Kate Bush loves life. Chris de Burgh loves himself. Antonín Dvořák isn’t here for your “American push.”
Check out my spoiler-free novel playlist over at Largehearted Boy, where I reveal the songs that inspired me while writing—and the reasoning behind songs name-checked in MAN OF THE YEAR. For example:
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”, Op. 95, B. 178 – Antonín Dvořák
(A side)
There’s a niche joke here, alluding to John Williams alluding to Dvořák in the Jaws and Star Wars scores—a hint of highbrow-lowbrow tension between Robert and Nick. Mostly, though, this work aligns with the novel’s themes of identity and observation. Dvořák was a homesick visitor in a foreign land when he came to the U.S, tasked with writing the definitive American symphony (weird). The resulting work had a funhouse mirror effect for many American aristocrats, reflecting things that made them uncomfortable. Perspectives they didn’t want to see. Ways they didn’t want to be seen. Not unlike Robert’s experience with Nick. But Dvořák was uncomfortable, too, despite everyone telling him how lucky he was to be in such an impressive place—not unlike Nick’s experience in Robert’s home.
It’s worth noting that of American “enthusiasm,” Dvořák wrote (in Harper’s Magazine: February 1895, pp. 429-434): “It is the essence of what is called ‘push’—American push. Every day I meet with this quality in my pupils. They are unwilling to stop at anything. … they want to go to the bottom of all things at once. It is as if a boy wished to dive before he could swim.”
More at Largehearted Boy!