Beyond linguistic Barriers : The Musical Fugue Structure of Thomas Pynchon's "Entropy"

Abstract

One of Pynchon's short stories, "Entropy" ,seems to metaphorize the modernist preoccupation with the relativity of language when transcribing externa! reality. To overcome the difficulties that language imposes on the act of communication, music is used asan alternative code. ln particular, "Entropy"'s musical fugue structure, by its coherent interplay of form and content, seems to fill the linguistic gap between signified and signifier. The story follows the three main parts of a fugue: exposition, development and stretto. These are developed through the alternation oftwo voices/levels: Mulligan's party (the subject of the fugue) and Callisto's hothouse (its contrapuntal answer). As a kind of musical accompaniment, rain, songs, street noises and secondary voices, modulate the flow ofthe narrative. Ata textual level, the figure of the narrator orchestrates this intricate pattern of sounds, voices, and many other musical references.