Abstract: The concept of “Anders-streben” poses a cross-media problem. It suggests that one medium aspires out of the hard limitation of its nature towards the features, or the “state” (effect) of another kind of medium. When applied on the discussion of “music narrative,” it refers to the intermedial relations between music and language: i.e. the narrative of fiction relies on words as its basic tool, rather than music notes, the basic language of musical art and, by imitating or integrating certain features of musical art, achieves the aesthetic effects of musical art in “content” or “form.” Cross-media narratives that pursue the musical effect intentionally are extremely rare in Chinese novels, but quite popular in Western novels. Generally speaking, music narratives in Western novels fall into three categories: 1) narratives that imitate music in content, depicting stories of musicians, or creating their images; 2) narratives that minimize the expressiveness of words and phrases, reducing the representation of external events or “stories” as much as possible; 3) narratives that adopt or borrow structural characteristics from musical art.

Key words: western novel, Andersstreben, cross-media, music narrative