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(Reposting an old review)


A few pages into book brought me to the observation. It’s not the typical Nick Hornby piece. Don’t expect to find yourself in the psyche of some middle-aged guy coming to terms with his personal foibles and neuroses. The book is a collection of essays on selected songs that Hornby relates to certain moments in his life � his personal soundtrack so to speak.

Granted, the topic is boring or, at the very least, uninspiring. His song selection is quite esoteric. Only two of the songs and a third of the artists rang a bell. And what do I care about Nick Hornby’s life? I read books to amuse myself on their content, not to catch a glimpse of the author’s adolescence or religious beliefs.

Nevertheless, there’s one thing that I could not deny. Reading the book was sheer pleasure.

I guess that’s what makes a writer like Nick Hornby so popular. He can captivate his audience even with the most mundane topic at hand.

Somewhere in the book, Hornby refers to himself as a “prose stylist�. I consider him more of a “prose stylist extraordinaire�. It is not the idea he is communicating that piques my interest, but the manner through which he communicates them. I end up reading the book for the sake of reading, as if reading itself provided a satisfaction separate and distinct from the ideas Hornby wishes to convey. Next thing I know, anecdotes on Hornby’s first visit to America or his inspiration for a particular chapter of High Fidelity have become as enticing as a tall tale of witchcraft and wizardry.

It’s like going to a restaurant and, for one reason or another, choosing the fish over the steak, despite knowing that steak has more inherent taste and flavor. You expect to be moderately sated by a bland entrée that surprisingly outclasses even the finest of beef.

That’s what Hornby does. He evokes the sublime out of the ordinary. He is a literary master chef who magically seasons a flavorless main ingredient with a spice repertoire of wit, sarcasm and an uncanny use of metaphors.

In his review of the song So I’ll Run, Hornby himself cleverly discusses this dilemma of writing about the ordinary �

� It’s all very well writing about elves and dragons and goddesses rising out of the ground and the rest of it � who couldn’t do that and make it colorful . . . But writing about pubs and struggling singer-songwriters � well, that’s hard work. Nothing happens. Nothing happens, and yet, somehow, I have to persuade you that something is happening somewhere in the hearts and minds of my characters, even though they’re just standing there drinking beer and making jokes . . . �

In differentiating music and lyrics in another review, he says “music is such a pure form of self-expression, and lyrics, because they consist of words, are so impure, and songwriters . . . find that, even though they can produce both, words will always let you down. One half of [the] art is aspiring towards the condition of the other half, and that must be weird, to feel so divinely inspired and so fallibly human, all at the same time. Maybe it’s only songwriters who have ever had any inkling of what Jesus felt of a bad day.�

See what I mean.

Hence, after going through the entire book once and selected chapters several times, I still find myself lifting the book from my shelf and revisiting a chapter or two � for the sake of sheer hedonism.