Music,In A Foreign Language (Original Fiction in Paperback) - Softcover

Crumey, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1873982119 ISBN 13: 9781873982112

Publisher: Dedalus Limited, 2011

Synopsis

"Two people meet on a train: the young man is imagining a novel, and imagining the life of the young woman. A waiter rushes out to find a girl he fancied who hasn't paid her bill, only to find a diary in which their fictitious flirtation is anatomised. But the story actually begins with a man taking a leak after making love to his wife. He has the inklings of a novel, but thoughts will keep intruding, with all their seductive possibilities. The man on the train is living in an England that has decided, with characteristic diffidence and lack of fuss, that it no longer wants to live under a totalitarian regime which has lasted for 40 years. I say totalitarian, but think more of Brazil, a world of terribly genial tyranny, where officialdom tries so hard to be accommodating. And Duncan has another story, one prompted by the memory of his father's car crashing down a slope. As with all good postmodernist novels, the endless digressions are more soothing than jarring."

Murrough O'Brien in The Independent on Sunday

The strikingly inventive structure of this novel allows the author to explore the similarities between fictions and history. At any point, there are infinite possibilities for the way the story, a life, or the history of the world might progress. The whole work is enjoyably unpredictable, and poses profound questions about the issues of motivation, choice and morality."

The Sunday Times

"A writer more interested in inheriting the mantle of Perec and Kundera than Amis and Drabble. Like much of the most interesting British fiction around at the moment, Music, in a Foreign Language is being published in paperback by a small independent publishing house, giving hope that a tentative but long overdue counter-attack is being mounted on the indelible conservatism of the modern English novel.With this novel he has begun his own small stand against cultural mediocrity, and to set himself up, like his hero, as ' a refugee from drabness. From tinned peas, and rain.'"

Jonathan Coe in The Guardian

About this title

Review:

You can't accuse Andrew Crumey of playing it safe with his first novel. It's sprawling, intricate, moody, crazed, philosophical, and oddly introspective. Despite a wealth of plot lines--among them the confused lineage of Duncan Waters, the love affairs of physicist Charles King, and a story of beautiful strangers on a train--the book also finds time to develop a discussion of Italian surrealist writer Alfredo Galli, who may or may not have created many of the plot lines attributed to the narrator. Ultimately, Music in a Foreign Language becomes a work of metafiction as it attempts to unravel the mystery of what exactly a novel is. A challenging and entertaining read.

About the Author:

Andrew Crumey was born in Glasgow in 1961. He read theoretical physics and mathematics at St Andrews University and Imperial College in London, before doing post-doctoral research. His first novel Music, in a Foreign Language (1994) was awarded The Saltire Best First Book Prize. His second novel Pfitz (1995) was one of the books of the year for The Observer and The New York Times. He published D'Alembert's Principle to great acclaim in 1996

About this edition

• Publisher: Dedalus Limited
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1873982119
• ISBN 13: 9781873982112
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 244