Has anyone read this one, whether or not you're a musician?

This excellent book, which was made into an excellent film Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), uses a metaphor of our flawed musical tuning system ("even-tempered tuning"), and relates it to the flawed systems of order we create for ourselves. The story is about a sleepy Hungarian town on the verge of a violent uprising.

Downloadable pdf here:
Melancholy of Resistance

Warning! This book isn't for the faint of heart. The writer László Krasznahorkai has a thing for long, long, loooong sentences that jump back & forth between different ideas, interrupting each other multiple times before you finally hit that eagerly awaited period.
Example: the opening sentence...

SINCE THE PASSENGER TRAIN CONNECTING THE
icebound estates of the southern lowlands, which extend
from the banks of the Tisza almost as far as the foot of the
Carpathians, had, despite the garbled explanations of a
haplessly stumbling guard and the promises of the
stationmaster rushing nervously on and off the platform,
failed to arrive (‘Well, squire, it seems to have
disappeared into thin air again …’ the guard shrugged,
pulling a sour face), the only two serviceable old wooden-
seated coaches maintained for just such an ‘emergency’
were coupled to an obsolete and unreliable 424, used only
as a last resort, and put to work, albeit a good hour and a
half late, according to a timetable to which they were not
bound and which was only an approximation anyway, so
that the locals who were waiting in vain for the eastbound
service, and had accepted its delay with what appeared to
be a combination of indifference and helpless resignation,
might eventually arrive at their destination some fifty
kilometres further along the branch line.

That's 175 words if anyone's counting.

Anyway the metaphor of the ill-tuned piano is kinda brilliant and, as far as I know, has never been used in any other work of fiction. The author takes a mathematical quirk of music--the fact that our 12-tone scale is imperfect and 'fudged' to fit--and uses it as a metaphor to apply to all systems of human 'order' being flawed. Like the musical puzzle which has no solution, perhaps human society itself is doomed because there is no solution. At best we have a fudging of laws and customs which seem to work, but it will always be imperfect.

In music the flaw is so minute that we don't really hear it. The fudging is less than 1/4 of a semitone every octave, hardly noticeable when spread across 12 notes. So we accept it, we build grand compositions on this faulty foundation, we enjoy music and exalt its perfection on an emotional level. But mathematically it just doesn't add up.

The problem, which the book poses, is that a flawed system of order will eventually lead to a major catastrophe. Yet it implies that, like music, there is no solution to the problem. There is simply no way of creating order amongst humans because we just don't add up.

Surprisingly, that first sentence, although indeed meandering, indulgent in switchbacks, dropping in mysteries such as the "424," although not too obscure such that one can surmise it is some sort of railroad car yet undefined and perhaps unrefined as to the comfort level provided to passengers, but does eventually, as in the passenger train metaphor, arrive at its final destination - a specific punctuation mark while not quite reaching either an elevation of annoyance or a valley of boredom and so provides a scenic and satisfying journey yet one remains unprepared for the next excursion.


Only 95 words...Meh...

I'm not a musician, so don't know if the following discussion of even tempered Vs. well tempered tunings is relevant, but evidently the difference is discernable by professional musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp9nUPhbVag

LanDroid wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 5:11 am Surprisingly, that first sentence, although indeed meandering, indulgent in switchbacks, dropping in mysteries such as the "424," although not too obscure such that one can surmise it is some sort of railroad car yet undefined and perhaps unrefined as to the comfort level provided to passengers, but does eventually, as in the passenger train metaphor, arrive at its final destination - a specific punctuation mark while not quite reaching either an elevation of annoyance or a valley of boredom and so provides a scenic and satisfying journey yet one remains unprepared for the next excursion.


Only 95 words...Meh...

I saw what you did there

There's definitely a cheekiness to the author's approach (at least in the beginning), and I think you latched on to it. The first chapter is about the absurd ordeal of a woman trying to ride a train home, full of chaos and randomness including her bra strap snapping at a most inopportune time as the train was bouncing up & down. But pretty soon the silliness turns dark and sinister.

The author uses the same wordy approach throughout the book, but what began as a humorously bombastic style turns into a lot of deep philosophical musings. I think the comedic 1st part was his way of luring us into the massive word assault that comes later.

That's an awesome vid, he explains it pretty well although it gets pretty scientific for the average listener. (Of course if it's Bach talking whadaya expect?)

Here's a real basic demo I found that doesn't try to explain it, he just plays it so we can hear the difference. The even tempered (modern tuning) sounds good until you switch back to the old tuning which sounds so much better. But then he shows how the old tuning encounters big problems further up the scale where it sounds like a trainwreck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqa2Hbb_eIs

It's a pretty messy problem which is why it's such a great metaphor for the human race. We can have spots of perfect order, but it doesn't apply to everyone. So the compromise is an imperfect system that tries to account for everyone. Unfortunately as we see throughout history (and especially today) people can't live with compromises and there will always be violent uprisings.

I've never seen a piano explode, but societies sure tend to blow themselves up when they can't agree...