GRGR(28) Sacred Music

[Jeremy Osner]

At the end of Gustav and Saeure's argument over music (p. 622), an
interesting thing happens: the scene shifts to Slothrop playing his
harmonica, and the two scenes are interwoven -- Saeure gets his "last
word" in, then there's a paragraph about Slothrop, then Gustav gets his
"last word" in, then back to Slothrop. For me this has served to link up
Slothrop's harmonica playing to G and S's argumentation. The link is
something like, by playing his harp Slothrop can communicate with the
earth and water, and beauty happens (what Saeure was saying back on p.
440, well, he said "love occurs") -- whereas the tonality - atonality
back and forth is not helping to bring about the creation of music, it's
silly (well obviously it's silly -- I just like the way this is shown by
putting the two things back to back).

Jeremy