Friday, June 10, 2005
More Q.'s thrown @ Mr. Hornby
Addendum to the previous post re. Nick Hornby's evening in Philadelphia. And, in response to my ever-loving wife's question to me, "No. I'm not stalking him. If I were, wouldn't I have purchased a Virgin Air one way ticket to London already."
Q: Desert island question. (LOUD groans from audience). What five books would you take along? (I have to note here that I was not the one who asked this question. Just so you know)
A: (Mr. Hornby stares at the person. Seems to be caught on that thin edge between ridicule and restraint. He sips a bit of water, probably pondering whether he should throw the empty bottle at the question poser. Takes a deep breath and says...)
Great Expectations. Absolutely the top pick.
Michael Chabon. Almost anything but especially The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Richard Russo. Most probably Empire Falls.
Elizabeth McCraken. Niagara Falls all Over Again. Actually, my new novel starts out with a quote from one of her books.
Philip Roth.
(He then starts rattling off a series of authors, obviously having his fill of self-control). Enough for now? (He looks a bit peeved and is waiting, just waiting, for another idiotic question like that. No q. is asked for a long 10-15 seconds. He may be short but he looks like he can be a nasty customer when it comes to fisticuffs.)
Q: In Polysyllabic Spree, you talk about working with someone else on a screenplay. What movie was that?
A: Well, it's a movie that won't be made shortly. I worked with David Eggars on A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I wouldn't say it's been shelved. Let's just say the movie company is not as interested.
As regards "A Long Way Down", Mr. Hornby's latest novel, reviews are mixed. Here's one from July/August's issue of The Atlantic , written by Jon Zobenica.
"You Might as Well Live
Nick Hornby's characters could care less
Hornby's zippy novels High Fidelity and About a Boy plumbed the depths of humankind's would-be shallows. In each a character clinging absurdly to a sense of his own emotional insignificance is finally moved, despite himself, to embrace life's complex if at times mortifying drama. In his latest Hornby has almost perfectly reversed the formula, and to the extent that he succeeds, he fails. A Long Way Down opens with high drama—literally, as four suicidal strangers chance on one another atop a London tower block from which they mean to throw themselves. The mood broken by the encounter, they agree to a temporary non-suicide pact, strike up a grudging and dysfunctional friendship, and find themselves in a series of misadventures over the course of which they learn to embrace absurd emotional insignificance as an answer to life's mortifying drama.
It's a worthy notion typical of the good-hearted Hornby. Also typical is a thoroughgoing pop-culture sensibility, which gets the better of him this time around. The four lead characters do "meet cute," after a fashion, and are little more than types: there's a cad with a totaled career and a twitching conscience, a middle-aged mom as straight man, a foul-mouthed pixie, and, because this is Hornby, a frustrated musician-cum-pizza delivery guy who's depressed that his life isn't the power ballad he thought it would be. And as they go through their various challenges together, and give their alternating and unreliable accounts of themselves and the events at hand (in direct, often irritating testimonials), the whole thing starts to suggest the work of the reality-TV impresario Mark Burnett—a sort of Survivor: London, in which no one is eliminated. The main problem, however, is more basic than that: as the characters noisily learn to care less, the reader quietly does the same. "
I like to read book reviews and use them quite a bit to decide if I want to read a work by an author I'm not familiar with. If there's a reviewer that reads and judges in a manner similar to myself or a reviewer that you consistently diagree with but whose writing style is addictive I find that their reviews serve to save me a lot of time, money, and frustration. And if you don't care for their skewering of a book, they're like an acquaintance that you won't insult or whose feelings you can't hurt.
Reading reviews of authors I'm familiar with and whose books I've liked is a mixed reaction.
If the review is unfavorable, I'll still read the book. Unfortunately, the read review is now perched in my head, duly noting passages it's criticized to me so that I will not miss the faults. It ruins the book for me, through no fault of the reviewer.
If the review is favorable, the review is still perched in my head, perhaps on a higher branch. This review will also be sure to point out to me those absolutely divine passages it had gone on and on about in it's positive view of the book. It ruins the book for me, through no fault of the reviewer.
So, you'd think I should not bother reading reviews of books by authors I like. That would be sound advice. Advice that would leave my head empty of perching reviews. Free to form my own thoughts and interpretations of a favorite author's works. At the very least, I should read the reviews only after reading the book first.
Can't do it. Can't explain why. I'll throw blame onto Slavic heritage and masochism. Their sagging shoulders are still strong enough to bear another excuse.
Addendum to the previous post re. Nick Hornby's evening in Philadelphia. And, in response to my ever-loving wife's question to me, "No. I'm not stalking him. If I were, wouldn't I have purchased a Virgin Air one way ticket to London already."
Q: Desert island question. (LOUD groans from audience). What five books would you take along? (I have to note here that I was not the one who asked this question. Just so you know)
A: (Mr. Hornby stares at the person. Seems to be caught on that thin edge between ridicule and restraint. He sips a bit of water, probably pondering whether he should throw the empty bottle at the question poser. Takes a deep breath and says...)
Great Expectations. Absolutely the top pick.
Michael Chabon. Almost anything but especially The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Richard Russo. Most probably Empire Falls.
Elizabeth McCraken. Niagara Falls all Over Again. Actually, my new novel starts out with a quote from one of her books.
Philip Roth.
(He then starts rattling off a series of authors, obviously having his fill of self-control). Enough for now? (He looks a bit peeved and is waiting, just waiting, for another idiotic question like that. No q. is asked for a long 10-15 seconds. He may be short but he looks like he can be a nasty customer when it comes to fisticuffs.)
Q: In Polysyllabic Spree, you talk about working with someone else on a screenplay. What movie was that?
A: Well, it's a movie that won't be made shortly. I worked with David Eggars on A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I wouldn't say it's been shelved. Let's just say the movie company is not as interested.
As regards "A Long Way Down", Mr. Hornby's latest novel, reviews are mixed. Here's one from July/August's issue of The Atlantic , written by Jon Zobenica.
"You Might as Well Live
Nick Hornby's characters could care less
Hornby's zippy novels High Fidelity and About a Boy plumbed the depths of humankind's would-be shallows. In each a character clinging absurdly to a sense of his own emotional insignificance is finally moved, despite himself, to embrace life's complex if at times mortifying drama. In his latest Hornby has almost perfectly reversed the formula, and to the extent that he succeeds, he fails. A Long Way Down opens with high drama—literally, as four suicidal strangers chance on one another atop a London tower block from which they mean to throw themselves. The mood broken by the encounter, they agree to a temporary non-suicide pact, strike up a grudging and dysfunctional friendship, and find themselves in a series of misadventures over the course of which they learn to embrace absurd emotional insignificance as an answer to life's mortifying drama.
It's a worthy notion typical of the good-hearted Hornby. Also typical is a thoroughgoing pop-culture sensibility, which gets the better of him this time around. The four lead characters do "meet cute," after a fashion, and are little more than types: there's a cad with a totaled career and a twitching conscience, a middle-aged mom as straight man, a foul-mouthed pixie, and, because this is Hornby, a frustrated musician-cum-pizza delivery guy who's depressed that his life isn't the power ballad he thought it would be. And as they go through their various challenges together, and give their alternating and unreliable accounts of themselves and the events at hand (in direct, often irritating testimonials), the whole thing starts to suggest the work of the reality-TV impresario Mark Burnett—a sort of Survivor: London, in which no one is eliminated. The main problem, however, is more basic than that: as the characters noisily learn to care less, the reader quietly does the same. "
I like to read book reviews and use them quite a bit to decide if I want to read a work by an author I'm not familiar with. If there's a reviewer that reads and judges in a manner similar to myself or a reviewer that you consistently diagree with but whose writing style is addictive I find that their reviews serve to save me a lot of time, money, and frustration. And if you don't care for their skewering of a book, they're like an acquaintance that you won't insult or whose feelings you can't hurt.
Reading reviews of authors I'm familiar with and whose books I've liked is a mixed reaction.
If the review is unfavorable, I'll still read the book. Unfortunately, the read review is now perched in my head, duly noting passages it's criticized to me so that I will not miss the faults. It ruins the book for me, through no fault of the reviewer.
If the review is favorable, the review is still perched in my head, perhaps on a higher branch. This review will also be sure to point out to me those absolutely divine passages it had gone on and on about in it's positive view of the book. It ruins the book for me, through no fault of the reviewer.
So, you'd think I should not bother reading reviews of books by authors I like. That would be sound advice. Advice that would leave my head empty of perching reviews. Free to form my own thoughts and interpretations of a favorite author's works. At the very least, I should read the reviews only after reading the book first.
Can't do it. Can't explain why. I'll throw blame onto Slavic heritage and masochism. Their sagging shoulders are still strong enough to bear another excuse.
Comments:
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
Reviewers ... I dunno. Unless a reviewer points me toward uknown talent, my tendency is to read the reviews after I've read the books. I skipped past your Atlantic review for exactly that reason (thanks for putting the quote in italics, BTW). All power to Hornby, say I.
Wup - just re-read your entry, and whaddayaknow? You make the very same point. Looks like I didn't just skip the italics, but the script that followed, too.
Speaking of skipping, this weekend I skipped straight to the concluding paragraph of the Globe & Mail review, and they gave Hornby's latest a big thumbs up.
Post a Comment
Speaking of skipping, this weekend I skipped straight to the concluding paragraph of the Globe & Mail review, and they gave Hornby's latest a big thumbs up.
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
