Pynchons's Sound of Music

Pynchon's Sound of Music is dedicated to cataloging, exploring, and interpreting the manifold manifestations of music in Thomas Pynchon's work. An original mix of close and distant readings, this monograph employs a variety of disciplinesfrom literary studies and musicology to philosophy, media theory, and historyto explain Pynchon through music and music through Pynchon. Encyclopedic and eclecticthough never exhaustivein its approach, Pynchon's Sound of Music discusses the author's use of instruments such as the kazoo, the harmonica, or the saxophone and embarks on close readings of the most salient and musicologically tantalizing passages. Zooming out to a bird's eye view, all his historical musical references and allusions are put into perspective to trace the trends and tendencies in the development of the oeuvre's interest in music. A treasure trove for fans and an invaluable source for future scholarship, this book includes the Pynchon Playlist, a 900+ item catalog of all musical references, and an exhaustive index of more than 700 appearances of musical instruments. Christian Hänggi amps up the importance of Pynchons oeuvre by tuning it to the musical registers upon which a number of films and novels depends. From Nietzsche to Pynchon music has served to underscore psychic meltdowns, philosophical rifts, and remote cultural controls. Hänggi explores these connections with passion and a rare comprehension of the death marches and ecstatic abandon to which, programmed by Pynchons cadences, we succumb. Avital Ronell, New York University This book about music in Thomas Pynchons novels and other writing is lively, entertaining, and damn near exhaustive. Christian Hänggi discusses everything from Pynchons musical allusions to the made-up song lyrics which punctuate his books, to the ways that these novels themselves are organized as musical forms. You can read it straight through, or you can search for the bits that you find most interestingeither way, if you have the slightest interest in Pynchon, you are in for an enjoyable ride. Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University In this first comprehensive study of music in Pynchons fiction, amateur musician and literary scholar Christian Hänggi brilliantly explores not just the uses Pynchon makes of music to tell his stories, as a more conventional study might do, but the stories music tells in Pynchons fiction. History, musicology and literary criticism contribute to a range of analyses, from the ethical to the quantitative, supporting the core argument that in Pynchon the aesthetic is always in some way political. A research project and a labor of love, Pynchons Sound of Music is richly informative, entertaining, often surprising, and provocative. John M. Krafft, Miami University, Ohio

Christian Hänggi studierte Kommunikationswissenschaften an der Universitäten Lugano und Toronto. Er hat einen PhD in Media and Communication von der European Graduate School und einen PhD in Anglophoner Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft von der Universität Basel. Er ist Autor von Gastfreundschaft im Zeitalter der medialen Repräsentation: Eine Ökonomie des Geistes (Passagen Verlag, 2009) und hat zu so verschiedenen Themen wie Außenwerbung, Karlheinz Stockhausen oder South Park publiziert. Als Amateurmusiker spielt er in Saxofon verschiedenen Bands und Orchestern und hat ein Album mit Interpretationen von Thomas Pynchons Liedern produziert.