What do you think?
Rate this book
Sudden Noises From Inanimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes
Written as liner notes to fictional music, Christopher Miller's uproarious debut novel skewers conventions in a work of high entertainment and imagination. In Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects, the complete works of the prodigiously cranky composer Simon Silber get their diablolical due from Silber's official biographer -- a man who grows to hate his subject. Not content with simply discussing Silber's odd musical oeuvre -- whose highlights include an hourlong performance of the "Minute Waltz," an etude composed on a telephone keypad, and a transcription of crow caws -- the commentator veers into a delightfully venomous exposé of a musician whose grandiose ambitions far exceed his actual talent.
288 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2004
62 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 8, 2012
How does one justify writing a whole novel's worth of liner notes, and moreover liner notes for a single 4-CD set, at that? These notes were written by Norman Fayrewether Jr., a "paid biographer" with an axe to grind with the deceased composer to which these notes accompany a box set, under circumstances that allowed them to do so largely unconstrained.
Simon Silber, the eccentric composer who's work is the box set's subject, was subject to overbearing constraints as a child in attempt to create a prodigy pianist, from which he turned to composition and produced difficult, conceptual work from a position of independent wealth, well tolerated by a small town he never leaves despite extremely anti-social flaws. He and Norman, an embittered, unemployable, impoverished "philosopher" and writer of self-published aphorisms, do each other few favors.
Despite being framed in the formal form of liner notes, and occasionally great and hilarious descriptions of formal compositional techniques, this novel itself has no great respect for formal innovation, and indeed uses the character of the narrator to buck loose from it and to paint it with its worst company. I think this is a shame, in just as the composer's greatest breakthrough never sees a final audience who declares it anything other than insanity, we never see a glimpse of the joy in creating formal structures, except for what we can enjoy from the descriptions themselves. Instead, we are only subject to the foibles and folly of its flawed practitioners, and how biography can mar the work of its subjects.
For a book that attempts to move past biography when describing music, I recommend "Coltrane: The Story of a Sound" by Ben Ratliff.
Simon Silber, the eccentric composer who's work is the box set's subject, was subject to overbearing constraints as a child in attempt to create a prodigy pianist, from which he turned to composition and produced difficult, conceptual work from a position of independent wealth, well tolerated by a small town he never leaves despite extremely anti-social flaws. He and Norman, an embittered, unemployable, impoverished "philosopher" and writer of self-published aphorisms, do each other few favors.
Despite being framed in the formal form of liner notes, and occasionally great and hilarious descriptions of formal compositional techniques, this novel itself has no great respect for formal innovation, and indeed uses the character of the narrator to buck loose from it and to paint it with its worst company. I think this is a shame, in just as the composer's greatest breakthrough never sees a final audience who declares it anything other than insanity, we never see a glimpse of the joy in creating formal structures, except for what we can enjoy from the descriptions themselves. Instead, we are only subject to the foibles and folly of its flawed practitioners, and how biography can mar the work of its subjects.
For a book that attempts to move past biography when describing music, I recommend "Coltrane: The Story of a Sound" by Ben Ratliff.
May 26, 2021
One of my favorite books I've read in the past couple of years. Although, I will say I'm a sucker for anything that gives me a novel as something else. In this case it's liner notes, and from what I've read of Miller's second novel "The Cardboard Universe," he has a knack for finding interesting ways to tell stories that are wonderfully non-linear and absolutely hilarious. This is one of the funniest books I've ever read and one of the few that has ever made me laugh out loud. And it's not like this should be in the dreaded HUMOR section at the bookstore, it's witty and Miller spins an excellent yarn about a modern classical composer and his stalkery, obsessive biographer.
December 15, 2018
I could see a farcical Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly movie coming out of this story, including the one scene that goes on for way too long and drags the entire movie down for a solid thirty minutes until you hit the final gag in the last five that makes you remember the movie forever with a small, "Oh yeah, that was okay."
January 24, 2025
3.75
At a local used bookstore once with my friend Miranda, we spotted a shelf of aesthetically packaged “buddy reads”.
“I’d be open to doing that,” she said at the time. The butcher paper parcels had, among other twee decorations, small cards attached with sparse descriptions of the contents of the books inside, one or two sentences with phrases meant to clue readers in on the genre, theme, or mood.
When Christmas rolled around, unsure of what to get my friend, I recalled that blip—one so insignificant I worried she may have forgotten—of conversation and went the route of the buddy book. The description card on the package said something like: comedic, music-themed fiction. Miranda undid the wrapping, and we beheld our lot. Our lot. Because a buddy book is inherently a gift for you and the person you intend it for, making it an awkward exchange, like giving someone you love two concert tickets and telling them, “You can take anyone you like,” knowing they can only ever bring you. Sorry, Miranda. And thanks!
Sudden Noises was difficult for me to get into at first. It took a minute for me to bop along to the rhythm of Miller’s voice and the liner note conceit. Once I got into the rhythm, I began to worry that, given the conceit, the book would have nowhere to go narratively. At times it does seem to bounce around a lot. Though it is very funny from the get-go, the seemingly untethered nature of the storytelling made it hard for me to pick it up and keep reading. Eventually, it does seem to weave a thread that maybe I missed in those first pages, and I ended up quite enjoying the unfolding relationship between the narrator, Norm Fayreweather, and the composer, Simon Silber. (Side note: I internally pronounced “Silber” as “SilBEAR” a la Colbert for probably the entire first disc before deciding it should rhyme with silver. Am I saying it right?)
There are some really comedic scenes in this book, most of them, in my opinion, come along in the latter half. Miller has a great eye for timing and writing physical comedy, such that I would love to see this adapted for the screen. The scene with Norm offloading all the ice cream and that last drive between Norm and Silber when Silber lurches up to the pay phone to record his musical inspiration on his answering machine—I can’t overstate how well-written and just plain funny those scenes are. The decision to tell the story via liner notes and in Norm’s unreliable, pretension-critiquing-pretension voice was a great decision in the end. It conveys Norm’s feelings all along, and Miller does manage to create a narrative arc that works well.
The ending was a little disappointing for me, but it wasn’t a total wash. The final “track” was working really well until the last few lines, really. I’m not sure what I was hoping for, but they landed a bit more seriously than what I think Miller was probably going for.
Overall, I had a slow time getting through Sudden Noises but was really impressed with the writing. There were some laugh out loud moments for me, and I will happily buy a ticket—er, stream?—if this ever does make it to the big screen.
At a local used bookstore once with my friend Miranda, we spotted a shelf of aesthetically packaged “buddy reads”.
“I’d be open to doing that,” she said at the time. The butcher paper parcels had, among other twee decorations, small cards attached with sparse descriptions of the contents of the books inside, one or two sentences with phrases meant to clue readers in on the genre, theme, or mood.
When Christmas rolled around, unsure of what to get my friend, I recalled that blip—one so insignificant I worried she may have forgotten—of conversation and went the route of the buddy book. The description card on the package said something like: comedic, music-themed fiction. Miranda undid the wrapping, and we beheld our lot. Our lot. Because a buddy book is inherently a gift for you and the person you intend it for, making it an awkward exchange, like giving someone you love two concert tickets and telling them, “You can take anyone you like,” knowing they can only ever bring you. Sorry, Miranda. And thanks!
Sudden Noises was difficult for me to get into at first. It took a minute for me to bop along to the rhythm of Miller’s voice and the liner note conceit. Once I got into the rhythm, I began to worry that, given the conceit, the book would have nowhere to go narratively. At times it does seem to bounce around a lot. Though it is very funny from the get-go, the seemingly untethered nature of the storytelling made it hard for me to pick it up and keep reading. Eventually, it does seem to weave a thread that maybe I missed in those first pages, and I ended up quite enjoying the unfolding relationship between the narrator, Norm Fayreweather, and the composer, Simon Silber. (Side note: I internally pronounced “Silber” as “SilBEAR” a la Colbert for probably the entire first disc before deciding it should rhyme with silver. Am I saying it right?)
There are some really comedic scenes in this book, most of them, in my opinion, come along in the latter half. Miller has a great eye for timing and writing physical comedy, such that I would love to see this adapted for the screen. The scene with Norm offloading all the ice cream and that last drive between Norm and Silber when Silber lurches up to the pay phone to record his musical inspiration on his answering machine—I can’t overstate how well-written and just plain funny those scenes are. The decision to tell the story via liner notes and in Norm’s unreliable, pretension-critiquing-pretension voice was a great decision in the end. It conveys Norm’s feelings all along, and Miller does manage to create a narrative arc that works well.
The ending was a little disappointing for me, but it wasn’t a total wash. The final “track” was working really well until the last few lines, really. I’m not sure what I was hoping for, but they landed a bit more seriously than what I think Miller was probably going for.
Overall, I had a slow time getting through Sudden Noises but was really impressed with the writing. There were some laugh out loud moments for me, and I will happily buy a ticket—er, stream?—if this ever does make it to the big screen.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 19, 2018
Just the Right Amount of Noise
The premise here is that a hack biographer, who has undertaken the task of writing liner notes for a composer's complete works, uses the assignment as an opportunity to savage that composer. Written entirely in the first person by the biographer in the form of those same wildly digressive liner notes, the book is a non-stop collection of clever, edgy, cutting, and often witty one-liners, putdowns, and rants. As is often the case when there's this much ranting, the reader begins to realize that the book, ultimately, is as much about the biographer as it is about the composer.
The most obvious jokes revolve around the fact that the composer was a loon, and the collected works are a brilliantly worthless vanity project. As part of this, though, we come to realize that the composer, the victim from birth of a psychotic and obsessive stage father, was still a person and deserves, at some point, our sympathy, or at least our understanding. We also learn that the biographer has a compelling personal history as well, and so maybe at some point this is an autobiography. Just as one can have an unreliable narrator, can one have an unreliable biographer/liner note writer?
On another level, since this is all a postmodern goof anyway, there is a good deal of withering contempt for the act of musical criticism. On a more attenuated level there is an interesting subtle commentary on the relationship between the biographer and his subject and on the relativity of truth and truth telling in any biographical undertaking. I don't know how much of that is intended, but it's sort of unavoidable given the nature of the book and its structure.
And by the way, while no one ever mentions this, the book is also a twisty murder mystery, at least in its last several chapters.
So, it's a showy and witty and clever book. There are some drop dead gorgeous one liners. In order to be a novel instead of an amusing short piece it has to keep changing its stripes, and in that regard it often strays from the liner notes premise, especially in the later chapters. As it turns out that was for the best since the book is actually better as an actual novel than as a coy goof. Overall, I thought it was pretty interesting and amusing and I didn't mind the experimental and meta touches.
The premise here is that a hack biographer, who has undertaken the task of writing liner notes for a composer's complete works, uses the assignment as an opportunity to savage that composer. Written entirely in the first person by the biographer in the form of those same wildly digressive liner notes, the book is a non-stop collection of clever, edgy, cutting, and often witty one-liners, putdowns, and rants. As is often the case when there's this much ranting, the reader begins to realize that the book, ultimately, is as much about the biographer as it is about the composer.
The most obvious jokes revolve around the fact that the composer was a loon, and the collected works are a brilliantly worthless vanity project. As part of this, though, we come to realize that the composer, the victim from birth of a psychotic and obsessive stage father, was still a person and deserves, at some point, our sympathy, or at least our understanding. We also learn that the biographer has a compelling personal history as well, and so maybe at some point this is an autobiography. Just as one can have an unreliable narrator, can one have an unreliable biographer/liner note writer?
On another level, since this is all a postmodern goof anyway, there is a good deal of withering contempt for the act of musical criticism. On a more attenuated level there is an interesting subtle commentary on the relationship between the biographer and his subject and on the relativity of truth and truth telling in any biographical undertaking. I don't know how much of that is intended, but it's sort of unavoidable given the nature of the book and its structure.
And by the way, while no one ever mentions this, the book is also a twisty murder mystery, at least in its last several chapters.
So, it's a showy and witty and clever book. There are some drop dead gorgeous one liners. In order to be a novel instead of an amusing short piece it has to keep changing its stripes, and in that regard it often strays from the liner notes premise, especially in the later chapters. As it turns out that was for the best since the book is actually better as an actual novel than as a coy goof. Overall, I thought it was pretty interesting and amusing and I didn't mind the experimental and meta touches.
October 1, 2023
I agree with the other review about this being a Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly vehicle. Major Stepbrothers vibes (before they became best friends, of course).
May 1, 2012
Weird. But I like weird.
September 24, 2012
Um am I alone in thinking that Simon murdered scooter so he could live the rest of his life as someone else? All signs point to yes.
July 30, 2013
Hysterical!
December 21, 2013
A novel of liner notes? I love it! I hadn't seen this before. Very funny book.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews