- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (5 Feb 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224043838
- ISBN-13: 978-0224043830
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.4 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 861,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This is the real Africa, the one that tourists never see, and if they did would never understand; and this is real African music, primaeval, visceral, undiluted by the sheen and gloss of Western production values. Or so thinks Andrew "Litch" Litchfield, collector extraordinaire of African music, "World Music" expert, record-label owner, and narrator of Mark Hudson's novel The Music in My Head.
As readers, we see everything from Litch's perspective as he returns to Africa, to N'Galam, capital city of the fictional Tekrur, in search of Sajar Jopp, "Africa's greatest musician"--and it is a disturbing and unpleasant perspective, through which Litch's arrogance and self-regard become painfully apparent. What redeems him, however slightly, is the love he has for these musicians, their cassettes and records--deliciously described and evoked by Hudson, himself a notable writer on African music.
This ironic distance allows the book a snowballing comic energy, as Litch becomes the architect of his own undoing, and as mistakes become mishap and downright farce, but also allows us to see how complex are the relationships between Europeans and Africans: the legacies of colonialism, the shifting patterns of mastery, the formless ubiquity of commerce, and, ultimately, the sheer difference of cultures. Mark Hudson, author of two acclaimed works of non-fiction, gives us here a fiction which is both richly humorous and insightful, sharing perhaps the territories of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity or Martin Amis's Money in its explorations of masculinity and self-delusion, but also engagingly original in its merciless depiction of the European abroad. Litch's "real Africa" is a nightmare of his own making, and Africa itself remains a dream he will never reach. --Burhan Tufail --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
The world revolves and so the movement of musical cross-currents, interacting and enmeshing across its surface, grows denser by the day. Only one man can make sense of it all, and his name is Andrew "Litch" Litchfield, sometime record-producer, loose-cannon A&R man, epic ligger and hype artist.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Litch, Mark Hudson's tragic hero in "The Music in my Head," is a complex and memorable character. He manages to be simultaneously reckless and timid, cynical and vulnerable. At times he seems worldly and self-assured, totally at home in his adopted West African environment (which is Dakar, Senegal in all but name); then in the blink of an eye he feels out of place, threatened, and utterly at sea. This may seem an unbalanced portrayal to some readers. But having lived through similar trials in similar places as Litch, I felt these contradictions strike very close to home.
Litch's (or rather, Hudson's) descriptions of N'Galam (or rather, Dakar) are off-beat, witty, and deadly accurate, from the haughty and stylish women to the surly restaurant service--specifically, the waiters who act as though filling your coffee cup is an "indignity for which they will one day pay you back tenfold."
Litch's personal odyssey into the music business of Tekrur (or rather, Senegal) allows him to vent his frustrations to the readers about the people and places he encounters, all while revealing his own inadequacies and failures as a man. I found myself alternately wanting him to succeed and hoping for him to get his comeuppance.
This may seem well-trod literary turf: the world-weary white man snarling about Africa, something we've seen too often. But Mark Hudson's deeply flawed narrator is, I think, a sort of commentary on that genre: he's so blind to his situation, despite his extensive knowledge and experience, that his credibility (and by extension, that of similar Western adventurers in Africa) is automatically suspect.
The novel isn't everything it could be, and I finished it with a vague sense of dissatisfaction that I still can't articulate. Still, it's an enjoyable trip thanks to its complicated hero and his ripping commentary on the "world music" scene and those who populate it.
Format:Paperback
Are you the sort of music collector who agonizes over how to arrange your collection?
Alphabetical? rather obvious and do the Rolling Stones go under R or S?
Chronoligical? Has some merit but is it recording or personal chronology?
Genre? Bit of a minefield this.
Personal significance; this way to madness.
This is exactly what keeps the hero of "The Music in my Head" awake at nights.
There are far too few novels which make modern music their setting, and this is the first one I`ve found that takes place in Africa. In this case Dakar in Senegal.So well done Mark Hudson for that. But the book is very slow and packs most of the action into the last 50 pages or so. For the most part it is given over to the endless moaning and musing of "Litch". A man who has never quite managed to turn his genuine love and understanding of African Music to any lasting commercial advantage.
I can work out who some of the characters are, but who can "Michael Heaven" be based on? A certain Arch-Angel perhaps?
Alphabetical? rather obvious and do the Rolling Stones go under R or S?
Chronoligical? Has some merit but is it recording or personal chronology?
Genre? Bit of a minefield this.
Personal significance; this way to madness.
This is exactly what keeps the hero of "The Music in my Head" awake at nights.
There are far too few novels which make modern music their setting, and this is the first one I`ve found that takes place in Africa. In this case Dakar in Senegal.So well done Mark Hudson for that. But the book is very slow and packs most of the action into the last 50 pages or so. For the most part it is given over to the endless moaning and musing of "Litch". A man who has never quite managed to turn his genuine love and understanding of African Music to any lasting commercial advantage.
I can work out who some of the characters are, but who can "Michael Heaven" be based on? A certain Arch-Angel perhaps?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
"I'm with the band, man!" goes to Africa
6 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
Andrew "Litch" Litchfield, a London-based music promoter who helped make African music popular in the West (or so he tells us), has gone back to Africa to rekindle his professional magic. In this roman à clef, he hobnobs with the top musicians in N'Galam, capital of the West African country of Terkur (Dakar, Senegal in real life). Hudson's depiction of the city and its music scene will ring true for fans of West African music. Still, I can't really recommend this book.
The writing is awful at times. There is no clearly discernible central plot. The main character is thoroughly annoying, paranoid, hypochondriac, and narcissistic. He repeatedly brags to the reader that he "f---ing" put African music on the map and that he knows the "real" Africa, which the reader can never know. Meanwhile, new characters and secondary plot-lines are constantly being introduced. While "The Music in My Head" is reminiscent of "High Fidelity," Mark Hudson is no Nick Hornby.
Despite the slick endorsements on the book's back cover, I was less than impressed.
The writing is awful at times. There is no clearly discernible central plot. The main character is thoroughly annoying, paranoid, hypochondriac, and narcissistic. He repeatedly brags to the reader that he "f---ing" put African music on the map and that he knows the "real" Africa, which the reader can never know. Meanwhile, new characters and secondary plot-lines are constantly being introduced. While "The Music in My Head" is reminiscent of "High Fidelity," Mark Hudson is no Nick Hornby.
Despite the slick endorsements on the book's back cover, I was less than impressed.
Brilliant!
20 Jun 2002
Format:Hardcover
A rollicking footstomping comedy about Rock N' Roll N' Africa. Nick Hornby with a vocabulary, attitude and West African Rhythm.
Brilliant!
20 Jun 2002
Format:Hardcover
Great funky footstomping comedy set amidst the African Rock Scene. Nick Hornby with a vocabulary, attitude and West African rhythm.
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