It’s not something completely new in literature but, as for me, there are only two examples of it which come to mind without extensive googling and I’m actually pretty sure that both of them are known to Joanna and have been, in one way or another, sources of inspiration for her.
1. The most obvious one is James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” (which has already been mentioned both here and in Genius annotations) which she quotes in the text of “Time, as a Symptom”:
Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the // riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
The additional proof to this connection is her words in the end of the liner notes where she writes:
For liberties taken, my apologies to Messrs. Smith, Shelley, Streeton, Washington. V. Gogh, and Joyce.
2. The second one, which is far less well-known, is Vladimir Nabokov’s short-story “The Circle”. You can read it here, it’s quite short:
http://www.goreading.net/The_Stories_of_Vladimir_Nabokov/159.html
Joanna is known for her love of Nabokov’s prose, she has quoted him multiple times, and in the recent NPR interview she mentioned him as the biggest influence on her as a writer. So, I guess, this connection isn’t a stretch.
The similarities are striking actually. The short story starts this way:
In the second place, because he was possessed by a sudden mad hankering after Russia.
The main character is sitting in a café in Paris, France and remembers his early youth in Russia, his first love, his life after he left his homeland, a sudden meeting with the mother of that girl he used to know and the girl herself (a grown woman now), which triggered the flow of memories, starting with:
In the first place, because Tanya had remained as enchanting and as invulnerable as she had been in the past.
Which is the sentence ending the short-story.
So there are a lot of similar themes here: primarily, love and time moving both ways.
But there are also quite a lot of similarities in the imagery. For example, there are birds, both alive:
In the third place, finally, because he regretted those years of youth and everything associated with it—the fierce resentment, the uncouthness, the ardency, and the dazzlingly green mornings when the coppice deafened you with its golden orioles.
And, indeed, Russian and foreign naturalists had described under the specific name of “godunovi” a new pheasant, a new antelope, a new rhododendron, and there was even a whole Godunov Range (he himself described only insects).
And stuffed:
the classes were graced with glossy educational appliances such as enlarged portraits of insects injurious to field or forest; but Innokentiy found even more irritating the stuffed birds provided by Godunov-Cherdyntsev.
There is horse riding:
The first time he saw them that summer was in late May (Old Style) from the top of a hill. A cavalcade appeared on the road curving around its base: Tanya in front, astraddle, boylike, on a bright bay; next Count Godunov-Cherdyntsev himself, an insignificant-looking person riding an oddly small mouse-gray pacer; behind them the breeched Englishman; then some cousin or other; and coming last, Tanya’s brother, a boy of thirteen or so, who suddenly spurred his mount, overtook everybody, and dashed up the steep bit to the village, working his elbows jockey-fashion.
And, of course, there is diving:
Diving still deeper, he could remember the demolition of the old school at the end of the village, the clearing of the ground for its successor, the foundation-stone ceremony, the religious service in the wind, Count Konstantin Godunov-Cherdyntsev throwing the traditional gold coin, the coin sticking edgewise in the clay.
Any other ideas about the meaning of the ring composition and other possible sources of its inspiration? Julia has written in the thread dedicated to “The Things I Say”:
I didn't catch that at first but it fits perfectly, as the song is placed in the middle of an album that - apart from the loop structure (Time, as a symptom / Anecdotes) - seems to be very concerned with the concept of time in general. And than there is the "time moves both ways" bit in "Time, as a symptom"!
Can it be that this album has a structure similar to the one described here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiastic_structure