Story 47: Donald Barthelme - King of Jazz
I've been avoiding the postmodernists for so long because I know I will probably enjoy them too much, and also, because of past difficult experiences with postmodernist fiction lovers.
This is a three page story in the Sudden Impact anthology and god is it fun!!!
It really takes the piss out of jazz writing,.and writerly efforts to turn sound into words. A famous example, and one which I love, is Ralph Ellison in the Invisible Man describing how Louis Armstrong "bent that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound".
The whole story relentlessly parodies popular depictions of Jazz musicians, but becomes most pointed in the longer speeches:
"Yes, that's Hokie's famous 'English sunrise' way of playing. Playing with lots of rays coming out of it, some red rays, some blu-rays, some green rares, some green stemming from a violet center, some olive stemming from a tan center–"
and later:
"You mean that sound that sounds like the cutting edge of life? That sounds like polar bears crossing Arctic ice pans? That sounds like a herd of musk ox in full flight? That sounds like male walruses diving to the bottom of the sea? That sounds like fumaroles smoking on the slopes of Mt. Katmai? That sounds like the wild turkey walking through the deep, soft forest? That sounds like beavers chewing trees in an Appalachian marsh? That sounds like an oyster fungus growing on an aspen trunk? That sounds like a mule deer wandering a montane of the Sierra Nevada? That sounds like prairie dogs kissing? That sounds like witchgrass tumbling or a river meandering? That sounds like manatees munching seaweed at Cape Sable? That sounds like coatimundis moving in packs across the face of Arkansas? That sounds like - "
I love it.