Difference between revisions of "On Wings of Song"

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= UNDER CONSTRUCTION! =
 
= UNDER CONSTRUCTION! =
  
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'''''On Wings of Song''''' is 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.
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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.
  
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== Title ==
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* '''[[/Part One|Part One]]'''
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* '''[[/Part Two|Part Two]]'''
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* '''[[/Part Three|Part Three]]'''
  
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This is the English translation of the title of Heinrich Heine's poem [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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:
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{{SummaryWarning}}
  
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: On wings of song,
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''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 {{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 20, 2025}} This archive includes the full libretto and score of ''Frankenstein'', and audio recordings of a workshop production.</ref>
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: Sweetheart, I carry you away,
 
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: Away to the fields of the Ganges,
 
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: Where I know the most beautiful place. ....
 
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: There we will lie down
 
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: Under the palm tree
 
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: Drink in peace and love
 
−
: And dream our blissful dream.
 
  
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== Epigram ==
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An early harbinger of the novel was Disch's two-page story fragment "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 of the story in 1982, Disch described how the leap from there 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 24, 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>
  
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: ''Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo.''
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== Title ==
  
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This is the beginning of an eighth-century Roman Catholic prayer that is traditionally used in ministry to a dying person, advising the soul to begin its journey. It is generally known as the "Commendation of the Soul", or sometimes referred to simply as the ''Proficiscere''.
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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:
  
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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 ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_Gerontius The Dream of Gerontius]'' (1900). The translation in Newman and Elgar renders the first line as:
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<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>
  
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: Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul! Go from this world!
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== Epigram ==
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== Part One, Chapter 1 ==
 
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=== Amesville, Iowa ===
 
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No such town exists, although there is a city of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames,_Iowa Ames] in Iowa—not far from Des Moines, where Disch was born and lived until age 13. Amesville sounds smaller, and not so close to a big city; in chapter 2 we learn that it's 40 miles from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Dodge,_Iowa Fort Dodge], and several references to Fort Dodge make it sound like that's the next largest town in the area.
 
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=== She would sit watching him ... people shouldn't let fairies into their houses ===
 
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Fairies, as we will pick up pretty quickly from context, are the invisible presences of people who are "flying." All other references to fairies in Daniel's childhood are steeped in paranoia about being observed—but his daydreams here are a reminder that being watched over by an unseen dead family member or guardian angel is a standard religious idea meant to be comforting to children. The crucial difference is that Daniel's mother is a living person.
 
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=== a collect call from New York ===
 
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Throughout the 20th century there was a large price difference between local and long-distance calling, so [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collect_call calling collect] would be a typical way for someone to call home from another state without affecting their phone bill. This is now rare since many phone providers don't have a separate long-distance rate.
 
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=== the Iowa Stamp Tax ===
 
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A [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_duty stamp tax] is a tax on property purchases and other transactions, typically at the state level in the US.""
 
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=== Otto Hassler Park ===
 
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If this is a historical reference, it would be a misspelling of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Haesler Otto Haesler] (1880-1962), a German architect best known social housing. There would be no obvious connection to this novel or to Disch's life, so it may be that this is just a random fictional name; Hassler, Haesler, Haessler, etc. would be plausible German names to find in Iowa.
 
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=== to help him take up his indenture ===
 
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This is only briefly mentioned in connection with Daniel's father's dentistry career; it's unclear if he is in some kind of formal contract such as an apprenticeship or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude indentured servitude] (which would fit with the general sense that capitalism in Iowa has taken a neo-feudal direction), or if Millie is just metaphorically talking about his level of debt.
 
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=== fans whirling everywhere you went ===
 
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The way that fans and other rotating objects can harm "fairies" is described by Barbara Steiner in chapter 4.
 
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== Chapter 2 ==
 
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=== bowdlerized editions of ''Frankenstein'' and ''The War of the Worlds'' ===
 
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[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expurgation Bowdlerization] refers generally to creating censored versions of books and other art. Fantasy literature in general has always been a common target of censorship. ''Frankenstein'' is an unusual case in that the best-known version of the novel, the 1831 edition, contained changes by the author that some have described as self-censorship to appease Victorian sensibilities (although the differences between the 1818 and 1838 editions are complex and the argument is too long to get into here)—but any version of ''Frankenstein'' would obviously be problematic for fundamentalist Christians. It's less clear why ''The War of the Worlds'' would offend conservatives, unless it's just that H.G. Wells was a famous atheist.
 
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=== their own artless Grand Guignol ===
 
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This could refer literally to the style of horror theater made famous by the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Guignol Grand-Guignol], or more generally to any kind of horror-inspired bad-taste make-believe that a 14-year-old would enjoy.
 
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=== a book of speeches by Herbert Hoover ===
 
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Hoover remains the only US President to be born in Iowa.
 
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=== when the country got back on its feet again ===
 
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One of many reminders in these scene-setting chapters that the self-satisfied semi-theocratic dystopia Daniel has been born into is not representative of the whole country, and that other parts of the US, besides being more liberal, have been experiencing more economic troubles than the Midwest.
 
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=== destroyed most of Tel Aviv ===
 
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There are just enough references to non-US places in the novel to establish that many of them have been ruined by war or terrorism, but that this was not a global disaster; Cairo and Tehran, for instance, are still vacation destinations (chapter 10), as is Rome although other parts of Italy have been bombed (chapter 11), and Switzerland seems fine (chapter 5).
 
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=== Old Black Joe ===
 
  
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An 1860 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Black_Joe Stephen Foster song]. Foster is most commonly thought of in connection with blackface minstrelsy, which is very relevant to this book. "Old Black Joe" is a choice that makes sense here as something a teacher might have picked, because while it romanticizes Southern slaveholding culture like other Foster songs, it has more plausible deniability due to not being written in dialect.
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<blockquote>Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo.</blockquote>
  
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=== undergoders .... they practically ran Iowa ===
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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 [[/Editions#Textual differences|the ones]] that omit the epigram, the first word is misspelled as "Profiscicere.")
  
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The reason that the far-right evangelicals who are so prominent in Daniel's world are called "undergoders" is never spelled out, but to someone of Disch's generation it would clearly refer to the controversy over the wording of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance]. "One nation" was changed to "One nation, under God" in 1954, as part of a Cold War trend toward emphasizing American piety in contrast to the Soviets. This was clearly at odds with separation of church and state, and even though no legal challenge was made on that basis until [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Grove_Unified_School_District_v._Newdow 2000], it was a common focus of arguments about the overlap between religion and political conservatism—and a convenient phrase for the religious right to rally around.
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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).
  
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Woven throughout this chapter, there are references to state- and federal-level politics, Supreme Court decisions, etc., to establish what kind of dystopia Daniel is living in: not a nationwide theocracy like ''The Handmaid's Tale'', but something more in keeping with US history so far. Most of the repression is happening at the state level, and wasn't established by a coup, but by the same processes as right-wing politics today: a coalition of interests including sincere religious zealots, corrupt politicians, and businessmen who have no real ideology but are comfortable in an authoritarian setting. The undergoders don't make up a majority in Iowa, and haven't really forced everyone to live like they do ("it was impossible to pretend to be an undergoder since it involved giving up almost anything you might enjoy")—but they're over-represented in the agricultural industry where the state's main economic power is, and they've managed to narrowly win enough elections to solidify their power. In chapter 3 we see that other nearby states like Minnesota have managed not to go this way.
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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 2, 2024}}</ref> renders the first line as:
  
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=== Three days after Governor Brewster vetoed this law his only daughter was shot at ===
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<blockquote>Go forth, Christian soul, from this world.</blockquote>
  
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Besides being another reminder that the government hasn't uniformly fallen in line, this is an example of the other traditional instrument of local right-wing power: anonymous violence by individuals. You could call this stochastic terrorism, or just the kind of thing the KKK has always done; in many ways the undergoder regime in the Farm Belt states operates very much like the deep South in the 1950s and '60s, where authoritarianism existed on both formal and informal levels.
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== Major characters ==
  
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=== it was as though civilization had ground to a halt ===
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* 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
  
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To American readers in 1979, the fuel crisis depicted here would be very timely: oil production dropped [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis in that year] for several reasons, and even though the impact of this on the US was not as dramatic as expected, it brought back bad memories of the much more severe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis 1973 oil crisis] when Americans had experienced rationing for the first time since World War Two.
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== Other reading ==
  
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Much as in ''[[334]]'', the theme of American decline in ''On Wings of Song'', and the idea that any lowering of the familiar standard of middle-class comfort must be a sign of the collapse of civilization, has its roots in political sentiments that were very common in the 1970s. Ronald Reagan's campaign was based on the premise that economic problems in America, and social unrest in general, were due to having strayed from old-fashioned values and free-market capitalism; the fact that the economy did improve in the 1980s and
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* [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}}
  
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=== The real aristocracy of Iowa, the farmers ===
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== Footnotes ==
 +
<references/>
  
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The idea that the "farmers" are all undergoders living a strict religious life is not quite right, but from the limited perspective of Daniel and his family, knowing only the farmers in and around Amesville, it makes sense that it would seem that way. Later in chapter 5 we'll see a different side of the aristocracy: agricultural tycoons who live in luxury.
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{{On Wings of Song nav}}
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[[Category:Thomas M. Disch]]

Latest revision as of 13:12, 24 January 2025

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.

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).[1]

An early harbinger of the novel was Disch's two-page story fragment "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 of the story in 1982, Disch described how the leap from there to "the idea for my novel, On Wings of Song, and most of the plot"[2] was prompted by reading John Berger's "The Moment of Cubism."[3] 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."[4]

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[5] 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

  • Matthew Davis's page for the book, with many more interview excerpts (Internet Archive link, archived July 14, 2018)

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Sandow, Greg. "Frankenstein". Gregsandow.com. Accessed on January 20, 2025. This archive includes the full libretto and score of Frankenstein, and audio recordings of a workshop production.
  2. ↑ Disch, Thomas M. (1981). The Man Who Had No Idea. Bantam, 1982. ISBN 0553226673. "How to Fly" first appeared in the British magazine Bananas, No. 8, Summer 1977 (The FictionMags Index).
  3. ↑ Berger, John (1967). "The Moment of Cubism". Verso Books Blog, December 6, 2018. Accessed on January 24, 2025. Originally published in New Left Review 42.
  4. ↑ Apollinaire, Guillaume (1918), translated by Anne Hyde Greet. Calligrammes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. ISBN 0520019687.
  5. ↑ "Prayers for Death and Dying". United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Accessed on January 2, 2024.

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