Monday, May 4, 2009
Uncategorized The Song Is You puts love on repeat
Posted by Wyatt Williams @wyatt_williams on Mon, May 4, 2009 at 9:00 PM
Arthur Phillips' new novel, The Song Is You, chronicles the love triangle between an unlikely trio — Julian Donahue, an aging commercial director, Cait O'Dwyer, a fiery young songwriter, and the iPod, that mistress of many tunes. The Song Is You accomplishes the unusual task of being a book about music without being about music history or musicianship. Instead, Phillips has focused his pen on the poetic, intangible relationship between listener and tune.
The iPod may be the least tactile of musical experiences, a fact Phillips works eloquently into his story. You can't touch an MP3, at least not in the way you touch an LP or electric guitar. Yet, the iPod is a deeply sensual experience for Julian, causing his "hunger for music [to] become more urgent, less a daily pleasure than a daily craving." The strange, technological quality of intimate distance, of being so close to something impossible to touch, is acted out by Julian and Cait, who orbit around one another without physically crossing paths. Julian communes with her voice on his iPod, while leaving Cait a trail of his muselike advice through cocktail napkins, text messages, and the random anonymous phone call.
Continue reading "The Song Is You puts love on repeat"
(Photo by Andrea von Lintel)
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