WELCOME, ONCE AGAIN, TO THE BOOK BONFIRE! The fact that this feature keeps getting updated proves that I’m not just sitting on my ass playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga all day. Although I’m doing that too. But I’m also reading actual novels with words and pages on the regular. Call me cultured if you must, and I really do believe you must. Or else.

Today’s topic is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, and boy do I have stuff to say about this. First and foremost, I keep wanting to spell his name “Nick Horny” which makes me lol out loud like a 12-year-old. But it’s not all horniness (some pages of the book may disagree). It’s a tale of love, regret, anxiety, depression, restlessness, mid-life crises, and music. But enough about my sorry existence! Let’s talk about the book!

What stood out to me right away, for various reasons, was the 35-year-old protagonist. I wasn’t expecting this book to be about someone around my age, let alone someone around my age who finds himself grasping for threads of self-actualization. But here we are: Rob, a single 35-year-old college dropout who owns a failing record store in a low-traffic London neighborhood, struggles with a crisis of identity, relationship issues, and anxiety that he’s failing at life. It’s a jarring theme to see from a book from 1995. Rob would have been born in 1959 or 1960 – a full-blown Boomer. A full-blown Boomer who seems to have no potential, no ambition, floating through life aimlessly, going to see movies with his parents and their friends, struggling hard with relationships, and, for all intents and purposes, slacking. Involuntarily slacking, but slacking nonetheless. These are characteristics and attributes of a man of his generation! Reaganomics! Lift yourself up by your bootstraps and make something of yourself, you lazy sack of shit!

Now, take my life. I graduated college. I got a career in my field. I’m raising a family in Chicago. My marriage is healthy, I think. These are all hallmarks of a man who has found success in life. Then why do I find Rob so relatable? I haven’t had half a dozen relationships. I don’t talk to my sad coworkers in my personal record store on a daily basis. I’m not British. So what is it?

Well, for starts, the music passion is very relatable. I liked reading a book by a guy who had working knowledge of music across several genres even if I’m not a big fan of what Rob likes (Motown soul, for one). I liked reading about Rob’s mixtape hobby, which is something I probably would’ve been all over if I were some loner in 1995. I could sense Rob’s desire to cloister himself in the comfort of his favorite music. Rob’s mid-life crisis would hit him right in the face whenever he wasn’t losing himself in his music obsession. Perhaps I do this too. Perhaps this is why I keep at least one earbud in my ear at all times UNLESS I’M IN THE SHOWER. But trust me, I’d do it there too if I could!

And maybe I’m kind of a jerk like Rob? Maybe I’m a bit snobby about my interests, at least on the inside. I’m not comfortable openly projecting my interests AND THAT’S WHAT THIS BLOG IS FOR. THANKS FOR READING. Rob very much wants to tell the reader why his taste in music is so great, endlessly mansplaining the history of CBGB or shoving his Top 5 lists in your face. And it’s all self-esteem and insecurity issues. It’s like he wants to let you know that he is intelligent about something, and it may as well be music. Hey, I’m kind of the same way, I guess.

And maybe I’m floating through life, too. Am I happy with how things are panning out? Am I content with my situation? Sometimes I think people like Rob are lucky because they’re not entirely tied down. Putting down roots can be restrictive and anxiety-inducing, and sometimes I wonder if I’m made for it. On the other hand, Rob is tormented by his past relationships even decades later, and my dude has some serious codependency issues. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with confronting these past relationship partners square in the face and asking them, point blank, “why the fuck?” I could never do that. I would just wallow in my misery and abysmal mental health!

Man, books like these really bring it out of me. Let’s move on to discussion questions.

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Why is Rob so conflicted about remaining in the relationship with Laura?
Laura is Rob’s most recent failed relationship, and even though he argues at the beginning of the book that she doesn’t even crack the Top 5 devastations, it’s clear that this one really fucks Rob up. Most of the book centers around this tenuous relationship and why Rob decides to dredge up past heartaches to see where he’s going wrong.

Paramount to this conflict is Rob’s age. During the course of the book he turns 36, which is goddamned old. I mean, I’m 38. That’s old! And when you’re that old and your most serious relationship is long gone in your rearview mirror, you probably start to panic that yet another one didn’t go well. Rob is pretty desperate to make it work even if Laura boned the annoying upstairs neighbor, and is frantically clawing at the last remaining threads as Laura seems to have moved on more elegantly than he has.

Also, probably, Rob knows that Laura’s good for him. She’s a lawyer, so she’s smart. She used to have a punk hairstyle, so she’s sexy. She’s mature and well-adjusted (save for the cheating part). What’s not to like? Oh yeah, the cheating part. Maybe she’s not so good for him. Hell, I’m conflicted too! Let’s just move on.

Why is it so important for Rob to contact and meet the women who have dumped him? Does he find what he was hoping to discover?
Rob is pretty self-absorbed, and as a self-absorbed person he finds himself obsessed with knowing exactly why his exes dumped him because, hey, it couldn’t have been him, right? He’s certainly not self-destructive or clingy or anything like that!

Rob’s depressed, man. He’s internalizing a bunch of shame and blame and he probably wants to know exactly what he did to fuck it all up. I don’t think he finds out exactly what he wants to discover, because I think what he wants to discover is closure and vindication (which he doesn’t really get), but I think the mere act of facing his past was somewhat therapeutic for him. If I had any exes, I’d probably sure as shit want to keep tabs on them a little bit. I’d just be too chickenshit to ever call one up.

Did I answer the question? Who cares.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I connected strongly with this book, except for the failed love life and the failed business and the shitty nerd friends and the music taste without much overlap and the British-ness of everything and the slacker Boomer ’90s vibe. Other than that, though, it was uncanny!