ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 is an inquiry into the musical topic of fugue. The three novels studied in this chapter present two modes of constructing the acoustic self through a fugal logic. In Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, the voices of the fugue originate in different generations, providing multiple versions of the same character via a diachronic—or horizontal—fugal model. Woolf’s The Waves and Huxley’s Point Counter Point employ a fugal logic in a synchronic way, i.e., the acoustic self emerges from the concurrent narration of several voices. My ultimate aim is to show how fugue, as a way of “mythical thinking” (Tarasti 1978), flattens the vertical (synchronic) and synchronizes the horizontal modes. The “Sirens” chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses serves as a foil to the readings of the other novels.
