Bitter take on love and life, peppered with questions (no answers) and social witticisms (How to be good - Nick Hornby)

Member Name: phill@leeds

Product:	How to be good - Nick Hornby
Date:	03/09/02 (120 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Undoubtably funny in parts, Tom (the son)

Disadvantages: Many

I did not particularly enjoy this book, though I shall give some plot detail before I tell you why.

This story is written from Dr. Katie Carr’s (no relation) perspective (which, I imagine, is very insightful and accurate coming from a man - at least its what I’d imagine some women to think like. Indeed, Libby Purves of The Times says, “Hornby writes astonishingly well from a women’s perspective”. For this, Hornby is to be admired.) Also, our author has a razor sharp wit and cynicism that is drawn out from its character’s mundane and ‘normal’ lives. Anyway, Katie dumps her nasty husband David from a carpark in Leeds, admits to cheating on him, whereby David meets a man who changes his and her life forever. To be honest, that’s as far as the synopsis can go.

It takes just 35 pages for David, the snarling, spiteful conversationalist-bastard, to meet DJ Goodnews. His back, his personality and later their lives, are changed quite dramatically The next 208 pages are devoted to quite how this affects Katie herself, her relationship with David and the family nuclei.

In general, the book reads very well (I read it all it 4 sittings), is sometimes funny and witty, while asking its readers consider their own relationship, personal values and moralistic attitudes. For instance, David’s idea of donating half of his children’s possessions, especially those in duplicate, seems quite reasonable and ethical. Also, the way Katie sees her relationship, “We have sex with each other [David] because we agreed not to have sex with anyone else”, questions our reasons for ‘being’ with a partner. The issues of poverty, suburban upper-middle-class snobbery, tedious banal existence and simply, what constitutes being ‘good’, is all crammed in. Yet Hornby examines these as exhaustively as the character David’s (flip-a-coin) personality transition is believable.


My particular problem with the book lies in its start and end. Yes, the prose and its characters are accessible, and the story does raise interesting philosophies on what is an acceptable way of life and attitude (see bottom), in a consumerist, selfish world. But Hornby does not resolve these issues; the duo of do-gooders alienates Katie and divides her family and friends. So what are we left with? Nick Hornby leaves us with unbearable cynicism, glib metaphors and omits any sense of love or devotion. I would like to think that relationships in the world aren’t as desolate and weak as Katie and David’s; even when she warms to his and their new lifestyle, ultimately there’s “nothing out there at all”.

I would almost seem reasonable to say this book was about ‘How to be good’ except there isn’t enough on show to say so. Ultimately, ‘How to be good’ doesn’t say a lot about very much at all. Would make a good newBBC serialization in a dumbed- down way.




DJ Goodnews
"But just because a lot of people don't have a problem with something, it doesn't mean that they are right, does it? I mean a lot of people used to think that Slavery was OK, but you know. They were wrong, weren't they?"

Summary: