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What is a "musical novel"? This book defines the genre as musical not primarily in terms of its content, but in its form. The musical novel crosses medial boundaries, aspiring to techniques, structures, and impressions similar tothose of music. It takes music as a model for its own construction, borrowing techniques and forms that range from immediately perceptible, essential aspects of music (rhythm, timbre, the simultaneity of multiple voices) to microstructural (jazz riffs, call and response, leitmotifs) and macrostructural elements (themes and variations, symphonies, albums). The musical novel also evokes the performance context by imitating elements of spontaneity that characterize improvised jazz or audience interaction. The Musical Novel builds upon theories of intermediality and semiotics to analyze the musical structures, forms, and techniques in two groups of musical novels, which serve as case studies. The first group imitates an entire musical genre and consists of jazz novels by Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Xam Wilson Cartiér, Stanley Crouch, Jack Fuller, Michael Ondaatje, and Christian Gailly. The second group of novels, by Richard Powers, Gabriel Josipovici, Rachel Cusk, Nancy Huston, and Thomas Bernhard, imitates a single piece of music, J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. Emily Petermann is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Konstanz.

Music in literature. --- Musique --- Music and literature. --- Musique et littérature --- Dans la littérature --- 820-31 "19" --- Literature and music --- Literature --- Engelse literatuur: novel; roman--20e eeuw. Periode 1900-1999 --- Musik. --- Englisch. --- Roman. --- Musik i litteraturen. --- Musik och litteratur. --- 820-31 "19" Engelse literatuur: novel; roman--20e eeuw. Periode 1900-1999 --- Music and literature --- Music in literature --- Dans la littérature. --- Musique et littérature. --- Analysis. --- Audience Interaction. --- Bach's Goldberg Variations. --- Case Studies. --- Form. --- Improvised Jazz. --- Intermediality. --- Jazz Novels. --- Literary Forms. --- Literary Structures. --- Literary-Historical Analysis. --- Music Structures. --- Music. --- Musical Novel. --- Performance Context. --- Semiotics. --- Musique et littérature. --- Dans la littérature.