Boy Meets Boy? (About a Boy - Nick Hornby)

Member Name: TigerTiger

Product:	About a Boy - Nick Hornby
Date:	29/06/01 (4515 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great characterisation, A nice look at modern day life, A quick easy read

Disadvantages: Maybe not as good as "High Fidelity", but good nonetheless

Nick Hornby, the author of “About a Boy” needs no introduction, but I’ll give him one anyway. Hornby was born in 1957 and lives in London. He is the author two other very successful books which have subsequently been made into movies, “Fever Pitch” and “High Fidelity”. Having read both of these books (and seen the films) I like his style very much, I like the way he observes life, his sense of humour (quite dry and not dissimilar to my own) and the way in which he writes, it is very accessible to all levels.

~~~The Plot~~~~

“About a boy” is his third book, and once again they are in the process of making a movie from it. It tells the story of two different people, with two very different lives Will and Marcus. Will is 36 but acts about 16, his father wrote a Christmas song and he has been able to live off the royalties comfortably all his life. Thus he has never actually done a day of work in his life and so he doesn’t have a clue as to what “real life” is all about. He lives alone in his bachelor flat in London and he skips from women to women. What he does do with his days is concentrate on reading the right books and materials, having the right clothing and being seen in the right bars and clubs, image being all important to him. It had a similar theme to that of High Fidelity and the music snobbery; it focuses on how doing, knowing and having the “right” things in life are all important. However, it does it to greater effect as on the other hand there is Marcus who is 12, but going on 45 and he is not so cool. Thus we see the contrast between one character who is preoccupied with image and outside appearances and another that is not.

Marcus’ parents split up and so he left Cambridge where they had all been living and moved to London with his mother. Marcus’ mother Fiona it has to be said has raised him a little strangely. She is not at al
l concerned with fashion and having the “right” things and so he grew up listening to music like Joni Mitchell and Mozart and he always had uncool clothing, he never even had a pair of trainers yet alone the cool ones! Through the situation with his parents Marcus has had to face reality a lot sooner than most and so he has grown up very fast. The idea of this book is whether Marcus can help Will to grow up and whether Will can show Marcus how to be a kid.

So, how do Marcus and Will end up becoming entwined in each others lives, you would expect that living two very different lives they wouldn’t have much cause to meet. As it happens it all comes about via another of Will’s mad ideas. He finds out quite accidentally after dating a single mother that there is an untapped market there which offers many future opportunities for women and sex. Single mothers are grateful and eager to please he believes. So, he decides to join a single parents group posing as a single father of one young son to meet some more. At this club he meets Suzie who he finds very attractive and they start to meet up. On one of their trips to the park she happens to bring along Marcus, the son of her friend who does go to the group from time to time, yet Will and her have never actually met. From that day Marcus and Will start to form the most unlikely of friendships after a particularly distressing event.


~~~So, how was it for me??~~~

--The Plot & ending--
After reading the blurb I have to admit the light bulb went on inside of me and I thought that of course Fiona and Will would end up together and that they would all live happily ever after. However, I hope I don’t spoil things too much by telling you that Hornby didn’t follow this easy route and instead there are a few twists and turns in the story away from this. However, I guess ultimately the book does have a happy ending, but hey I am all for that. Therefore most i
mportantly this book isn’t totally predicatable.

The plot overall kept my interest and I wanted to read on to see how the story progressed and whether or not there was a happy ending for both Marcus and Will. There are also those key incidents in the book which are both really quite sad and really funny, there is a good balance of both. I found the way in which they dealt with bullying to be of interest, in particular the attitudes of teachers which in my own experience is true, that basically you should just keep out of their way and the implication that maybe it is your own fault! Many of the themes running through the book had relevance to most peoples lives and so I think this book would have universal appeal. Although it has two male characters as its lead there are numerous female characters that remain through the book.

--The Characters
Although I briefly touched on the characterization previously it warrents a section of it’s own as Hornby manages to present great insight into both the characters and the way in which their minds work. This works mainly because of the layout which I will mention next. Both Will and Marcus have an attractive and unattractive side to their character. Will in one way is very superficial and only thinks of himself, however underneath there is some true kindness waiting to come out and it does when his feelings for Marcus develop. Similarly Marcus has a vulnerability about him that makes him attractive, the whole boy lost thing is quite sad and through his home life and his bullying at school you feel sorry for him and start to care. However, there is also a side of me that felt that Marcus could have done more to help himself and that at times he was quite cunning which was less appealing. Regardless of this I found that I cared about both characters by the end of the book and for me that is an indication of good characterization by the author.

As well as the two main characters he do
es develop further interesting characters. There is Suzie, Fiona’s friend and Will’s initial love interest, Fiona the mother and Ellie the tough girl who Marcus makes the most unlikeliest friendship with at school.

--The Layout--
What I really enjoyed about the book was the way in which is was set out. The chapters alternate between Will and Marcus telling the story. The chapters don’t overlap and tell the story from both angles though, it just continues on from where the other character left it. This way you get great insight into both the characters and the way their mind works. It worked especially well when the two of them first meet and they both don’t really like each other, Will thinks Marcus is strange and Will believes Marcus is a bit flash.

~~Conclusions~~~

Hornby certainly succeeded in writing another good novel in my viewpoint. Admittedly “High Fidelity” remains my favourite of his books to date, yet this is most certainly worth a read. I like the way Hornby makes his books accessible for all, he doesn’t get caught up in long words and complexities, nor does that imply that the writing is simple. All I mean is that his books are an easy and enjoyable read. Once again this book was readable in one sitting with 278 pages of reasonably large text. I would recommend it as a good read whilst lying by the pool. Recommended Retail price is £6.99, however, on Amazon.co.uk at present it is featured in there 3 for £10 offer and so you can buy it for roughly £3.33, most definitely worth owning in my opinion. I now eagerly await the film version of this and his next novel.

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