Novel = Symphony, Says Will Self – Until, Alas, They Diverged

The novelist argues that the flagship forms of high art music and literature developed and hit their twin peaks in tandem throughout the 19th century – and laments that, while art music was transformed by modernism, novelists experimented a bit and then scurried right back into familiar forms. (Some commenters riposte that this is why contemporary novels find a wider audience than contemporary symphonic music.)