Tag: nick hornby

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages, High Fidelity – Nick Hornby (pages 4680-4932)

Okaaay…. this could be long, and like my review of A World Out of Time, could be as much about me and my life as the book itself.

Could be, but let’s try to rein it in shall we?

I first read High Fidelity when it came out in 1995. I’ve re-read it a couple of times since but probably not for 10 years or so. I decided to re-read it as part of 6000 pages because I wanted both an easy read and an enjoyable one. The film of the book starring John Cusack is also a favourite of mine and I re-watched it after reading the book.

High Fidelity follows Rob Flemming, a 35-year-old music fan, owner of a failing record shop and something of a slacker. The book begins with the ending of his latest long-term relationship and much of the story is about the relationship between music, fandom and well, relationships.

Do I listen to pop music because I’m miserable or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?

The genius of High Fidelity – and it is genius – is that it perfectly captures what it’s like to be a boy in a man’s body, which is certainly my experience of being male. The incessant making of lists, the obsession with sex as the most important part of a relationship (but not really) and just all this inner insecurity.

15 years ago when I first read it I identified with Rob because of all this stuff – even though he was only temporarily out of a relationship and I was more or less permanently so – the theme of being generally rubbish with women fitted. The fact that I still experience this all these years later – well that’s perhaps the bittersweet side of re-reading this book.

It’d be very easy to just give lots of funny, touching or on-the-nose quotes – and in a way that might be appropriate as it’s the kind of thing Rob would do. However to sum up let me just say that I love this book because it’s not only very easy to identify with the characters but Hornby also makes them likeable, despite some not so likeable behaviour on the way. It has warmth and hope and optimism.

10/10 – a great book if you’re a boy.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, Book 11, Juliet,Naked – Nick Hornby

Juliet, Naked is the latest novel by Nick Hornby who, as you know, I tend to quite like. Which is to say at his best I really enjoy his work (High Fidelity, Slam) but even his lesser books are very readable (How to be Good, About a Boy).

The Juliet of the title refers to a seminal album by a slightly obscure singer-songwriter, Tucker Crowe, who hasn’t written or recorded anything, or even performed in twenty-odd years. The book follows one of his more obsessive fans, Duncan, Duncan’s girlfriend Annie and Tucker himself. When Annie and Duncan split up, Annie writes a scathing review of a newly released CD of demos “Juliet, Naked” and posts it on Duncan’s fan-website. Tucker reads it, agrees with it and emails Annie. An unlikely and slightly odd friendship develops.

It was strange reading this on the heels of Starting Over because it covers some of the same ground – middle-aged regret and soul-searching – but I hadn’t consciously decided to read books with those themes. It was interesting that of the three characters I mention above it’s Duncan – who is in some ways is another music-nerd straight out of High Fidelity – who gets the least time in the book (though he has a pivotal scene near the end). It’s interesting because it’s as if we’ve gone back to High Fidelity but are now looking at the same things through different eyes. This book is nowhere near as forgiving of the fan-ish behaviour. Instead we follow Annie, who at best tolerated Duncan’s fandom and Tucker who has a messy life the reality of which is almost unconnected with his fans’ perceptions.

There was a lot that I liked about this book. Annie was an interesting female perspective to follow and someone I felt for. Tucker was also a character that I liked, though I was slightly exasperated with some of his selfishness. His charm tended to make me forgive him – which seems to be his impact on those around him generally. If there was humour in this book that I ‘got’ (and there was) it was usually from Tucker’s strand.

What I liked less was the ending. Without giving too much away, whether you feel it is a happy, or even just satisfying ending will probably depend on the degree to which you like and care about the different characters. The one(s) I most wanted a positive resolution for got a rather vague, possibly optimistic one, and the one(s) that got the ‘best’ ending I felt deserved it least. That’s a bit confusing but I don’t want to give it away because despite that I think it’s worth a read.

7/10 – not Hornby’s best and shame about the ending.

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book reviews

Slam – Nick Hornby

So, I bet you’re thinking this is the first of my “25 Books” right? Well you’d be wrong. I read this over the Christmas period whilst at my parents. I have since finished my first 25-er (that’s sounds naff but I need some sort of shorthand) but I felt like I owe this one a review first.

Slam is about a 16-year-old skater (skate-boarder) called Sam. Sam loves skating and has read the autobiography of his hero Tony Hawk hundreds of times. So much so that when he needs to confide in someone or ask for advice he talks to a poster of Tony who “talks” back in quotations from the book. Sam’s life is turned upside down when he meets Alicia, a short-lived girlfriend who becomes the subject of a (hopefully) lifelong relationship. She becomes the mother of his child.

I liked this book. Mostly. For a start it was very readable. I find Hornby so anyway but here, where he’s trying to emulate the voice of a 16-year-old, it was even more so. No surprise then that I finished it in only a few hours over a couple of days. Although that may have had something to do with trying to escape watching soaps and gameshows with my parents.

If there was anything I didn’t like about the book it wasn’t the fault of the writing per se, it was the subject matter. As a mumble-something-year-old man who’s still single, probably would like not to be but who’s always ben iffy about having kids, it pushes lots of buttons for me. It caught me off guard as the back cover doesn’t mention pregnancy and I hadn’t read any reviews – I bought it because it was the latest Hornby. Anyway this is a book review not a discussion of my issues.

Had I read any reviews (which I did immediately after) I’d have seen that it’s viewed as a book for “young adults” simply because the main character is that age and it’s told from his pov. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Isn’t the point of reading (and perhaps writing) to see the world through another pair of eyes? In any case I’d recommend it to anyone who likes Hornby’s brand of gentle observational comedy. I say gentle because it’s nowhere near as sharp as “High Fidelity” was, but then that’s my favourite of his and I don’t think anything since has been as good.

What lets the book down slightly for me is that it tries to sort of have its cake and eat. It wants to have something approaching gritty realism but it wants to wrap it in a softer, gentler and above all optimistic view of human nature. So it shows us that teenage pregnancy is a life-altering, if not life-wrecking event (a “slam” in skating is when you fall and hit the ground hard) and that it makes things tough at an age when you’re not necessarily equipped to deal. However it pulls out an ending, which while it doesn’t negate any of that, allows the reader some relief from thinking, “this is just going to be hard grind of juggling school, work and baby-care”. To do this Hornby uses a device on top of the Tony Hawks device, something which up until that point I could have happily lost. When the ending occurred I could suddenly see why he’d done it. It felt a little like a cheat, slightly unearned. However it was a genuine relief to have some sense of ongoing happiness for these characters.

Apologies for being a little vague. For once I don’t want to give away the ending.

7/10 – for the humour, the readability and the main character.