Not sure if I’m being whooshed, but Richard Strauss was German, so the original German name is the equivalent of the English name you found in the credits… am I being whooshed?
I would bet hardly anybody would know the title, just like they don’t know the real name for “The Benny Hill Song.”
I would estimate I’ve heard the title “yakety sax” more than “Also sprach Zarathustra” by an order of magnitude but yeah, still not exactly common knowledge.
Yes, I would agree with this. The guess of one in a hundred that would know the song by title mentioned above sounds about right to me. I have no idea why I know the name of the song myself. I actually wouldn’t have been able to name Richard Strauss as the composer, but somehow, the name of the song is in my brain.
I’d actually guess that “Yackety Sax” is better known than Benny Hill, by now. The show really hasn’t aged well, but the song still works just fine.
“The opening theme to 2001” is a pretty decent – and very short – way to reference it.
If you can actually have the character say/think “Dun…dun…dun…DUN DUN,” that is probably about as good, maybe better – or a bit worse, depending on context. Harder to decipher, but doesn’t require knowing where this meme entered pop/consumer culture.
You really gotta be a bit of a nerd to know the Strauss reference. If nerds are a big part of your intended audience, use that by all means. Nerds love recognizing references that “ordinary people” won’t get. (If they don’t get it, they’ll pretend they do. /s)
Caveat: I’m in my early 40s, and 2001 was still a decently popular piece of pop culture when I was young. (Richard Strauss and Nietzsche were, already, not so popular.) I may be overestimating how many people would get the reference today. On the other hand, those people who don’t get it today can just google the damn thing, not have to go check out the Laserdisc from the college library like I did when I acquired the meme.
Good luck with your story! Post a link here when it’s done?
OP here. Thanks for all the opinions. I’ve decided that I don’t want the reader to get potentially bogged down in wondering where they’ve heard that title before.
For background, the character is opening a Christmas present which he hates and expects the rest of the family to feel the same. Perhaps dead silence is best for this.
Translating the title differently doesn’t make it a different work.
I’m far from being any kind of writer, but I think your dead silence is a far better choice. When I hear the opening notes Also Sprach Zarathustra I think of something epic being revealed, not something disappointing. I’d probably be lost thinking there was some kind of joke or irony I missed if I read it in the context you outlined. Tough enough to pull off in a visual/auditory medium.
An additional $0.02 from a reader’s viewpoint. As I stated before, unless your work is set during a specific time period, I’d suggest keeping specific time period cultural references out. Your work may be read 20 years from now and the cultural references you included will be even more obscure to the reader.
Let me explain the concept of a “joke” to you …
Good luck explaining that one to anyone.
Yeah, it might be hard to convey what you picture economically using the 2001 reference.
Silence, drum-roll, fanfare – well, you’re the writer, and you’ll come up with something better than I could.
EDIT: if you’re willing to devote a couple sentences to the character’s interior monologue, it might not be so hard to pull this off.