View source for On Wings of Song

__NOTOC__
These are notes for '''''On Wings of Song''''', a 1979 novel by [[Thomas M. Disch]], originally serialized in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction''. It follows the life and career of Daniel Weinreb, who aspires to become a singer—and to experience "flying", a form of electronically-assisted astral projection triggered by singing—in a deeply dysfunctional near-future America where Midwestern states have fallen into religious fascism.

* '''[[/Part One|Part One]]'''
* '''[[/Part Two|Part Two]]'''
* '''[[/Part Three|Part Three]]'''

{{SummaryWarning}} All notes refer to the 1979 Gollancz edition unless they say otherwise; see '''[[/Editions/]]''' for others.

''On Wings of Song'' was Disch's first return to novel-length science fiction after ''[[Camp Concentration]]'' ten years earlier—not counting ''[[334]]'', which began as a short story cycle, and the novels he'd been writing in other genres (historical fiction, gothic, etc.). It was his first work to feature openly gay themes more than briefly, as well as other aspects of his life that he hadn't focused on in writing before, namely his childhood in Iowa and Minnesota, and his experience with opera. Disch had performed as an extra in operas in New York City, and wrote librettos for two operas by {{wp|Greg Sandow}} (''The Fall of the House of Usher'' and ''Frankenstein'').<ref>{{cite article|author=Sandow, Greg|title=Frankenstein|url=https://gregsandow.com/old/frankenstein.htm|publication=Gregsandow.com|accessed=January 25, 2025}} This archive includes the full libretto and score of ''Frankenstein'', and audio recordings of a workshop production.</ref>

An early harbinger of this book was Disch's two-page piece "How to Fly" (1977), a whimsical and lyrical set of instructions to the reader for achieving personal levitation. Even though the story describes flight as physical rather than psychic, it establishes the idea that "the most certain way ... is to accompany flight with song", and ends with: "who shall say that any price is too great for what is surely life's supreme pleasure?" In his preface to a reprint in 1982, Disch described how the leap from this fragment to "the idea for my novel, ''On Wings of Song'', and most of the plot"<ref>{{cite book|author=Disch, Thomas M.|date=1981|title=The Man Who Had No Idea|publisher=Bantam|pub-date=1982|isbn=0553226673}} "How to Fly" first appeared in the British magazine ''{{wp|Bananas (literary magazine)|Bananas}}'', No. 8, Summer 1977 (''[http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/k01/k01582.htm# The FictionMags Index]'').</ref> was prompted by reading {{wp|John Berger}}'s "The Moment of Cubism."<ref>{{cite article|author=Berger, John|title=The Moment of Cubism|date=1967|publication=Verso Books Blog|pub-date=December 6, 2018|url=https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/3035-the-moment-of-cubism?srsltid=AfmBOori0UTXxSSfo5ne67CbIfL8tN0A8GikshDyiJLoaZ92fCfcaiQX|accessed=January 25, 2025}} Originally published in [https://newleftreview.org/issues/i42/articles/john-berger-the-moment-of-cubism ''New Left Review'' 42].</ref> Berger's essay on modern art's relationship to technological change, specifically in terms of how they can both be ''liberating'' experiences, cited these lines from Apollinaire's "Tree" about the new experience of a telephone call, with imagery suggesting an out-of-body experience: "Already I hear the shrill sound of the friend's voice to come / Who walks with you in Europe / Whilst never leaving America."<ref>{{cite book|author=Apollinaire, Guillaume|translator=Anne Hyde Greet|title=Calligrammes|date=1918|url=https://www.academia.edu/28746823/Apollinaire_Calligrams_pdf|location=Berkeley|publisher=University of California Press|pub-date=1980|isbn=0520019687}}</ref>

== Title ==

This is the English translation of the title of Heinrich Heine's poem "{{wp|On Wings of Song (poem)|Auf Flügeln des Gesanges}}" (1827), which was set to music by Felix Mendelssohn in 1834 (known as Mendelssohn's Opus 34, No. 2). In English, the poem's first and last stanzas are:

<poem>
On wings of song,
Sweetheart, I carry you away,
Away to the fields of the Ganges,
Where I know the most beautiful place. ....
There we will lie down
Under the palm tree
Drink in peace and love
And dream our blissful dream.
</poem>

== Epigram ==

<blockquote>Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo.</blockquote>

This is the beginning of an eighth-century Roman Catholic prayer traditionally used in ministry to a dying person, advising the soul to begin its journey. It is known variously as the "Prayer of Commendation", "Commendation of the Soul", or just "the ''Proficiscere''." (In every edition I've seen, not counting [[/Editions#Textual differences|the ones]] that omit the epigram, the first word is misspelled as "Profiscicere.")

Like the novel's title, the ''Proficiscere'' is associated with choral music. Text from the prayer, in both Latin and English, appeared in the poem ''{{wp|The Dream of Gerontius (poem)|The Dream of Gerontius}}'' (1865) by John Henry Newman, which Edward Elgar used as text for his orchestral/choral work ''{{wp|The Dream of Gerontius}}'' (1900).

The English translation currently used by the Church in the US<ref>{{cite article|title=Prayers for Death and Dying|url=https://www.usccb.org/prayers/prayers-death-and-dying|publication=United States Conference of Catholic Bishops|accessed=January 25, 2025}}</ref> renders the first line as:

<blockquote>Go forth, Christian soul, from this world.</blockquote>

== Major characters ==

* Daniel Weinreb a.k.a. Ben Bosola, dentist's son, aspiring singer
* Boadicea Whiting, an idealistic child of privilege
* Grandison Whiting, her ruthless wealthy father
* Harriet Marspan, Boadicea's aunt and Daniel's music teacher
* Ernesto Rey, a bel canto star
* Alicia Schiff, a reclusive composer
* Mrs. Norberg, American History and Senior Social Studies

== Other reading ==

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20180714223441/http://www.ukjarry1.talktalk.net/owos.htm Matthew Davis's page] for the book, with many more interview excerpts {{InternetArchive|date=July 14, 2018}}
* {{cite book|author=Drake, Robert|title=The Gay Canon: Great Books Every Gay Man Should Read|date=1998|publisher=Knopf Doubleday|isbn=0385492286}} This very broad survey (covering about 10,000 years of literature) devotes a couple of pages to ''On Wings of Song'', in its section on the 20th century ("The Age of Chaos"). Drake concludes that the novel "reaffirms the fantastic power of speculative fiction to flay the soft skin of the (gay) identity from the romantic musculature of the human capacity to love." ''On Wings of Song'' was also canonized, sort of, a few years earlier in Harold Bloom's controversial ''The Western Canon''—but Bloom included it only in an appendix of things that ''might'' be recognized as such in the future, and didn't offer any commentary.
* {{cite article|author=Zeff, Mitchell|date=November 4, 2021|title=Thomas M. Disch: On Wings of Song (1979)|url=https://manyworlds.substack.com/p/thomas-m-disch-on-wings-of-song-1979|publication=Many Worlds|accessed=January 25, 2025}} An essay about themes of art and transcendence in the novel.

== Footnotes ==
<references/>

{{On Wings of Song nav}}
[[Category:Thomas M. Disch]]