BEYOND LINGUISTIC BARRIERS : THE MUSICAL FUGUE STRUCTURE OF THOMAS PYNCHON ' S " ENTROPY "

RESUMEN: Una de las historias cortas de Pynchon, "Entropy", metaforiza la preocupación modernista sobre la relatividad de/lenguaje a la hora de transcribir la realidad externa. Para superar las dificultades que el lenguaje impone en el acto de la comunicación, Pynchon propone la música como código alternativo al mismo. La estructura musical de "Entropy", mediante un coherente juego entre forma y contenido, intenta resolver la falta de unión entre significante y significado lingüísticos. La historia sigue la estructura de una fuga: exposición, desarrollo y "stretto". Estas tres partes se desarrollan mediante la alternancia de dos voces/niveles: la fiesta de Mulligan (el sujeto de la fuga), y la casa de Callista (la respuesta en contrapunto). Como acompañamiento musical, la lluvia, canciones, los ruidos de la calle, y voces secundarias modulan el desarrollo de la narrativa. A nivel textual, el narrador orquesta y dirige esta complicada estructura de sonidos, voces y otras referencias musicales.

underpinning "nominalistic" stance1 • If we are to believe critics such as Robert Nadeau, this modemist search for meaning was al so highlighted by the new developments and discoveries in the scientific field.Einstein and his theory of relativity was certainly a very important factor in the consolidation of the new modemist cosmovision2 • In fact, the source of Thomas Pynchon's interest in the overcoming of linguistic barriers to establish a satisfying communication could very well reside also in his studies on engineering physics at Comen University.Pynchon' s peculiar modernist conception of the paradoxical nature of physical reality seems to agree with what quantum mechanics, Einstein's space-time continuum, Heisenberg's principie of indeterminacy, or Boltzmann's theory of probability3 posit.
Sorne other philosophical theories developed from the end of the 19th century onwards al so cometo the same conclusions.William James' s concepts of the "specious present" and "the stream of consciousness", Berkeley's epistemological scepticism, or Henri Bergson's distinction between chronological and psychological time4 , are all arguments which seem to coincide with the new science theories about the relativity of both spatial and temporal coordina tes.In other words, both science and philosophyincluding psychology-conclude, from modemist times onwards, that ours is an uncertain, ungraspable cosmovision.In scientific terms, a world of randomness, constant change and fluidity.
In his collection of short stories, Slow Learner 5 , Pynchon seems to document the apparent impossibility of using language as a tool to describe and comprehend such a chaotic ontology.Language is relative; it comes from the individual mind and is answered by other linguistic items coming from other minds, but there is no actual "going beyond" oneself, no possibility of transcendence e ven in the act of "communication"6.Pynchon seems to be aware -like other contemporary authors such as Fowles, Barth, Vonnegut... -that "the forms resident in our subjective realities are ill-equipped to describe or contain reality" 7 • S uch modernist assumption of the inherent difficulties in fitting language to reality leads Pynchon to search for and construct alternative structures for his narrative creations.The belief that language is an imprecise code to transmit a fragmented gnoseology is clearly presented in all his stories and novels.All his works clearly suggest that our technological society has minimized the dimensions of our perceptions and limited the human possibility for communication among individuals.As A.

Trachtenberg asserts:
The highest effect ofmodern technology, then, has been to shift consciousness away from its reliance on written words, on reading, and on the concomitant practice of thinking in logical sequence. 8n this contemporary context, Pynchon presents a world of aimless signifiers and disconnected signifieds.Both characters and readers are drawn into a problematic area of semantic dubiety; a notion which he symbolically depicts as "labyrinths", "crossroads" and "tunnels" in Slow Learner, as the "sewer" in V. , the "nightworld" in Lot 49 , or the "zone" in Gravity's Rainbow .Nonetheless, and against this restrictive capacity to understand ontological issues, he offers the readermore feasible instruments to describe reality, alternative -perhaps more reliable-ways of showing a fragmented, unstable cosmovision: music, film, TV., literary references ... All ofthem work as metalanguages, providing us with a different perspective of our multifarious reality.
In particular, it is in one of his first stories, "Entropy" (1960), that one of these metalanguages, music, acts out as a perfect link of fragments and images, of ideas and voices otherwise impossible to connect and understand.Apparently, music creates no barrier of meaning between sender and listener.On the contrary, it seems to enhance the plausible interrelatedness between both of them.Music helps to counterbalance the meaningless void of signifiers without signifieds by means of its factual pattern-based order.In an attempt to overcome an inevitable pull towards non-signification, musical structures become more suitable frames of reference, without which both the act of narrating and the process of reading could ha ve no meaning, could be disconnected.The critic David Cowart points out how music in Pynchon's narratives goes beyond the limited capacity of language.This alternative language subtly conveys and hints at extradimensions of experience: ... musical allusions hint at orders of being far beyond the sober faculties of rational-minded 20th century man •.. Pynchon's musical allusions tell us, finally, that we must discover and exercise whatever sense or senses ha ve atrophied, in hopes that we may hear an "unthinkable order of music" 9 • The story of "Entropy", I believe, both embodies and is embodied by one of the most successful musical metaphors ever conceived.Conventional narrative structures are ironically disrupted and, as a consequence, replaced by a more efficient pattem, a musical fugue 10 • That is, the fugue structure supports its narrative design and helps to clarify its own interpretation.In this way, the linguistic gap between signified and signifier seems to be surmounted by the musical interplay of form and content.
A fugue may be defined 11 as a musical piece made up of three main parts: exposition, development and stretto.In the first one, a subject (or main theme) is presented and then followed by its answer, called countersubject, and usually held in a contrapunta!way.Sorne other secondary elements -countertheme or countersubject, and coda 12 -, al so appear successively.The second part of the fugue, the development, presents a cycle of nearby tonalities, developed by means of different episodes which modula te and link the successive en trances of the subject in such tonalities.The fugue' s last part or stretto, is built upon a series of canons or stretti.Through them, sorne proceedings such as augmentation, diminution and contrary movements, as well as combination of themes, among others, are used.
Once weknow how a fugue works in general terms, we can concentrate on the main voices of our story so asto draw the following parallelism.Considering "Entropy" as a staff 13 , we could easily distinguish two main voices/levels: that from Mulligan' s party ( which works as the subject of the fugue), and that of Callista' s hothouse (its contrapunta!answer, al so called countersubject).Sorne other noises, or rather "sounds" -to use proper musical terms-, are added to this staff-like house; they all work as a kind of musical accompaniment.In the upper level two recurrent motifs appear all through the story: constant, apocalyptic temperature, and rain.In the lowest level, an ample variation of street noises can also be noticed.
However, Pynchon also gi ves his finishing touch to this m usical-literary work: the main narratoria!subject is allowed to speak with the aim of orchestrating this magnificent variety of sounds and voices.It is the extradiegetic heterodiegetic narrator 1 \ by means of his omniscient voice, who pro vides the short story /fugue pattern with a cohesive structural frame.The following graphic may help to clarify this intricate musical design: 1 O I ha ve transcribed the whole musical structure of "Entropy" in the graphics shown at the end of this article so that the reader may follow in a minute way how Pynchon 's short story brilliantly conforms to the structure of a musical fugue.
11 For the benefit of the possible readers who may not be acquainted with musical terminology, I ha ve introduced sorne simple definitions extracted from well known works on musical theory such as Salvador Seguí, TeorÚl musical], Madrid: Unión Musical Española, 1975;TeorÚl Musical2, Madrid: Unión Musical Española, 1978;and Stephen Dembski et al., International Vocabularary of Music, París: Editions Transatlantiques, 1979.12 Countertheme is the musical answer given toa short fragment or part of a musical work.Theme and countertheme are constituted by smaller parts called subject and countersubject.The latter also opera tes as the answer to the former.The coda is the final passage, often elabora te in style, that completes a piece of m u sic.Further explanations can be found in Seguí, TeorÚl Musical2, op.cit.
13 Staff or stave is the set of five parallellines on or between which notes are placed to indica te their pitch.14Accordingto Gerard Genette's terminology in Narrative Discourse.Ithaca: Comell University Press , 1980 (1972);  p. 228-29, and 244-45.
,11~ closer mmlysis of this complex netv1ork reveals to the readcr that the stor¡' s musical pattern aims at implicitly conveying man's impossibility of an absolute transcription of physical reality through language.From the very beginning, a quick parallelism can be drawn just by looking at its physical disposition.Like an anacrusis15 (see bar16 no.l ), Henry Miller' s quote from Tropic ofCancer opens up the story-fugue.
At the same time, we are also provided with a general outlook: a brief yet precise introduction to the sociocultural features of the period when the story was written.Together with a touch of inevitable fatalism -represented by a symbolically unchanging temperature-the 20th century civilization is metaphorically depicted: ............The weather will continue bad, he says.Not the slightest indication of a change anywhere ... We must get into step, a lockstep toward the prison of death.There is no escape.The weather will not change.(p.81) The presentation of the fugue's subject, which may also be divided into several parts, follows immediately afterwards.As a counterpoint to its theme (an overall description of Meatball Mulligan' s lease breaking party and the jazz quartet listening to the Heroes' Gate at Kiev [bar 2]), the narratoria!voice gives the reader both spatial and temporal coordinates of the story (bar 3), so that the reader-listener can locate the forthcoming events/sounds in a proper context/musical "rapport".To this, rain outside 17 (bar 4) works out both asan arpeggio 18 andas a modulating bridge 19 between the first and the second countertheme.As for the latter, I should notice that the narrator's association of ideas (bars 5 and 6), ends up, first of all, with a textually overt reference to music: "a stretto passage in the year's fugue"(p.83).Secondly, this perfectly coherent pattem of countertheme and coda can also be equated to another musical sign, a "slur", or mark used to show that two or more notes are to be executed with no separation between them (performed legato ).
The countersubject of this fugue pattem is also built upon a firm, coherent structure.Its main theme is made up of three smaller parts.First of all, an expositiondescription (bar 7) of Callista' s "hothouse jungle"(p.83), as well as the other two minar characters inhabiting it, Aubade and the bird.Then, another arpeggio (bar 8), the sound of rain intertwined with "querulous moming voices of the other birds"(p.83)helps to connect the previously mentioned presentation of the third floor to its re-exposition or development (bar 9).It should be mentioned that almost all the re-expositions which appear ::~11 ::~long the fugue are tra..nsposed to narra ti ve terms in quite a logical way: here, from the narrator's description of Callisto's enclave, the reader is led to contemplate what the narratoria!voice has just portrayed; as presented in bar 9, by means of the direct style the reader is allowed to know the characters' behaviours and acts in a deeper or, to be more precise, direct way.
Finally the countersubject ends up with a triple variation of counterthemes (bars 1 O, 11 and 12), all of them to be interpreted with a slur.The narrator, so as to be more specific, has modulated his voice in three different directions: from Aubade' s description as the personification of order and harmony 20 (notice once more the excessive insistence on the use of musical terms), anda short reference to Henry Adams, toCallista' s description in terms of rhythm and absence of it: Leery at omens of apocalypse, Callisto shifted beneath the covers.His fingers pressed the bird more firmly, as if needing sorne pulsing or suffering assurance of an early break in the temperature.(p.85) The fugue pattem becomes even more complex in its second part.Subject and countersubject appear altemately, yet with intercalated variations of each of them.From Callisto's harmonious and ordered hothouse, a modulating bridge (bar 13) leads the reader back again to Meatball' s apartment.As the narrator ironically adds, Callista' s wish for an early break in the constant apocalyptic 37 degrees Fahrenheitoutside and inside is achieved by means of a sharp noise-note: lt was that last cymbal crash that did it.(p.85) More noises contribute to disturb the artificially built harmony of the third floor.20 " ... she was part French and part Annamese, and she lived on her own curious and lonely planet, where the clouds and the odor of poincianas, the bittemess of wine and the accidental fingers at the small of her back or feathery against her breast carne to her reduced inevitably to the terms of sound: of music which emerged at intervals from a howling dárkness nf A-i~rnrA~nr'\1" fn Sl.L1.\A "final hiss ... melted into the whisper of rain outside" (p.85) and Meatball 's desperate, even dissonant "Aarrgghh" (p.85) work out as perfect links for a new exposition and its development.As far as the latter is concemed, a new musical parallelism may be drawn: Krinkles and Meatball' s conversation (bar 17) is reproduced in a stacatto21 -like way.In the same way that musical signs in a stacatto are to be played with greater intensity and expression, this piece of dialogue is characterized by short, fragmented sentences, anda careless, inconsistent style: "Jeez, Meatball," he said, "you don'twant todonothingno more.""Hair of dog," said Meatball."Only hope.Any juice left?" .... "No champagne, 1 don't think," Duke said."Case of tequila behind the icebox."They put on an Earl Bostic si de.Meatball paused at the kitchen door, glowering at Sandor Rojas."Lemons," he said after a thought.
(p. 85) After Sandor's announcement (modulating bridge [bar 18]) that a new musical interference -that of Saul' s voice coming from the first floor-is going to appear, there comes a variation in tonality22 of the main subject.With Saul 's, new tonalities ("a sudden flurry of knocking at the front door" and the voices of "three Coeds from George Washington"[p.86]) serve to introduce another intromission on the part of the main narrative voice (bars 21 and 22).His slur-like digression, this time centered on the description of a secondary character23 , is now developed in a more complex way.By means of the free indirect discourse, defined by S. Rimmon-Kenan 24 as the co-presence of two voices, the narrator' s voice and the character' s pre-verbal perceptions or feelings, the former intrudes into the mind of the latter, and describes him in explicit terms: Purche porti la gonnella, voi sapete quel che fa .Like Pavlov's dog: a contralto voice or a whiff of Arpege and Sandor would begin to salivate.(p.87) A few lines/bars later, a blank space in the text acts out as a musical resf 5 (bar 23).A new change of voice is clearly indicated: the countersubject or contrapunta!answer to the subject, that is, the sounds of the third floor.
Nonetheless, a closer analysis of the structure of the countersubject reveals its intricate pattem to the reader.First of all, there is an exposition of the theme (bars 24, 25 and 26).Callisto, parodying the historian Henry Adams (let us remember how the narrator purposely referred to him before in the exposition) dictates to Aubade his own memoirs using the 3rd person to refer to himself.Meanwhile, a small, soft sound can al so be perceived: the bird' s "pitiful small heart fluttered against his own, (p.88).Immediately afterwards the theme is varied by means of a melodic accompaniment (bar 27), a series of street-level noises which seem to be joined as notes in a chord26 executed as a descending arpeggio27 (descending arpeggiated chord).As the text explicitly shows: Counterpointed against bis [Callisto's] words the girl heard the chatter ofbirds and fitful car honkings scattered along the wet morning and Earl Bostic's alto rising in occasional wild peaks through the floor.(p.88) After the secondary theme's new appearance (bar 28) there follows, first, a countertheme (bar 29) where the narrator ironically explains Callisto's diction and his narrow knowledge of scientific concepts, and second, a re-exposition in direct speech (bar 30), which is ended up in a sharp, abrupt way.Callisto's autobiography finishes •with the verb "cease" and immediately after, lik:e a musical rest, the narrative symbolically announces that "the rain has stopped" (p.89).With this explicit indication -both in narrative and musical terms-of a change ofvoice, Saul's retrospective account is allowed to be heard.Lik:e an arpeggiated chord, his narration about the discussion with his wife can be divided into four consecutive notes: rain outside, the Handbook of Chemistry she throws at him, the sound of the window when it breaks, and her crying (bar 32): "Oh Meatball, it was a lovely fight.S he ended up throwing a Handbook ofChemistry and Physics at me, only it missed and went through the window, and when the glass broke 1 reckon something in her broke too.S he stormed out ofthe house crying, out in the rain."(p.89) By and large, Saul's account in Meatball's house can be considered as a second variation on the subject.Besides, it is further developed through a conversation between Saul and Meatball (bar 33), which may easily be transcribed into musical signs.Their speeches are centered on the idea of entropy in information flow 28 • This scientific concept states that the more information one receives, the more difficult it is to understand the message.Once more, communication through language turns out to be impossible.Music, therefore, attempts to surmount language barriers.If we analyse each sentence we can easily come to their musical equivalents.Saul's "a kind of leakage" (p.90) suggests a constant movement or flow; musically speaking, a note which ought to be maintained for a while.Thus, a hold 29 would perfectly suit this purpose."Noise screws up your signal, makes for disorganization in the circuit" (p.91) is a paragraph which goes back to the idea of information flow or, in musical terms, to a succession ofbrief-duration notes (f.i., demisemiquavers 30 ).And so the text follows: "Well sure," Meatball said, trying to be helpful, "you were usinl!different words.Bv "human beini!" vou meant something that you can loo k at like it was a computer.lt helps yo u think better on the job or something.B ut Miriam meant something entirely -"."The hell with it."Meatball fell silent."1'11 take that drink," Saul said after a while.(p.

91)
Sen ten ces become incomplete, unfinished."Entropy"' s eponimous concept seems to turn communication into a complete source of misunderstanding.Literal silence, represented with a rest, seems to stress the idea of entropic undifferentiation.The final words of the conversation symbolically indicate that the following words/notes are irrelevant, that their attempt at communicating has completely failed.Besides, more "noises" ("five enlisted personnel of the U.S. Navy"[p.92]) in crease the entropic chaos that the useless linguistic code produces.Y et, they soon become suffocated by another rest/blank space, which clearly hints ata new change of voice.This time, what is going to be varied is not the main subject, but the countersubject.Back to Callisto's domains, a mordent3l_}ike quick reference to the threatening 37 degrees Fahrenheit outside (bar 37) gives way to Aubade's physical description, which is described in terms of music: In the hothouse Aubade stood absently caressing the branches of a young mimosa, hearing a motif of sap-rising, the rough and unresolved anticipatory theme of those fragile pink blossoms which, it is said, insure fertility.(p. 92) As the reader may perceive, musical terminology becomes increasingly allusive both in the description ofher sen se of order and in the factual invasion of chaotic noises 29 Musical mark represented with a semicircleand a full stop.It indica tes that thesound ofthenote should be maintained.30 N ame of the musical note which is equal to the 32th.part of the semibreve (or the longest musical note in common use).
31 Complementary notes which are to be executed in the fastest possible way.They are represented by small semiquavers joined to the main note by means of a slur.They do not ha ve any temporal value on their own, and therefore, they ha veto take it from the fil!.ures which either meced e or follow them.
coming from the partygoers of the second floor.Her personification of harmony and even a kind of orchestra conductor is later displayed through a brilliant mastery of musical terms.Lik:e a trilP 2 -note modulating up and down (bar 39), Aubade tries to preserve herself from the noises of the lower floor: Tbat music rose in a tangled tracery: arabesques of order competing fugally witb tbe improvised discords of tbe party downstairs, wbicb peaked sometimes in cusps and ogees of noise.(p.92) After an explicit reference to the fugue motif, the improvised discords of Mulligan's pa..rty also modulate up and down, yet in an ad libitum, non-ordered way.These noises m ay thus be represented as a fioritura 33 , as if they were to be interpreted without any fixed, predetermined rhythm or speed.It should also be pointed out how the narrator has finally merged both theme and countertheme together.Furthermore, his masterful handling of music is given its final touch in the description of Aubade' s and Callisto' s actions: Tbe sound of bis voice generated in tbe girl an answering scrap of melody.Her movement toward tbe kitcben, tbe towel, tbe cold water, and bis e y es following ber formed a weird and intricate canon; as sbe placed tbe compress on bis forebead bis sigb of gratitude seemed to signal a new subject, anotber series of modulations.(p.93-94) The narrator's virtuosity is being displayed as the fugue develops.Now, a whole series of variations on the main subject (bars 42-48) in different tonalities -or, to use narrative terms, in different voices-follows.On the one hand, Meatball talks to the U.S. personnel.On the other hand, Duke's quartet, playing without instruments, has sorne problems.As the text explains, Paco is in G sharp, while the restare in E flat.In the kitchen, two girls and sorne sailors sing Let's All go Down and Piss On the Forrestal.Saul drops paper bags with water, Slab is butted, "the morra players were nose-to-nose, screaming trois, sette at the tops oftheir lungs"(p.96), and the girl ofthe sink announces that she is drowning.Noises, the narrator says, have reached almost a climactic point: The noise in Meatball's apartment had reached a sustained, ungodly crescendo.(p. 96) This incessant loudness has been gradually accelerated as if it were modified by an 32 Trill is the quick altemation of two notes a tone ora semi tone apart.33 Fragment of a musical work which is executed with no excessive metrical stricture, but according to the personal affrentando ora swell 34 (bar 48).From pianissimo sounds, we ha ve cometo a fortissimo intensity.
Nevertheless, the narratoria!voice makes use, once more, of the technique of free indirect style in order to present Mulligan' s thoughts in a more intimate way.Through this narrative de vice, an expository yet piano voice is allowed to flow, suspending the gradual quickening of the rhythm.It should also be stressed that the character' s mental digressions [(a)(b)(a)] representa vicious circle pattern which could be equated toa mordent (bar 49).Meatball' s decision to cal m down his guests is suggestively followed by a final rest.The second part of the fugue structure, the development, has just finished.There only remains the stretto to be accomplished, a musical part which comprises a series of canons or stretti.In it, and for the first time in die story, sounds coming from both floors, from both subject ::~nd countersubject, are significan ti y "con-fused".The faintbeatofthe bird begins "to slacken andfail" (p.97).In musical terms, aswell would indicate this shift from piano to pianissimo intensity (bar 51).Meanwhile, high-pitched voices -a girl's scream, an overturned chair, glass dropped on the floor, ... -from the lower flat seem to impose over the tiny heartbeat of the bird.This time, intensity of the sounds/words is varied right up in the opposite direction.That is to say, from forte to fortissimo (bar 52).To further contribute to this affrentando movement, the narrative explicitly states that Callisto's "pulse began to pound more fiercely"(p.97).
However, as a kind of counterforce, the narrator announces that the bird's "heartbeat ticked a graceful diminuendo down at last into stillness"(p.97).Its musical parallelism cannot be more precise: a series of quick, brief-duration notes followed by a rest, at the same time being modified by a swell from piano to pianissimo intensity (bar 54).Finally, the narra ti ve itself is symbolically left suspended, as if it were modified by a hold (bar 55).Callisto's questions, unanswered and even unfinished, seem to convey the absolute impossibility to comprehend externa!reality through words: Callisto raised his head slowly."1 held him," he protested, impotent with the wonder ofit "to give him the warmth of m y body.Almost as ifl were communicating life to him, or a sense of life.What has happened?Has the transfer of heat ceased to work?Is there no more ... " He did not finish.(p. 97-98) It is also highly significant that Aubade, as "harmony", finally dominates and controls the confrontation of the opposing outside and in si de worlds; or in the fugue' s structure, the externa!noises ofboth streetand lower flat, and the silence of the hothouse.In this respect, she performs the last cadence 35 (bar 56), which m ay be divided into two 34 "Affrentando" is a musical term which indica tes that there should be a gradual quickening of the movement that is being played."Swell" is a musical matk which means that there should be a gradual increasein the volume of sound.Although these two terms at first appear to be almost similar, the first refers to the rhythm whereas the second is related to the intensity of the sounds.