“But there was a discipline, it was just that we didn´t understand. We thought he was formless, but I think now he was tormented by order, what was outside it. He tore apart the plot- see his music was immediately on top of his own life. Echoing. As if, when he was playing he was lost and hunting for the right accidental notes. Listening to him was like talking to Coleman. You were both changing direction with every sentence, sometimes in the middle, using each other as a springboard through the dark. You were moving so fast it was unimportant to finish and clear everything. He would be describing something in 27 ways. There was pain and gentleness everything jammed into each number." As the story progresses we come to the realization that the way in which the text is organized, the newspaper The Cricket, and Buddy’s music itself, all represent his life and how messy and fragmented it was. The book seems to be a collection of versions from different characters, of multiple stories and random titles of songs and fragments of lyrics, among others. In the same way the reader fights to make sense out of the writing, Bolden fights with order and a constant fear of connecting the past and the future.
In the passage above we are able to witness the strong bond between his music and his personality. The first two phrases imply that Buddy was not understood and that his music had a form of order and discipline that did not fit the common definition. By the quote, “we thought he was formless”, on the other hand we come to understand that the narrator has changed his mind about Buddy. The word “formless”, brings up other concepts like flexible, different, and undefined as well as creates a feeling of instability about the subject. Bolden’s mood varies in many ways and, it is hard to anticipate how he is going to react to a certain thing or what he is going to do next. It is that same suspense created by his improvisation, the same uncertainty other characters point out in his music, that is strongly represented in the fragment above. The passage also illustrates how overwhelming the rhythm of his life was. When reading, it felt like there was going to be no break, his life and music went so fast that there was no time to think, and no end in mind. Another important theme that was portrayed in this passage is Bolden’s tendency towards self-destruction. His drinking, and ultimately his final display at the parade, prove the reality of the previous statement. The phrase, “He tore apart the plot- see his music was immediately on top of his own life.” , accurately describes how Buddy’s habits and the art he performed, lead his talented life to the abyss.
