FREE ESSAY ON SUGAR'S SYMPHONY

SUGAR'S SYMPHONY

Sugar's Symphony
Some have coined music as a universal language. Perhaps, the complexity of the notes, the
consistency of the beat, the array of instruments, or the flow of lyricism offers this
universal appeal. Nevertheless, the unique composition of each song enables it to sustain
its own magnetic aura, much like the musical implication in Lewis Nordan's Music of the
Swamp. Though, many argue Nordan's piece suggests merely a collection of short stories
rather than a novel, Nordan uses his singsong methodology- a "novel-in-stories"- to
incorporate an anthology of his transformative memory- an autobiography of the way it
was.
By examining the structure of Music of the Swamp, it can be broken into a series of short
stories, though it is described by some as a "'novel-in-stories'" (Dupuy 1). Although the
novel is divided into three parts and an epilogue, each chapter within each part relates
a different episode throughout the childhood of Nordan's main character Sugar Mecklin.
The first part begins in third person, while Nordan presents the rest of the sections in
first person. Critic Edward Dupuy believes that considering the novel as a short story
collective makes the part "...in the third person less engaging, and somewhat
disconnected to the others. If seen as a "novel-in-stories, however, the first part
serves as a type of overture to the opera that follows..." (Dupuy 3). This musical
analogy suggests the ideas of the novel flow, though the novel itself is structured as a
compilation of differentiable events.
Nordan actually accredits a musical influence as a determining factor in writing his
prose. In an interview with Sam Staggs, Nordan mentions that the "'the rhythms of nursery
rhymes and songs'" are a significant inspiration in his writing (Staggs 1). In fact, he
includes an assortment of songs throughout the novel to articulate the emotions felt
during a specific occurrence in his main character's, and perhaps his own, early life.
For instance, Sugar awakens in the beginning of the story to "I'm so Lonesome I Could
Die," by Elvis Presley, who Nordan admits was his first hero (Staggs 2). Furthermore,
Nordan represents the misery of Sugar's father through the description of Bessie Smith's
music, which Sugar termed "wrist-cutting music" (Nordan 17). The use of these tangible
songs further insinuates Nordan's autobiographical connection to the story as each song
represents some critical part of Sugar's life.
Though actual songs and their performing artists are prevalent throughout the stories,
Nordan also conveys the sounds of the swamp, his homeland, as a musical benefactor to his
personality. He relates this idea through the following passage about Sugar Mecklin:
This summer Sugar Mecklin heard the high soothing music of the swamp, the irrigation
pumps in the rice paddies, the long whine and complaint, head the wheezy, breathy asthma
of the compress, the suck and bump and clatter like great lungs as the air was squashed
out and the cotton was wrapped in burlap and bound with steel bands into
six-hundred-pound bales, he heard the operatic voice of the cotton gin separating fibers
from seeds, he heard a rat bark, he heard a child singing arias in a cabbage patch, he
heard a parrot make a sound like a cash register, he heard the jungle rains fill up the
Delta outside his window, he heard the wump-wump-wump-wump-wump of biplanes strafing the
fields with poison and defoliants, he read a road sign that said WALNUT GROVE IS RADAR
PATROLLED and heard poetry in the language, he heard mourning doves in the walnut trees
(Nordan 6).
Very vividly, Nordan recounts his recollection of his adolescent experience growing up in
the Delta by providing this artistic image through melodious prose.
Furthermore, Nordan accredits the Delta for shaping his personality because of the events
his own life as well as Sugar Mecklin's. In the interview with Sam Staggs, Nordan recalls
when he was 16, he first learned of the lynching of Emmett Till, a black teenager from
Mississippi. He notes: 
The other boys were making lots of jokes about the lynching, and I was laughing, too.
Then an ol' redneck boy like the rest of us said something amazing. He said~That's not
right. I don't like that kind of joke....And that changed my life so abruptly, so
profoundly...that's when I knew I would have to leave Mississippi and try to find a
larger world...(Staggs 1). 
Nordan tries to convey this lifelong lesson through Sugar's character, too. While
thinking on his friend's parental situation, Sugar says to himself: "Daddies' ain't your
trouble, Sweet Austin. Your trouble is the geography. You better learn to like it"
(Nordan 23). In other words, Nordan reiterates the blame he gives to the South for his
own distressing experiences through Sugar's thoughts, further integrating the idea of
autobiography.
Although many claim that the structure of Music of the Swamp is none other than a set of
short stories, Nordan structured it to carry an autobiographical appeal. He uses
reflective imagery and "the right musical notes" to allow his readers, and even his
students, a sense of the emotion behind his prose. Because his "novel-in-stories" is so
autobiographical, the central idea of transformative memory serves as a centrifugal force
that sucks readers into the hearts of Sugar Mecklin and Lewis Nordan, disallowing the
victims to detach themselves from the series of "stories" but rather forcing them to
accept and appreciate the memory of life.
Bibliography
Works Cited:
Dupuy, Edward J. "Memory, death, and delta, and St. Augustine: autobiography 
In Lewis Nordan's Music of the Swamp." Literature Resource Center 
(1998): n. pag. Online. Internet. 13 Apr. 2000. Available WWW: 
/hits?c=3&b=1939&origSearch=false&rtype=8&secondary=false&save
drsch=%26NR%3Dlewis+Nordan%26OP%3/1/00
Nordan, Lewis. Music of the Swamp. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin, 1991.
Staggs, Sam. "Lewis Nordan: his new novel offers a surreal portrait of an event
that changed his life." Literature Resource Center (1993): n. pag. Online.
Internet 13 Apr. 2000. Available WWW: / hits?c=3&b=1939&origSearch
=false&rtype=8&secondary=false&savedrsch=%26NR%3Dlewis+Nordan
%26OP%3/1/00