Abstract

Even if Pynchon refers in The Crying of Lot 49 to electronic music only marginally, one may ask from a musicologist's perspective what motivates the contextualization of this phenomenon. In chapter 3, Oedipa and Metzger visit a bar called The Scope, where they are confronted with the "'Radio Cologne sound'" (48) in the form of a composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The first part of this essay analyzes the function of this episode in the novel, stressing the background against which the narrator revises the characteristics of electronic music. The second part focuses on the role of auditory perception in the novel, in which music and acoustic environments appear in ever different constellations.

How to Cite:

Erbe, M., (2008) “The Transcription of Electronic Music in The Crying of Lot 49”, Pynchon Notes , 99-107. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.29