Alongside readings of modern novels (including work by David Mitchell, Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay and Andrew O'Hagan), Gerry Smyth offers an extended theoretical analysis of the relationship between music and fiction, as well as a critical overview of the role played by music in the canon of British fiction since the eighteenth century.
'The uses of music within fiction are legion, and Gerry Smyth provides a fascinating overview of ways in which writers invoke the musical Examples... are drawn from the 18th century onwards and include some fascinating insights: Smyth's reading of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure as a Wagnerian novel - structured through leitmotifs - is particularly striking.'
- Andrew Blake, Times Higher Education
- Andrew Blake, Times Higher Education