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Sound, Speech, and Music (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)

Sound, by its very nature, is intrusive. Even as the writer writes this review or the reader reads it, myriad uninvited sounds form a backdrop to the intellectual process involved in comprehending the written words or coherently paraphrasing another writer’s ideas. Its intrusiveness does not, however, necessarily mean that extraneous sounds destroy the intellectual process involved. The Bach partita fortuitously playing on the radio may help mask backfiring cars, low-flying jets, or noisy neighbors, in effect allowing people to hear themselves think. Paradoxically, it is often...

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