Light from Uncommon Stars

Music is a major motif throughout Light From Uncommon Stars. It ties closely into one of the books major themes, The Transformative Power of Music. Katrina’s violin helps her develop her own voice, marking her transformation from a timid and apologetic runaway into a confident artist with the power to touch the hearts of those who listen to her. Katrina’s power is similar to Shizuka’s lost power, which Shizuka has long struggled to regain through her deal with Tremon. Katrina’s living, breathing music contrasts with the more studied but lifeless music of other well-trained, ambitious music students. Those students were willing to sell their souls for fame and success in the music world, and in doing so, they lost their ability to hear the music itself.

Throughout the novel, music often sends characters into flashbacks from earlier times in their lives or into their own personal universes. Lan at first dismisses music as a trivial distraction in comparison to other more important things like the Endplague. However, she eventually realizes that music—specifically Shizuka’s music—in fact could cure the Endplague. Similar to the book’s other major motif of food, music is an aspect of the “madness” (202) of humanity that Lan struggles to understand at first.