High Fidelity

aaah....what a truly awesome book this one was. An absolute delight.

Frankly, I had never heard of this writer before. I passed by this book many a times while browsing through the book store. But one serendipitous day, I picked this up for the lack of anything else that seemed readable. And boy, am I glad i did!

Some books grow on you- you have to force yourself to read the first couple of chapters to let the book draw you in. But not this one. With 'High Fidelity' I was hooked from the first line. Literally so!

Hornby has written with such candor. The main character of the book, Rob, is an emotional fuckwit. He is just like most of us- so damn confused. Though he would never admit such a thing. He believes one thing, and does quite the other. He'd like to pretend that his last break up with a girl named Laura has not messed him up, but it so has! He is the stereotypical man- one who cannot commit and who will NEVER use the word "love". He pushes people away, and then wonder why there are no people around him. He is obsessed with making lists- top five records, top five break ups and what not.

Hornby has written in such a frank tone. Rob is not some distant, larger than life character. He is insanely human. Half of his life, seems like he lives in his head. And since I am so like that, I totally related to him. When he hangs up on Ian and then goes on to re-create the whole conversation in his mind so that he comes off as the smarter one....well, lets just say we all have been there, haven't we?

And I truly loved his wit.

"Sometimes I got so tired of trying to touch her breasts that I would try to touch her between her legs, a gesture that had a sort of self-parodying wit about it: it was like trying to borrow a fiver, getting turned down, and asking to borrow fifty quid instead."

"Sex is about the only grown-up thing i know how to do; it's weird, then, that it's the only thing that can make me feel like a ten-year-old."

And one of my favorite ideas in the book was- does listening to pop music make us unhappy or do we listen to pop music because we are unhappy. it's pretty much like the question of eggs and chicken, isn't it?

Let not the comic tone of the book fool you. This book makes you think- about relationships, rejection, love and a host of other things.

And well, if nothing else, it does make you want to check out the songs mentioned endlessly throughout the book. Music education anyone?