The History of Sound: Stories

The phonograph cylinders that Lionel Worthing and David make during their summer together are symbolic of memory and time. In “The History of Sound,” Lionel receives the 25 cylinders in the mail from an anonymous sender decades after David’s death. Despite how many years have elapsed since Lionel and David were together and made the cylinders, their appearance on Lionel’s doorstep immediately resurrects his buried memories.

The cylinders are recordings of music and monologues that Lionel and David put together during the summer of 1919, when the lovers traveled around Maine, collecting the locals’ folk songs. David invented the project because he was fascinated by American folk music, and the story’s recordings capture the way art can survive over time. The cylinders are a way for Lionel and David to catalog and preserve the essence of the past via music.

At the end of the summer, Lionel and David have a few leftover cylinders. David ends up using these cylinders to record audio messages for Lionel. In the narrative present, David’s voice fills Lionel’s living space when he plays the cylinders. The way he describes his response to hearing the cylinders conveys how David’s voice reawakens the past in Lionel’s present reality: