Novel: On Wings of Song

Overview
Thomas M. Disch's On Wings of Song imagines a near-future America fractured by economic polarization and rigid religious intolerance. The novel follows Daniel, a young man from a marginalized background, who becomes drawn to an illicit, quasi-spiritual technology that promises literal flight. Disch uses this premise to examine longing, escape, and the public consequences of private transcendence.

The Story
Daniel grows up under the shadow of a society where wealth has concentrated and organized religion has hardened into political force, carving the country into hostile enclaves. He becomes obsessed with the idea of flying as both a physical liberation and a metaphor for escaping the confinements of class and creed. Through a combination of learning, risk, and a community of believers and experimenters, he masters a technique that lets people rise above the earth, a practice treated as both miracle and threat.
As Daniel's ability becomes public, it triggers a volatile mixture of wonder, opportunism, and fear. Some see flight as a route to emancipation and a new spiritual order; others view it as blasphemy or social destabilization. Disch follows the ripple effects on Daniel, his intimates, and the wider culture, showing how personal transcendence collides with institutional power and how hope can be commodified or crushed by politics.

Characters and Development
Daniel is portrayed with sympathy and complexity: restless, idealistic, and often naïve about the ways power manipulates belief. His relationships, with mentors who teach the flying method, with fellow practitioners, and with those who profit from or oppose the phenomenon, reveal strained moral choices and the burdens of becoming a symbol. Secondary characters are sketched as representatives of competing impulses in the society: dogmatic religiosity, bureaucratic control, entrepreneurial exploitation, and genuine yearning for meaning.
Disch does not romanticize flight as an uncomplicated salvation. Daniel's development is marked by moments of exhilaration and disillusionment; the novel probes whether an individual act of transcendence can resist being absorbed by market forces, political agendas, or the human need for control. The cost of aspiring to freedom becomes a central question as personal transformation runs up against entrenched social constraints.

Themes and Tone
On Wings of Song blends satirical bite with lyrical melancholy. The novel interrogates the intersections of technology and spirituality, the commodification of wonder, and the cultural mechanisms that keep hierarchies in place. Disch portrays a plausible, anxious future in which religious fervor and economic insecurity mutually reinforce intolerance, and he asks whether true liberation is an individual feat, a communal practice, or an impossible dream.
The tone shifts between dark humor, social critique, and moments of tender human longing, allowing the speculative conceit, flying as spiritual technology, to illuminate broader questions about agency, faith, and the cost of escaping one's circumstances. The ending resists tidy closure, leaving readers to weigh the durability of hope against the power of institutions that seek to harness or suppress it.