# Music and Literature



## pthomas (Jun 11, 2009)

Hey group!

So I just read Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse and it was completely inspiring. It was an all-encompassing work that made magical the realities of life. What really amazed me was the interplay Hesse created between life and art, specifically music. In one of the most eye-brow lifting scenes in the book the main character enters a dream-like/fantasy dialogue with Mozart about eternity and death.

I highly recommend this book as it has left me in this unquantifiable stupor since I finished it about a week ago. I immediately picked up another book by Hesse afterward, The Glass Bead Game and it is similarly themed but gives more time to a serious discussion of the merits of classical music.

It's fun to listen to the music that is being constantly mentioned in a book and it makes it seem as if the words and the music somehow entered into a higher dialogue.

It reminds me of this quote by E.Y. Harburg

"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought."

I'm wondering if anyone has read either one of these books and has advice on where I should continue my reading path. Or maybe someone has another book that is a wonderful medley of music and literature.

Hope to hear from you )

Peter Thomas

www.pandalous.com


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## BuddhaBandit (Dec 31, 2007)

I've read Hesse's Siddhartha, which is a fictionalized account of the life of Buddha. It does not cover music, but it does discuss a sort of "ultimate sensations", where sound, thought, vision, touch, memory, and taste collide.

Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray deals with visual art and its ability to represent truth, but the arguments in the novella can be applied equally well to music.


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## Yosser (May 29, 2009)

pthomas said:


> It's fun to listen to the music that is being constantly mentioned in a book and it makes it seem as if the words and the music somehow entered into a higher dialogue.
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone has read either one of these books and has advice on where I should continue my reading path. Or maybe someone has another book that is a wonderful medley of music and literature.


You might enjoy Thomas Mann, particularly Dr Faustus, perhaps Der Zauberberg.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I read Steppenwolf many years ago. It must have been during a period I was had temporarily dropped classical music, because I don't remember the Mozart passage. Of course I don't remember much of the rest of it either other than really enjoying it. Maybe it's time for a reread.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that comes close to what you are describing is *Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead*. It involves architects rather than musicians but the story could have been about any creative endeavor. The crux of it is about striking out on your own and bucking the mundane conventions of society to rise above it. It is also a thinly veiled platform to disseminate her philosophies, which I don't necessarily buy into hook line and sinker, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Weston said:


> I read Steppenwolf many years ago.


Me, too. *Steppenwolf* is one of those books where one has to be continually conscious of the symbolism in order to make any sense of it. One can (for instance) read Melville's "Moby Dick" and find it interesting independent of the symbolism. Not so with _Steppenwolf_. 


Weston said:


> The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that comes close to what you are describing is *Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead*.


I remember that a place was reserved for a musical genius (among other worthies) in 'Galt's Gulch' in Rand's *Atlas Shrugged*. And yes, all Ayn Rand books are thinly veiled platforms to disseminate her philosophies, which I don't necessarily buy into completely, either. Still, I think there's much more wheat than chaff there.


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Chi_town/Philly said:


> And yes, all Ayn Rand books are thinly veiled platforms to disseminate her philosophies, which I don't necessarily buy into completely, either. Still, I think there's much more wheat than chaff there.


Rand seems to me a simplified, sugared version of Nietzsche. Maybe worth reading the original.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I have tried reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra (in English). I waded through a good bit of it before deciding I do not physically have the focus to bring to it at the moment. Maybe when and if I retire. It would have been nice to make the connection with Strauss' tone poem though.


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Weston said:


> I have tried reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra (in English).


In the case of this book, the translations are very good, and it was designed to be translated, so it seems to me English is not an impediment.

Anyone reading Nietzsche should (in my view) FIRST read On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense, which is available online as a free etext.


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