Fouler Fowler

[Dan Schmidt]

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU wrote:
(I don't remember who wrote the original paragraph here:)
| >Steve Weisenburger's A GRAVITY'S RAINBOW COMPANION is so far superior
| >(despite some errors and omissions of its own)that the two cannot
| >even be compared!

| Yes!  Anyone who's participating in the GRGR should grab it from a library
| -- via interlibrary loan if necessary -- or, better yet, buy a copy, even
| if it means spending a day washing cars to raise some cash. :-)

I am a little wary of the Weisenburger book, because in my area of
expertise (classical music), around half of the entries have some sort
of error.

Examples:

 - Someone's voice is compared to the Captain in the opera Wozzeck.
   Weisenburger claims that Wozzeck himself is the captain, which is
   untrue.  In fact, the captain is one of Wozzeck's persecutors (and
   anyone who listens to the first scene will not forget either the
   captain's screeches or Wozzeck's repeated hollow "Jawohl, Herr
   Hauptmann").

 - There's some reference to the "Frank Bridge Variations", which
   Weisenburger calls "unknown" or something; it's obviously Britten's
   "Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge", not a particularly obscure
   piece.

 - At one point we find eight white keys of a piano, extending from B
   to B, describing the Locrian mode.  Weisenburger inexplicably
   claims that there is no connection between these notes and the
   mode, when in fact the eight "white notes" from B to B _define_ the
   Locrian mode.

Und so weiter.  Not that misunderstanding any of these references has
much bearing on a reading of the book (who really cares whether
Wozzeck is the captain or the captain's barber?), but the frequency
with which I find problems with the musical references makes me worry
about the more important entries that I have no knowledge of.

Overall it's great though, of course.  I'm currently reading GR for
the fourth time, but it's the first time with Weisenburger, and I'm
catching a _lot_ more now.

Bonus: I just scored a used copy of Steven Moore's A READER'S GUIDE TO
THE RECOGNITIONS, out of print for a while now.  I'm going to have to
revisit that book after finishing this Rainbow run...

Dan Schmidt  |  dfan at lglass.com  |  http://www2.lglass.com/~dfan