Why bother being good when you can be bad???!!! (How to be good - Nick Hornby)

Member Name: strange_child

Product:	How to be good - Nick Hornby
Date:	20/03/02 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to read

Disadvantages: got a bit boring, annoying characters!, put off to people who may want to follow charity

I read ‘Fever Pitch’ not that long ago. I started off expecting it to be a bit boring, as I am not a football fan, but I found it was a really good book and I really liked the style. Since then I have read ‘High Fidelity’, although I haven’t seen the film and then finally this one. I had high expectations of this book after thoroughly enjoying the others – was I disappointed?

<The plot>
We meet Katie, the main character in middle age. She has a good job (she’s a doctor, ie. A good person), a husband and two young children. However all is not as it should be. She has just had an affair on account of her husband being totally boring and having the job of the ‘Angriest man in Holloway’, which means he has to shout and get moody all the time. So she goes away for a bit, staying with her lover, whilst she tells her husband in a fit of rage that she wants a divorce. ‘Hang on’, she thinks ‘this shouldn’t be happening, I’m a good person!’. When she returns, her husband is completely changed. When he always used to find something to complain about, he starts seeing the good in people, and actually becoming nice. You would think that she would be happy about this, but instead she is highly suspicious. He used to be the type of man who hated the homeless, yet he gives away £80 pounds on the spur on the moment to a child on the streets. We finally find the cause of this – he has met a new-age healer called GoodNews, who has somehow sucked out all of the badness from his life. Finally GoodNews moves in, and he and David (the husband) become totally obsessed with being good and changing the world. They set up a scheme in which people have to take in a homeless kid, nevertheless this doesn’t go quite to plan. In the end, they remain changed, and David is still obsessed with being good, but GoodNews goes and they finally don’t get a divorce (sorry, I know I&
#8217;ve given it away, but I could tell the ending from a mile off). I found the story fairly believable, but it wasn’t hugely exciting – but then I am a teenage girl rather than a middle aged woman.

<The setting>
The story is set in London, but we don’t really get much of a taste on what it is like. Most scenes take place either in the home or at the surgery, and there isn’t much of an attempt to make it strictly a London book – if we weren’t otherwise told, it could be anywhere. What I did think was good was all the references to popular culture in the past years – Ali G, Sclub7 et al. This will either give a sense of time to future generations or just be really dated!

<The characters>
The main character, Katie, began to really annoy me after a while. She was so sensible (well, if you count having an affair as sensible), and seemed to have boring views – as though she doesn’t like change. I liked David and GoodNews’ characters because they seemed naïve and childlike in a way, and of course because they were trying (well not succeeding very well!) so change the world for a better way. The children can be quite annoying, the daughter is a goody-goody who always goes along with what her father says, and the son is pessimistic and cynical to all that happens.

<The writing style>
The writing style is clear and easy to follow, and I liked the references to popular culture. It doesn’t challenge the reader in anyway, however, which means that it can get a bit boring to read sometimes. This is really a bedtime book. I don’t think that description is used enough either, I didn’t really get a good enough idea of what any of the characters looked like, or the setting.

<What is the effect of the novel on the reader? >
This is obviously a novel written to make you thing about the things that you take for granted, and we are suppo
sed to take this on and thing about what WE could do to help the less-fortunate. But I went away thinking ‘why bother?’. The vaguely negative outcome may be more realistic, but I thought it was pessimistic and a put off to anyone who would have these ideas.

Summary: