|
|
The Audible Past: Cultural Origins
of Sound Reproduction Quite possibly because the struggle to change the agenda is so dispersed through time and space, the management of the historical data and the subtleties of the argument is notoriously difficult. In this book, at times, it appears that there are many enemies in the field all of whom must be dispatched at simultaneously and Sterne swipes and out-manoeuvres them leaving the onlooker somewhat breathless and battle fatigued. It makes it a difficult read which is a great pity given the value of the project to the humanities and the extent of the research that underpins it. The Audible Past includes a twenty page bibliography. This is in itself a useful resource for researchers but at times its difficult to know why some material is included when, clearly, it has no impact on the argument or its progress. As with the body of the text some draconian editing would have been valuable to the reader anxious to understand the intervention that is being made. As it is, one often feels that the text will collapse under its own weight engulfing both the reader and the laudable objective alike. Any single chapter in The Audible Past would, given more air, have made a good book, as it is a great deal of work needs to be done by the reader dismissing repetitions while at the same time unpacking excessively dense phrases. The enormity of the problem confronting Sterne may be an inevitable effect of the compliance of the seamless image to the fracturing routines of language. This in itself has led to the seductions of the routines of literary criticism in the study of culture which have little purchase on the other senses in which complex continuity across dimensions is a given. Consequently the stakes are high and often it seems that in considering sound, the determining impact of language on perception is also under scrutiny. Indeed Sternes key move is to recast his enquiry around the technological reproduction of hearing rather than the habitual history of sound recording. In doing so he insists that sound is essentially embodied vibrations. The Audible Past is a valuable contribution in an important field of research that is in dire need of development, it provides excellent material for other scholars to follow up, but as a self-standing champion of the need to rethink the privilege of the visual in cultural analysis, it is unlikely to engage many of the unconverted who will return to old habits and repeat the dubious litany rather than wrestle with the text. |
copyright © 2003 ISAST