A whiny SOB

Forgive me, dear reader, if I haven't been uploading KyusiReader lately. It's been a very busy week, and I've been working 14-hour work days lately. And it was also the week I turned 36 (I'm a St. Paddy's day baby), so I was busy consuming tons of cake. Forgive me again, dear reader, that my next review isn't about a good novel, well in my opinion anyway. This isn't a review; it's a rant.

So my book club decided to have a discussion on Nick Hornby's debut novel, High Fidelity. It's a novel about music (and music lists), relationships, and basically just trying to grow up even though you're 35 and own your own record shop. High Fidelity was first published in 1995, and it has still endured until today. I guess this has something to do with all those top 5 lists found on every chapter of the book. There's a list for practically everything -- your top 5 songs that you should have with you if ever you get stuck on a deserted island, your top 5 movies of all time, your top 5 failed relationships.

High Fidelity's main character is Rob, a 35 year old who's so into music. Naturally, he opens his own record shop and employs Dick and Barry, two slackers who are music snobs. Rob has just ended a relationship with Laura, a lawyer and the only girl he's been serious with. To say that Rob is still in love with Laura is an understatement. In the novel, we see how Rob lists all his break-ups and overanalyze what exactly went wrong. Eventually, Rob and Laura do get back together, but it isn't the same. Laura has become more cosmpolitan, and Rob, well, Rob's still the same -- still insecure, still whiny, still in the search for "who he really is and what he wants out of his life."

The novel is really more of a celebration of music. I think readers get a kick out of agreeing with Rob and Barry's tastes in music. And it is music that Rob uses to make an analogy on life. Just read the following paragraph that compares making a mixed tape with the workings of a relationship:

I spent hours putting that cassette together. To me, making a tape is like writing a letter -- there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one, because . . . to be honest, because I hadn't met anyone as promising as Laura since I'd started DJ-ing, and meeting promising women was partly what the DJ-ing was supposed to be about. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention ... oh, there are loads of rules. [page 89]

I read High Fidelity on the week I was turning 36, which is incidentally the same age as Rob who was also turning 36. I kept on thinking if it's really possible that people in their mid-30s are still hung up on their past relationships. I do understand how Rob gets too preoccupied thinking of his career. His record shop isn't doing well and he feels a high degree of unaccomplishment. (I also have sleepless nights thinking of my career. A friend who's the same age as me told me that, in a few years, we wouldn't be "marketable" anymore.)

There's not much of a plot in High Fidelity though. A couple of my book club buddies also had a difficult time finishing this novel. I think we're not used to reading a male character with too much introspection. High Fidelity is basically your chick lit with testosterone.

Read this book if:

1. You're passionate about music.
2. You spend hours of your day thinking of your past relationships and what went wrong with them.
3. You like lad lit.