High Fidelity
Nick Hornby, © 1995
fiction; 336pgs
Released in 1995, High Fidelity was Nick Hornby's first novel. My first notice of the book came via the film version (John Cusack, Jack Black) released in 2000. I've read it a few times in the past and decided to embark upon it again when I found it sitting under the bar at the Posse East.
For the past week I've been spending slow afternoons at the bar with Rob Fleming, the neurotic and cynical record shop owner. The force driving the narrative is a breakup. A compulsive list maker, Rob is forced to take stock of his life and his past. The story is woven for the reader with flashbacks (particularly through Rob's "Top 5 Breakups") as well as present action. It is, at times, tough to sympathize with Rob's somewhat shallow first person narrative. Though horribly self-centered and possessing a shamefully warped mindset, Rob is unflinchingly honest with himself in his self-examinations. The book perfectly captures one's ability to trouble themselves by over thinking. Even though this was my third or fourth time through the book, Hornby's prose is still fresh, hilarious, and affecting.
READ IT.
June 20, 2009
June 8, 2009
warning-track power
Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen, © 2006
fiction; 330 pages
Set in America during the Great Depression, Gruen leads us through the reminiscing of an elderly man's time working for a traveling second-class circus. It's part love story part drama.
I say this is a warning-track power book because it has all the elements of an epic love story...villains, a beautiful woman, an interesting setting, and of course conflicts getting in the way of love, but it seems to fall short. I was never pulled fully into the lives of the characters and just didn't care by the end of the novel. It was interesting learning a bit about traveling circuses and daydreaming about the hardships during the Great Depression. All-in-all, I think there is better summer reading out there.
Consider it
disclaimer: if you do decide to read this book, be forewarned that there are a few graphic sexual scenes that are not for the more modest reader.
Sara Gruen, © 2006
fiction; 330 pages
Set in America during the Great Depression, Gruen leads us through the reminiscing of an elderly man's time working for a traveling second-class circus. It's part love story part drama.
I say this is a warning-track power book because it has all the elements of an epic love story...villains, a beautiful woman, an interesting setting, and of course conflicts getting in the way of love, but it seems to fall short. I was never pulled fully into the lives of the characters and just didn't care by the end of the novel. It was interesting learning a bit about traveling circuses and daydreaming about the hardships during the Great Depression. All-in-all, I think there is better summer reading out there.
Consider it
disclaimer: if you do decide to read this book, be forewarned that there are a few graphic sexual scenes that are not for the more modest reader.
June 6, 2009
prophetic
Written 10 years before our 'conflict' with Vietnam, Graham Greene explores the American psyche of "global police and helper". His impressions and understanding of our ways is so strikingly on the spot that at times you are found just shaking your head.
Taking place in Saigon (modern day Ho Chi Minh City) in southern Vietnam in the early 1950s during the French occupation, the protagonist, an English journalist, runs course with a young and idealist American sent to Saigon to establish a non-Communist frontline against the North. The naïveté of this "quiet American," his simple ideals and incomprehensible behavior to enact his plan, is overtly apparent and smacks the reader almost immediately. Even a younger and less educated audience will realize the aloof and blundering behavior of the American.
This book isn't an outright slam against American principles - Graham is quite subtle in his approach. But it does give us a simple kind of mirror to reflect on our oft bad behavior and meddling abroad. There is also a love-triangle sub plot for those that find the main point of the book too blasé.
read it
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