames out of some now incomprehensible affection which sound to us like Sanskrit or Chocktaw; we see dimly people, the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting, in this shadowy attenuation of time possessing now heroic proportions, performing their acts of simple passion and simple violence, impervious to time and inexplicable – Yes, Judith, Bon, Henry, Sutpen: all of them. They are there, yet something is missing; they are like a chemical formula exhumed along with the letters from that forgotten chest, carefully, the paper old and faded and falling to pieces, the writing faded, almost indecipherable, yet meaningful, familiar in shape and sense, the name and presence of volatile and sentient forces; you bring them together in the proportions called for, but nothing happens; you re-read, tedious and intent, poring, making sure that you have forgotten nothing, made no miscalculation; you bring them together again and again nothing happens: just the words, the symbols, the shapes themselves, shadowy inscrutable and serene, against that turgid background of a horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs.”
Beloved
Music plays a presence certainly in the film Beloved, but in the novel as well. Slave songs like the one above present a cultural undertone that almost acts as a haunting itself. References to these songs include: ‘Little rice, little bean, no meant in between, hard word ain’t easy, dry bread ain’t greasy.’ which is a reference to a song, ”Sis Joe.” ‘Lay my head on the railroad line, train come along, pacify my mind, if I had my weight in lime, I’d wip my captain till he went stone blind. Five-cent nickel, ten-cent dime, busting rocks is busting time.’ from ”Trouble in Mind.” A line from the spiritual: ”Storm upon the Waters,’ ‘He couldn’t go back to ‘Storm upon the Waters’ that they sang under the trees of Sweet Home, so he contented himself with mmmmmmmmm, throwing in a line if one occurred to him, and what occurred over and over was, ‘Bare feet and chamomile sap, took off my shoes; took off my hat.’ And, a reference to the sing, ‘Down by the Riverside’-spiritual: ‘Lay em down, Sethe. Sword and shield. Down. Down. Both of em down. Down by the riverside. Sword and shield. Don’t study war no more. Lay all that mess down. Sword and Shield.’
A Gesture Life
In Chang Rae Lee’s novel, A Gesture Life, he uses references to music as some of the ‘gestures’ Doc Hata engages in to deal with his own past. His relationship with his adopted daughter, Sunny, holds many expectations for her. One of those is to excel in school and music and sports. He loves hearing her practice piano and it almost gives him his own sense of belonging that he does not possess himself. This gesture however, is unfortunately to the ultimate downfall of Sunny.
Hunger
In the novella, Hunger, by Lan Samantha Chang, music has a negative impact on Tian and Min as it becomes almost an obsession and way of dealing with the past. But even Tian’s music lets him down when he gives it power it should never possess. Chang makes the comparison of sound to our own thoughts when she says what we ‘listen’ to and why: “Haven’t we all, as time continues, found that we must be kind to ourselves and listen to our thoughts, because fewer and fewer of those remain who know what is most real to us?” This implication says a lot about the music in her story and the role it plays. The music Tian plays doesn’t understand. This raises a larger question for music in general and the pretense Classical music stereotypically has. Tian pretends to mask so many things in his life with Classical music, a genre typically known for being overly heady and pretentious and is commonly associated with the upperclass and aristocratic.
Ultimately, all of these stories and all of the stories the musicians in the next post are the same ones. They’re the stories of haunted, but changing and moving forward people. They’re the stories of those who love the past and live in the now. And the stories of those who don’t belong. But in each case, they’re learning. Learning how to juxtapose old traditions with new styles, old stereotypes with new surroundings, and old relationships with new faces. Music and literature both help us to this and regardless of the identity we are born with, they will both continue to help us create our own. Identity.
Sources:
http://www.shmoop.com/beloved/allusions.html
Chang, Lan Samantha. Hunger.
Lee, Chang Rae. A Gesture Life.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved.
William Faulkner. Absalom Absalom.
When Words Aren't Enough, Music in Literature 