I think I started making tapes for girls that I liked in high school. I’d spend hours going through my tape and CD collection, looking for the right tracks to put on the tape. Then, after finally finding all those songs that would fill up all 90 minutes of the tape, it was the long process of lining up the tracks, putting the right tracks together, having some kind of progression to the music, squeezing the slow songs in with the fast so that there wouldn’t be a lull in the flow of the tape. Hours would pass until I felt that the songs I had put on the tape and the way they were ordered would have some meaning, would let the person I was giving the tape to know how I felt.
Yup, that was probably it, letting the music speak for me. Letting it express everything that I wanted to say, as if all those feelings, all those thoughts weren’t just the musicians’, or mine, but a shared experience.
All this comes to mind when I think of my favorite book, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. The main character, Rob Fleming, was big on making tapes for girls too. Among his many other interesting quirks.
High Fidelity introduces us to Rob as he’s trying to get his life together after his latest break-up. It starts with another of Rob’s cool quirks, a top-five list. This time a top five of his worst break-ups. And through this list much of Rob is revealed to us, his views on life, relationships, and the introspective nature he has which Hornby uses to full effect to bring us into Rob’s world and have us nodding along as he observes how, "The perfect match if you ask me, is between the Cosmo woman and the 14-year-old boy." Or after listing down some of his favorite songs he asks, "What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?"
It’s this first part, where we’re introduced to a bruised and battered Rob ruminating over his lost loves, that kicks off something of a journey of self-discovery, albeit not the kind that you’d expect. Most such journeys would involve some deep intellectualizing, some spirituality and profundity. No, not for Rob and Mr. Hornby – this is a story of rock and roll self-discovery, where our protagonist ambles along not necessarily wanting to change, not really looking for some great paradigm shift in his life. The story’s pushed along as Rob decides to confront each of the women in his top-five dump list to ask them what’s wrong with him.
Along with these women we meet the cool Dick and Barry, who work at Rob’s record store, Championship Vinyl. Then there’s rock chick Marie LaSalle, who comes into the picture. And of course Laura, Rob’s latest ex. It’s in these interactions that Hornby brings out lively, well-fleshed out characters. While it’s tough, after you’ve seen the movie, to disassociate Barry from Jack Black, the scenes with Barry are not any less funny, as Hornby’s dialogue is crisp and witty.
So why pick this book as a favorite then? It’s just about some dude who got dumped by his girlfriend and now he’s bouncing around, trying to figure out what’s wrong with him. Nothing grand here, no great social statement. No literary games or experimentation.
It’s in the simplicity of the plot that Hornby is freed up to play, to let Rob speak, and when Rob speaks, it’s not just for himself, but oftentimes Hornby has Rob tap into the consciousness of most guys. It’s in the way that Rob explores his own insecurities and fears, the way that he picks apart his heartbreaks that we come to understand him, and when High Fidelity’s at the top of its game it reveals the ways that men handle relationships wrongly so well that I couldn’t help but feel guilty as Rob bumped along making mistakes.
Hornby establishes Rob’s voice, his attitude, and his mood. We’ve got a protagonist who’s introspective, and who’s got a lot on his mind. And by establishing Rob’s voice early on, Hornby is allowed to give a lot of observations about being a guy, as well as a lot of earnest statements which would not normally be allowed, because these would seem cheesy. An example would be when he says, "When I am no longer desperate, when I have got all this sorted out I promise you, here and now that I will never ever complain again about how the shop is doing, or about the soullessness of modern music..."
It’s about relationships, yes, but the book is also about music and the way that music helps shape our perceptions, beliefs, and the way that we go through our lives. There’s always some music that we connect to certain times in our lives, a song for each experience. Nick Hornby enjoys himself as Rob ambles through his life talking about all his favorite records and connecting his experiences with those records. There’s so much music in this book, though, that people who are unfamiliar with the songs might be a bit put off by it. But if you know the songs and you’re reading through then it all hits you just right.
Like a good song. Like your favorite songs.
And for me, a favorite song doesn’t have to be the most meaningful piece of music ever created. Nor does the playing have to be on the same technical level of say, something like Dream Theater. It’s not about that. It’s about how that particular song hits you at that particular point in your life. It could be you’ve heard the song a million times and then something happens and suddenly, boom! it just hits you and now you know what the person who sang it is singing about. Or it could just grip you that first time.
And in choosing High Fidelity as a favorite book, I think that’s what I went by. Like I said earlier, sometimes songs can express feelings that we have personally felt, and that creates a shared experience. And for me, High Fidelity was able to create that. It was able to express a lot of things that I had thought and felt. Often I sat there thinking, damn, I should have written this, because it’s all so honest, it’s all stuff that most guys have already gone through. It’s just Nick Hornby who collected all those experiences together and strung them together.
So it’s like those tapes that I used to make. It’s all these emotions that I would like to express, but instead of songs, it’s Nick Hornby, through Rob Fleming, giving voice to those emotions, saying what I want to say, creating a shared experience.