THE IMAGE OF THE PALIMPSEST introduced at the end of the last chapter is a useful metaphor for the musical novel as a genre. Just as the Goldberg novels with their reassessments of the interaction between composition, performance, and audience response envision a piece of music as a number of performances superimposed on an increasingly elusive and unstable “original,” the musical novel as a whole adds additional layers to the musical model that it employs. While every text builds on those texts that go before, the palimpsest that is the musical novel consists not only of textual layers, but also of forms associated with another medium. It layers its content on a structural framework taken in part from music, but which is then fleshed out by textual means. In addition to these workimmanent aspects, the musical novel—like any text—is dependent on the active participation of the reader so that its meaning can unfold in a new way with each successive reading.

By employing structures and forms borrowed from music, the musical novel does not actually make that music present to the reader. Instead, it intermedially evokes, adapts, and imitates the music, presenting an alternate and supplementary version of it. Readers, depending on their knowledge of the musical model, are given the opportunity to compare the two medial forms, though the novel can also be read and enjoyed independently. A lack of knowledge about jazz or about Bach's Goldberg Variations will strip one layer from the palimpsest, yet will not render the musical novel as a whole incomprehensible or devoid of interest. In the case of novels based on the Goldberg Variations, familiarity with the specific musical model of this individual work is perhaps more directly necessary for an appreciation of the novels’ accomplishments. Some, such as Powers's The Gold Bug Variations, try to circumvent this problem by including extensive descriptions and analyses of the musical work within the novel. A reader unfamiliar with the piece thus receives enough information about the structures being imitated to pick up on some of the patterns and techniques used by the novel. In other cases (e.g., Josipovici's Goldberg: Variations and Cusk's The Bradshaw Variations), the references to Bach's piece are much less explicit and are liable to be missed by readers not intimately acquainted with the piece.