On Wings of Song

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

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 Two
• Part Three

The "Summary" section on each page gives away some plot details, so avoid it if you're reading the book for the first time. The rest of the notes don't discuss any significant events that haven't already happened at that point.

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—although he had been writing novels in other genres (historical fiction, gothic, etc.). It was his first work to feature openly gay themes, 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 Greg Sandow (The Fall of the House of Usher and Frankenstein).

Title

This is the English translation of the title of Heinrich Heine's 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:

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.

Epigram

Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo.

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, except for 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 The Dream of Gerontius (1865) by John Henry Newman, which Edward Elgar used as text for his orchestral/choral work The Dream of Gerontius (1900).

The English translation currently used by the Church in the US renders the first line as:

Go forth, Christian soul, from this world.

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

• Davis's page for the book, with many more interview excerpts