High Fidelity

by Nick Hornby

Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby's narrator is an early-thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way--on vinyl--and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music.

Genres: Fiction, Music, Contemporary, Humor, Romance, Novels, British Literature

245 pages, Paperback

First published April 13, 1995

About the author

Nicholas Peter John Hornby is an English writer and lyricist. He is best known for his memoir Fever Pitch (1992) and novels High Fidelity and About a Boy, all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists. His books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, Hornby was named the 29th most influential person in British culture. He has received two Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for An Education (2009), and Brooklyn (2015).

Reviews

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nick Hornby writes about losers and makes them lovable. But not this time. I couldn't stand the self-pitying little git, his loser wanker record store buddies, nor their ridiculous fracking lists. Reading this book felt like being trapped in an elevator with the pathetic Scrubs douchebag (Zachy McWhinerson, or whatever his fracking name is) for an entire weekend. You know the type - the constant puppy need for the approval of every critter on the planet, all the time. It might seem like a charming vulnerability, but don't be fooled. It actually signals a pathological narcissist whose solipsism and incessant neediness will bleed you dry.

I know, I know. Many fine books have been written about unlikable characters. Anyway, it's about the character's emotional growth. Etc. etc.

All true. But when you find the central character so annoying that just reading about him makes you twitch, it's probably time to switch to another book.

Your mileage may vary. For all I know, you're the kind of person who watches marathon "scrubs" reruns. If so, you'll probably love this book.

[Jenn(ifer) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a problem.

You see, when it comes to reviewing my favorite books, I’m all thumbs. Coherent thoughts elude me and float downstream like a toy boat escaping from a little boy’s grasp.

Rob is my soul mate, you see. He and I are the same fucked up, insecure, too-much-in-our-own-head-for-our-own-good person. I think he would get me. Really Get me.

Or maybe it's just Hornby who gets me. Mr. Hornby, you make me want to wear dresses.

During my last year of high school and through all four years of college, I too worked in a record store with a bunch of misfit music snobs. It was the BEST JOB EVER. Hands down. Sitting around all day, listening to the new batch of promos, poking fun at the customers coming in looking for a little Ace of Base... making mix tapes for that boy who worked in the skate shop who I had a crush on. I never gave him any of them. Shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you... That’s Morrissey, not me. But I feel you fella.

Anyway, you can see how I’m completely flubbing this review, right? Hornby has my number.

My favorite ice breaker with people I don’t know well is to ask them to give me their top 5 (insert topic here (usually related to music)).

Top 5 female singers of all time, GO!

Oh, and since this review wouldn't be complete without a top 5 list of my own, here is my list of the "top 5 songs referenced in top 5 lists in this novel" (obscure enough for you?):

1. Tired of Being Alone - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICKToz...
2. Alison - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs6HbY...
3. Lets Get it On - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18TLHh...
4. Mr. Big Stuff - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooYEx...
5. The House That Jack Built - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmUXn...

[Rick Monkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I realize that I give far too many books a four or five star rating. So sue me.

Book buying isn't, you know, a quick thing for me. I browse, I choose, I read the blurbs inside, I deliberate, I read a chapter from ever book I've chosen.

In short, I only read things I'm really likely to like.

So, I will tell you right now, if there were a way to give [High Fidelity] six stars, I would.

Ostensibly it's a novel about pop music and love. But if that's what you're seeing, then you are reading it wrong.

It's a novel about obsession, rejection and minutia. As such, [Nick Hornby] speaks directly to my geeky soul. Even though I'm not a music expert, I see a lot of myself in the main character Rob - escaping into pop, defining his life through records, filling his head with facts rather than feelings and trying, oh so desperately trying, to be a real human being.

His relationships never last. If he's not outright rejected, then he's the one who gets full of himself and does the rejecting. He's not good with people, doesn't want to be, ultimately can't be. But he aches for them. He's a loner who can't bear to be alone. He pushes people away, but wonders why there aren't any people around.

Every word in [High Fidelity] felt familiar, even with a location (London) and a milieu (music fandom) that are unfamiliar to me. Somehow, Hornby strikes this strange, compelling balance between being incredibly witty on the surface, and being incredibly depressing beneath.

Swap out records for comics or videogames, and I am Rob. If you're a geek, and a male, and a member of these recent lost generations of "slackers" and "man-children", then you are Rob, too.

[natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

You mean the book where a pompous sack of sexist shit gets to not only take a dump on his independent ex-girlfriend, while acting pretentious based off of his 'extraordinary' music tastes, but gets her back and somehow everything between them just isn't just fixed - but somehow miraculously better?
I CALL BULLSHIT.
The starred reviews for this are a fucking riot, celebrating Rob''s "manliness" and telling men not to share this with their girlfriends, because heaven forbid the SECRET WILL BE OUT.
what SECRET?!
THE ONE OF HOW TO BE A FUCKING WHINY WANKER WHO SEEMS TO BE THE INSPIRATION FOR JOHN GREEN'S MALE PROTAGONISTS???
fuck. you.

[Luffy Sempai · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still don't know why I rated High Fidelity 5 stars. Most of these books don't stand a chance against an early Agatha Christie or a modern cozy, or a book by Dawkins... but I put all of them on the same level.

I'm going to watch the movie first time later this day. Most books that have first person view make it hell for me to get into. Not here. Reading this book was like meeting an old friend.

I don't know what Nick Hornby has gone through to piece together this ode. It feels real. It's real art. It's one of the best books I've read, ever. I am far, far from being the neurotic Rob, but this bitter ending upset me in a good way. I recommend this. By the way, I too like the Beatles a lot.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't actually looking forward to this book.
I've put off reading it for a long time because I assumed it would be some of the inner musings of a pretentious music snob with references to bands I've never heard of and/or didn't like, who whines about his love life.
And it kind of was exactly that.
But I loved it.



I know this is supposed to be chick-lit for guys, but I could honestly relate to Rob and his restless nature. Long-term commitment isn't something that is built into the DNA of every woman, though I think we're mostly portrayed that way. But I struggled with the urge to gnaw my own leg off in basically every relationship that I ever had. It's suffocating to think that you are whittling your options down to one person.
So, I didn't really think Rob was all that awful.



The skinny gist is that Rob's most recent relationship has hit the skids. She left him. Worse, she left him and started cohabitating with the hot neighbor that they used to hear performing sexual gymnastics with a bevy of women through the walls... or was it the ceiling? Doesn't matter.
What matters is that this is enough to give our unlikely hero the kick in the balls he needs to, not just examine his past relationships, but reach out and speak to these women who (he thinks) set him on the path to becoming such a loser.



And not just a loser in love, but a loser in life.
Now, you might think that owning a record shop isn't exactly standing in the free cheese line, but Rob always thought his life would be more than just refereeing his two oddball employees and trying to sell indie records to someone who was initially looking for something on the Top 40.
So. On top of losing a woman he might just have cared about, he's just basically having an all-around mid-life crisis.



So we follow along inside of Rob's head as he decides to track down all the women who made an impression on him over the years. The ones that he believes turned him into this...this man who seems to be incapable of settling down or making good choices. It culminates in his reaching out to The One Who Got Away and seeing her again.
The results were unsurprising to anyone who has a little life under them.
I think most of us have someone in our past that we tend to look upon with rose colored glasses. The ones who broke our hearts, the ones we messed things up with, or the ones that life got in the way with. For whatever reason, we tend to think that if only, then we would have been happy. Happier. This person wouldn't complain about the way we chew or the way we drive, and would think that it's cute when we fart in our sleep. Over time, this once real relationship becomes a fantasy person that exists in a protected bubble of time, untouched by the changes that creep over real humans in real relationships. It's easy to latch onto them as the pinnacle of what you want in a partnership.
It's easy because they don't exist.
Nobody that theoretically awesome is going to put up with your mediocre shit.
Eventually, Rob realizes that this goddess of cool, who had been the benchmark he had compared every other woman to, was, in truth, an annoying, pompous narcissist who wasn't half as interesting as she claimed to be. And this realization doesn't magically make him a better person, but it does shake up his worldview enough to give him a tiny kick in the ass.
Life is made up of those tiny kicks in the ass, and sometimes, that's all you need to set you on a better path.



I think the reason Rob seems so unlikable to a lot of readers is that you're reading about a flawed person having their normal, selfish, petty inner thoughts, not some paragon.
Rob is no one that we aspire to be.
But I think he's representative of who we are at our baseline selves.
Or maybe just some of us?
For those of us who can relate, Rob pulls at that untamed and inconsiderate piece of our souls that we're embarrassed exists.
Somewhere inside of all of us is a little kid, a teenager, and a grown-up. And they're all fighting with each other, slamming doors, insisting that we pay our bills on time, pouting, throwing tantrums, begging us to be reasonable, and leaving cups all over the place.
I think most of us find a way to balance all of those voices out over time, and at its core, I think that's what this story is about.



Recommended for the Robs.

[Julie G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while a writer will strike literary gold with a character whose popularity reaches iconic levels. I can think of a few offhand: Mary Poppins, Forrest Gump, Pippi Longstocking.

We've all encountered these iconic characters before; some are distinctly regional, others manage worldwide fame (even a remote tribe in the Amazon rainforest would probably recognize Audrey Hepburn in her famous guise of Holly Golightly).

But I don't know if I've ever encountered before what I discovered here in High Fidelity: a writer who created a character who went on to become a proper noun.

A Rob.

A Rob. . . is a man who has a job, but not a career.
A Rob. . . is a playful, passionate man, which lends him an irresistible charm.
A Rob. . . is great for a snog, as he has nothing but time on his hands.
A Rob. . . is terrified of commitment.
A Rob. . . is someone you shouldn't make babies with.

Ever dated a Rob?

I have. I've dated three. They're so damned adorable and they're so damned attractive in their rugby shirts. . . until you realize by the third date that it's the only shirt they own.

I once pulled up for a date with a Rob (because, naturally, he didn't have his own car), and he was sitting on the hood of a friend's car in a rugby shirt and sweat pants, his right forearm down to the elbow in a Jumbo size bag of Doritos. As I stopped my car, my headlights shone upon his visage, and he smiled a cheesy, Cheshire grin. God bless him, he was so happy to see me, but when he licked his orange fingertips as he walked over to my car, I will admit, here, publicly, that I pressed on the accelerator and drove off gently into that good night. (That was Rob #1).

A Rob. . . will sometimes call you for as long as 10 years after your break-up.
A Rob. . . will always love you more, after you've left him.
A Rob. . . will often entice you back for a snog at least one more time after you've officially declared you're done with him. (Sometimes twice, depending upon the Rob).

A Rob can break your heart with their fear of. . . everything. Including you.

To all Robs everywhere, this one goes out to you:

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most, and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they’ve been listening to the sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives.”

Rob Fleming owns a record store. We can call him Rob Fleming, but really he is John Cusack playing Rob Fleming. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve seen enough clips from the movie to know that I can’t read this book and see Fleming as anyone other than Cusack.

He is thirty-five, and his girlfriend Laura has just packed up a suitcase and moved out. This is his seventeenth relationship, and every single one of them has ended the same way...in failure. Of course, moving out with a suitcase could be just a shot across his bow. Change, or else this will be a permanent situation. The apartment, though, is still brimming with her possessions, which means there are many more skirmishes to be fought and lines in the sand to be drawn. Laura has a new job, a grown up job, and her spiked hair is gone, and her leather jackets have been pushed to the back of her closet. She has changed. Rob has remained the same.

Is this the age old problem of women wanting men to change and men wanting women to stay the same?

Or it could be about Ian, the upstairs lothario who routinely serenaded them with the squeaks and groans of his epic bouts of sex. Is Laura’s interest in Ian about curiosity? Does she want to see what all that moaning and groaning for hours is about? Rob is insecure about his sexual prowess, and thinking about Laura with Ian drives him crazy. Most men are bundles of masculine insecurities, especially regarding their sexual performance, and since Rob is a man who likes to make lists, he even has a list of all the things that can go wrong for men.

”There’s the nothing-happening-at-all problem, the too-much-happening-too-soon problem, the dismal-droop-after-a-promising-beginning problem; there’s the size-doesn't-matter-except-in-my-case problem, the failing-to-deliver-the-goods problem. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank?”

Fortunately, most of the time, a man’s brain short circuits (blood flow to the mind is sent elsewhere), and he isn’t worried about any of these things at the moment of impending coitos, or there would be more failures to launch and fewer successful liftoffs. But if a man is unfortunate enough to have any of these insecurities wiggle into his brain at the most inappropriate moment, it can lead to a less than satisfactory conclusion and a doubling down on his rampaging inferiority complex.

Rob can no longer claim to be a kid, but he is far from an adult. He is trapped in an adolescent’s view of life. He’s afraid of commitment, but he flounders when he isn’t in a relationship. It becomes obvious that Laura and Rob are miserable apart, but it doesn’t take long to realize that Laura will have to be the one to take the initiative.

I worked in a bookstore that also had a record/CD/cassette department. The people who worked in the music department were definitely different than the people who worked in the book department. We each had our own language, but of course, book people listened to music, and music people read books, so we did find ways to communicate. The list challenges that Rob and his workmates throw at each other are funny because we did that as well, pre-internet by the way. We had to pull our lists from our memory, which made for errors. I’d be driving home and suddenly remember a book that should have made my list of favorite fiction books featuring a real life person and be really irritated that I forgot it.

I was just beginning to amass a book collection. Even though I had all these cheap books available to me to buy, I also had insufficient pay to buy them with, so fortunately, I didn’t have the massive library that I have today or my future wife would have certainly dumped me, smartly so, for some guy with a BMW and an obsession with the stock market, rather than sticking with a nearsighted guy obsessed with musty old books. Rob asked the age old question, ”Is it possible to maintain a relationship and a large record [book] collection simultaneously?”I can say, it is possible. I’ve been married for twenty-eight years and counting, but I would suggest a few things: don’t expect her to be as obsessed about your collection as you are, keep your collection orderly and contained (as best you can), be able to maintain conversations about things other than your collection, watch a chick flick once in a while, grit your teeth and hang out with her “normal” friends occasionally and make her look good by being charming, and make sure the money you spend on your collection doesn’t impact the normal flow of the family finances.

I know it's a mental shift from being quite willing to eat beans for a month to buy that Cormac McCarthy first edition. I can tell you, she is not willing to do so, and that is a good thing. It’s called having a more complete life.

This is one of those books that makes you grin and wince in equal measure as you read it. Rob will have you thinking about your ten most embarrassing moments while dating, and as he makes his nostalgic tour back through all the women who left him looking for insight about himself (another problem that he suffers from is self-obsession), you will remember some of your own miscues with trying to form lasting relationships. I would have really enjoyed this book when it came out in 1995. I was 28 then, a bit younger than Rob, but still working in the book biz and certainly a bit bruised and battered by the dating wars. I would have probably found Rob’s trials and tribulations more insightful than I do now, but regardless, I still enjoyed this quirky romp through a past not that dissimilar to the one I left strewn behind me.

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[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, Nick Hornby's first published fiction work follows commitment-phobe and 'never grown up' music lover Rob, as yet again the woman he's with leaves him, only on this occasion, in his mid-30s he takes a different approach than the previous times in his life he was dumped.

This comedic look at early-mid-life-crisis, revealed to be more about-time-I-grew-up-syndrome is quite funny at times, but I still wouldn't call it a comedy as, even with it's vanilla treatment it captures a lot about how the modern way of life has given us so many choices that we feel we don't have to make any idea. Working with his archetypal characters mixing with a solid knowledge of music, Hornby's debut made me think a lot; it will also surely stir plenty fond memories to anyone who grew up in the late 20th Century. Fun and though provoking (if you want it to be) - 8 out of 12.

[Blaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands—literally thousands—of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they’ve been listening to the sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives.
...
But there was an important and essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and it’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.

High Fidelity wouldn’t work if it weren’t so wonderfully, painfully funny. From the top-five lists, to the relentless bantering, to nearly everything Barry says or does, there’s genuine humor that keeps you reading even once you realize that this book is no comedy. Rob can be and has been an awful person to Laura, and it’s not clear whether he can repair their relationship or should even try. But the humor keeps things hopeful throughout that Rob will ultimately do the right thing, even when it’s not clear what that is.

I’ve been happily married for over 25 years. But before that, there were dating mishaps and breakups (a few of them with my future bride). High Fidelity comes as close as any I’ve ever read to capturing the insecurities of the male ego, and the contradictions of male behavior, especially during a breakup. It’s not a pretty picture, yet I can think of no higher praise for this book. Highly recommended.

Update: I recently finished watching the Hulu series adaptation of High Fidelity. It’s solid, and it’s disappointing that there won’t be a second season. But the book is definitely better.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, nostalgia! This book takes place in the mid-90s. Even though the protagonist is in his 30s, the content really does take me back to my time in high school and college. Everything was music and concerts – and a lot of the music he talks about is the music everyone was into back then. Also, I was a huge fan of the movie when it first came out, but this was my first time reading it.



In some ways, Rob reminds me of myself back then: insecure, paranoid, over reactive, etc. I would think a girl was interested in me and call the over and over thinking that was the best way to win her heart. Then, when it didn’t work, I would drown my sorrows in music . . . until I tried calling again. Now, I will say that Rob definitely goes a bit overboard in his relationships and how he approaches them are toxic. But, it is entertaining watching the trainwreck that is his life.

I think to enjoy this book you need to be into the writing style; cynical, self-deprecating humor that leaves you wondering if you love all the characters or hate them. I know that this will not be everyone’s cup of tea (ah, a British book, cup of tea, HA! I am here all night, folks!) I have been looking at some other reviews and it seems like a lot of people despise this one. I definitely get that – if this was not set during such an important time of my life and if it didn’t mirror a lot of aspects of my social life at the time, I probably would be too turned off by the frustrating characters and Rob’s basically inappropriate approach to every situation.

But, nostalgia wins this time – now I have to go back and watch the movie again!

[Charlotte May · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at page 75

I just don’t like the protagonist. He’s whiny and kind of a dick. I don’t see where the plot is going and don’t really care either. I don’t really get any of the references and I don’t know enough about the music and bands he refers to for it to mean anything to me.
I could probably make myself finish as I don’t actively hate the book - I just don’t think I’m the right audience and life is too short.
Time to call it a day.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all have a handful of books that we feel were written specifically for us, as if the author took us out for dinner and drinks (lots of drinks, on the author's tab) and interviewed us on the important things (in no particular order, except the order in which I thought of these): love, faith, art, sex, career, family, friends. Then they put our thoughts and feelings in a book. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby is one of those books for me, the account of a young man reorganizing his disappointments and his record collection following a rough break-up. I'm not the narrator and he's not me, but often wish life could be cataloged as clearly as my music.

Published in 1995, Hornby's debut novel is the stoic, immature and unapologetic first-person account of Rob Fleming, a thirty-five-year-old who lives in a one-bedroom flat in the North London neighborhood of Crouch End. Rob owns a record shop called Championship Vinyl which specializes in "punk, blues, soul, and R&B, a bit of ska, some indie stuff, some ’60s pop--everything for the serious record collector". His two employees and perhaps best friends-- the shy, awkward Dick and the loud, obnoxious Barry--pass the work day thinking and talking in lists: top five Dustin Hoffman films, top five Gerry and Sylvia Anderson shows, top five sweets that come in jars, etc.

For us readers only, Rob categorizes his all-time, top five most memorable split-ups. He was 12 or 13 when Alison Ashworth ended their six-hour courtship for another boy. The following year, he broke off a three-month relationship with Penny Hardwick, a nice girl who rebuffed Rob's hormonal advances and as soon as he dumped her, devastated him by having sex with one of Rob's classmates. He was 17 when he pried away Jackie Allen from her perfect relationship for three weeks. The one he never got over was Charlie Nicholson, a college lover of two years whose beauty and airs intimidated him until she ended things. Rob found a kindred spirit at age 25 named Sarah Kendrew and stayed with her for two years out of loneliness until she met someone. The decision of his girlfriend Laura Lydon to move out doesn't make the list, apparently.

Laura was, is, a lawyer, although when I met her she was a different kind of lawyer from the one she is now: then, she worked for a legal aid firm (hence, I guess, the clubbing and the black leather motorcycle jacket). Now, she works for a City law firm (hence, I guess, the restaurants and expensive suits and the disappearance of the spiky haircut and a previously unrevealed taste for weary sarcasm) not because she underwent any kind of political conversion, but because she was made redundant and couldn't find any legal aid work. She had to take a job that paid about forty-five grand a year because she couldn't find one that paid under twenty; she said this was all you need to know about Thatcherism, and I suppose she had a point. She changed when she got the new job. She was always intense, but, before, the intensity had somewhere to go: she could worry about tenants' rights, and slum landlords, and kids living in places without running water. Now she's just intense about work--how much she has, the pressure she's under, how she's doing, what the partners think of her, that kind of stuff. And when she's not being intense about work, she's being intense about why she shouldn't be intense about work, or this kind of work, anyway.

Newly single, Rob throws himself into a reorganization of his record collection (switching from alphabetical to autobiographical, filing his one-thousand album collection in the order he purchased them in). Dick and Barry drag him to a club to hear an American folk singer named Marie LaSalle, as lost and single in London as Rob is in his own neighborhood; Rob develops a crush on Marie that goes unrequited only so long. He touches base with Liz, a mutual friend of Laura's, and learns that his ex has moved in with Ian, their obnoxious former neighbor. In her talks with Laura, though, Liz has learned things about Rob that places him firmly in the "arsehole" category.

I do not know what, precisely, Laura said, but she would have revealed at least two, maybe even all four, of the following pieces of information:

1. That I slept with somebody else while she was pregnant.

2. That my affair contributed directly to her terminating the pregnancy.

3. That, after the abortion, I borrowed a large sum of money from her and have not yet repaid any of it.

4. That, shortly before she left, I told her I was unhappy in the relationship, and I was kind of sort of maybe looking around for someone else.

Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unless any circumstantial (in other words, context) can be regarded as mitigating. And before you judge, although you have probably already done so, go away and write down the worst four things you have done to your partner, even if--especially if--your partner doesn't know about them. Don't dress these things up, or try to explain them; just write them down, in a list, in the plainest language possible. Finished? OK, so who's the arsehole now?

Rob's lists help him through his breakup with Laura in one way, at least. He endeavors to contact each of his all-time top five most memorable split-ups to find closure. Maybe people can change: Dick stuns everyone by meeting an adorable young woman named Anna Moss, while Barry's musical delusions are answered when his seeking-work ad is finally answered and he becomes the front man of Sonic Death Monkey (née Barrytown). Distraught when he pesters Laura into admitting that she's had sex with Ian, Rob ends up on the invitation list for her father's funeral. Reconciliation seems likely, but the common denominator in all Rob's failures is still staring at him.

2. (Seventh day, bed, afterward.)

"You really don't expect me to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because what purpose would it serve? I could describe every second of every time, and there weren't that many of them, and you'd be hurt, but you still wouldn't understand the first thing about anything that mattered."

"I don't care. I just want to know."

"Want to know what?"

"What it was like."

She huffs. "It was like sex. What else could it be like?"

Even this answer I find hurtful. I had hoped it wouldn't be like sex at all; I had hoped that it would be like something much more boring or unpleasant, instead.

"Was it like good sex or was it like bad sex?"

"What's the difference?"

"You know the difference."

"I never asked you how your extracurricular activities went."

"Yes, you did. I remember. 'Have a nice time, dear?'"

"It was a rhetorical question. Look, we're OK now. We've just had a nice time. Let's leave it at that."

"OK, OK. But the nice time we've just had ... was it nicer, as nice, or less nice than the nice times you were having a couple of weeks ago?"

She doesn't say anything.

Rob Fleming is not the ideal man you'd want to take a phone call from, hang out with and best of luck if you fell in love with him. But he is a real person and someone I know well. I'd like to think Rob is the sort of non-alcoholic, non-druggie, smart, witty and immature male in his mid-twenties to mid-thirties, "keeping my options open," terrified of commitment and embittered of opportunities that always seem to present themselves to other people, but in reality, his self-obsession occurs across age and even across gender. The chief reason to read the novel is Nick Hornby's exceedingly good taste in records, books and films and his wonderful ear for dialogue (and monologue).

But I want to see Clara, Charlie's friend, who's right up my street. I want to see her because I don't know where my street is; I don't even know what part of town it's in, which city, which country, so maybe she'll enable me to get my bearings. And it'll be interesting, too, to see what street Charlie thinks I live on, whether it's the Old Kent Road or Park Lane. (Five women who don't live on my street, as far as I know, but would be very welcome if they ever decided to move into my area: the Holly Hunter of Broadcast News; the Meg Ryan of Sleepless In Seattle; a woman doctor I saw on the telly once, who had lots of long frizzy hair and carved up a Tory MP in a debate about embryos, although I don't know her name and I've never been able to find a pinup of her; Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story; Valerie Harper in TV series Rhoda. These are women who talk back, women with a mind of their own, women with snap and crackle and pop ... but they are also women who seem to need the love of a good man. I could rescue them. I could redeem them. They could make me laugh, and I could make them laugh, maybe, on a good day, and we could stay in and watch one of their films or TV programs or embryo debates on video and adopt disadvantaged children together and the whole family could play soccer in Central Park.)

This paragraph is nearly verbatim from my dinner interview with the author.

It's my thesis that the majority of authors are married or have been with their current partners for over ten years. I'd add that a lot of authors regardless of status are simply not comfortable with being brutally honest about dating. Nick Hornby is and so is High Fidelity, which is honest, tough, funny, sensitive. Adapted to film in 2000, the screenplay by D.V. DeVincentis & Steve Pink & John Cusack relocated the story to Chicago but kept much of Hornby's dialogue intact. Though one of my favorite comedies, the "romance" is really between Rob (John Cusack) and Barry (Jack Black), not Rob and Laura (Iben Hjejle). The music and supporting cast (Todd Louiso as Dick, Joan Cusack as Liz, Lisa Bonet as Marie LaSalle, Tim Robbins as Ian, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Charlie, Lili Taylor as Sarah and Bruce Springsteen as himself) are peerless.

[Andy Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the funniest and most relatable novels I've ever read. Utterly brilliant!

[Lisa Findley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Top Five Reasons to Read This Book:
1) Offers multiple opportunities to fall off your chair laughing.
2) Draws entirely convincing characters making stupid decisions and dealing with the repercussions.
3) Reminds you of all sorts of artists you must check out further.
4) Answers the "what if" questions of past relationships with horrifying clarity.
5) Satirizes but ultimately validates top-five lists.

[Samadrita · Rating 4 out of 5]

High Fidelity is several things at once.
It is a specimen of guylit (I just invented the term yes) - romance and single life explained from the point of view of a man. And we have so few of those.
It is a humorous reflection on life and its many failings.
And lastly, it is the tale of a Brit singleton in his mid thirties who is unrelentingly firm in his reluctance to grow into a man.
A man who is so caught up in his fantasies of the ultimate love one is destined to end up with, that he ignores the woman who truly cares for him and consequently ends up losing her.
So the novel begins with our protagonist, Rob Fleming, listing the 5 major break-ups of his life which either hurt him too much or ended up changing him as a person for good. And he takes vicious pleasure in informing the reader that Laura, the woman who just left him, doesn't make the top 5, doesn't even come close.
How could you not get sucked into a book which begins on such a promising note?

An owner of a dingy vinyl record shop named Championship Vinyl, Rob and his two employee-cum-sidekicks Dick and Barry stumble through the maze of life, more often than not clueless about what they are doing.
They debate merits and demerits of obscure bands and music artists and are generous in their display of disdain for the ones who love their Beatles, Billy Joel, Tina Turner, Elton John and the usuals. And these hilarious conversations centering around mundane things like tv shows, movies, music and women lend the plot much of its frivolity and humour. Especially Barry, who is described by Rob as a 'snob obscurantist', makes you laugh uncontrollably with his habit of belittling everything, his sneaky tactics of selling records of artists no one has heard of and his interactions with Dick.
And so the plot meanders through the zigzagging life of Rob, touches briefly upon the lives of all the women with whom he had been in love at some point of time and settles on his on-and-off relationship with Laura.

High Fidelity comes as close to portraying single life and romance as it actually is and not in the larger-than-life Hollywood rom-comish way. It talks about the things we all do in relationships - how we decide how much to reveal to the other person. How our feelings for a person waver time and again and how we often falter, unable to decide what we want. How we hurt the other person in the process. How we realize how precious a relationship was only after it has ended. And more importantly how we are ever afraid of making that feared transformation - be it from girl to woman or boy to man.

Nick Hornby's debut novel is a charming creation - it is like a music record by an artist you may not have heard of but you can relate to the music, nonetheless.
And you can't help but want to play the record all over again.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the only Nick Hornby book I've read, and it seemed like a good introduction to the genre I imagine must be called "dick lit." I read it on a plane to the West Coast, and it was the perfect thing: started at take-off, finished just before landing, this had the perfect proportions of light and engaging for 30,000 feet. Ultimately, I found it sort of silly and empty and I had a hard time choosing between two and three stars, but I thought I'd give it a break here, because even though it wasn't funny like B Jones, it was a lot more culturally accessible (I don't remember what kind of music Ms. J liked, but I'll bet it was bad).

After all, it's only dick lit, and it served its purpose, which was to preoccupy me while I suffered through the torturous experience of flying in an airplane. I sort of liked the formula, and the idea that the boy version of "fairytale romance" isn't meeting Miss Right and riding away together on a handsome stallion, but instead just finally scraping your shit together enough to act a little bit like a grownup in time to avoid permanently alienating the charming girl who's fed up with your tiresome immaturity. Is that the standard male fantasy? Weird.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m honestly shocked this has the moderately high ratings that it has. It was the whiniest, most self-absorbed frat boy prattle I’ve read probably ever. There was no real point, just the protagonist wallowing in his self pity and cluelessness. Combine that with music and pop culture references I knew nothing about and British slang I barely understood, and it was a hard miss for me. I ended up skimming it towards the end once I confirmed it was not going to miraculously transform into a masterpiece.

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 5 out of 5]

2025 update:

So, my friend Ryan has read this book twenty times. That's both impressive and a little concerning. Like you know there are other books, right bud? But I also can't fault him. I think I read it five times (this would make this read numero seis), but I have watched the movie a bunch, and I just rewatched the 2020 version. And it always, always hits home. Because it always feels like this stupid story could be mine. The deeply insufferable music nerdery is a strong factor, obviously, but it's also about growing and learning who you are - which I'm beginning to think is not just a coming of age thing, it's a life-long process. I was a total Rob in my twenties. In my forties, I am a chilled out Rob. Still insane and generally grumpy, still obsessed with the music that gives me life, but more mindful, less judgmental (out loud, anyway) and more curious about how other people go through this weird thing called life (and what their personal soundtrack is, even if it's obnoxious - it's still theirs).

In fact, I am starting to think that this book is about the transition between teenage love and adult love: very similar things that are also completely different in a way that has to be experienced to be understood - and this book chronicles Rob's journey through this weird transition. I've said it before, I think this book is a hopeful one, and I have hope that other Robs all over the world will figure it out eventually. They deserve to be happy, too.

***

November is one of my least favorite months of the year: in Canada, it’s cold, humid and gray all the time, there are no stat holidays to give us a breather and everyone is losing their minds in the manic ramp up to the Holidays. That’s why I usually spend the month re-reading books that make me happy – I think of it as literary self-care and as an antidote to the crippling seasonal affective disorder that turns me into a raccoon every winter. “High Fidelity” has always given me a warm and fuzzy feeling that’s just perfect for my book-hygge binge.

Part of that is how much I relate to Rob. Well, used to relate, I guess: I was basically a Rob in my twenties. I am a music nerd, and to be honest, a bit of a music snob (I can’t control my facial expression at all when someone tells me they’ve never heard of Joe Strummer, and I once cried because a guy I liked told me he preferred the Perfect Circle cover of “Gimme Gimme Gimme” over the Black Flag original…). I am also naturally neurotic, and I used to over-analyse and dissect relationships, conversations and social interactions to death. But worse of all, I used to have this incredibly dumb pattern of falling for a guy’s potential instead of for who he was when we met, which, as you can imagine, never ended well. I broke the pattern eventually, but it wasn’t always a smooth sail. All that to say that I know Rob as if I had written him myself, and watching him try to figure out how everything could have gone so wrong between him and Laura makes me feel like there is hope for the most awkward of us if we are just willing to work on ourselves a bit.

Rob is a record store owner in his mid-thirties, but he’s one of those man-child who hasn’t matured much since his late teens. He spends his days at the shop with his employees, coming up with all kinds of Top 5 lists and being an absolute elitist jerk to people who aren’t as knowledgeable as he is about the Smiths. When his live-in girlfriend Laura leaves him, it plunges his comfortable but lazy life into complete disarray. He decides to try and figure out why he always seems to be getting dumped, and makes a list of his most memorable break ups with the intention to find the women and ask them why they rejected him. We follow him through a very belated coming of age, as he begins to see that he hasn’t exactly been a very good boyfriend to anyone in his life, and that the women may not necessarily be the problem…

I love Rob’s inner monologue, the caustic, self-deprecating but confused and lonely voice of a man who never took the time to understand the women he dated. I also love the way Hornby captures the way music can affect people very deeply: when Rob gets all out of sorts about the Peter Frampton cover, I remembered being moved by similarly ridiculous songs (“I Caught Fire” by the Used: you have my permission to laugh at me for ever) because for one reason or another, they hit a very specific nerve at the weirdest time. The scene still made me laugh, but I think I might have also blushed because I have been through that.

Mr. Hornby’s book is not a literary game-changer, but it’s a refreshing look into the neurosis that accompany modern relationships, our perpetual dissatisfaction with others, our selfish need to be happy at the world’s expense. Rob is more fun to hang out with than Emma Bovary, but both of them have the same issue of wishing their lives was exactly like their fantasies and they act out when that doesn’t happen. Rob, unlike Emma, eventually gets his shit together and one of the things I love most about this book is that it believes in forgiveness and second chances. There is hope and optimism in these pages, and while that might feel naïve at times, it’s also lovely. We all fantasize on what life could be, but we must never lose sight of how life really is, because it’s often much nicer than any wild fantasy we can come up with, and “High Fidelity” is a sweet reminder of that.


I really enjoy the movie, even with the Americanization of everything. John Cusack and Jack Black (“Don’t tell anyone you don’t own Blonde On Blonde, that’s obscene!”, is precisely the sort of obnoxious thing I say) play off each other perfectly and the soundtrack kicks serious ass.

***

The 2020 Hulu adaptation is absolutely amazing! There are many Easter eggs for fans of the movie, the music is obviously beyond fantastic, and Zoë Kravitz is a perfect Rob! I was afraid of what they would do with the character of Barry, but Da'Vine Joy Randolph truly makes the character of Cherise unique, loveable and scary all at once. Hulu sadly won't be making a second season - which seems to be what happens to really great shows lately, and I think it's a real shame because this was a complete delight, and I would have loved to watch their Rob grow and figure out if Mac is really what she wants/needs. If you like the book and/or the movie, don't hesitate for a minute and watch the series!

[[ J o ] · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.

I used to think-and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do-that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all.

I feel like this book was written as a direct response to Bridget Jones's Diary, though I don't know that for sure and I'm too lazy to check the dates. In any case, it is surely a response to all the Chick-Lit that-at the time, and even now-abounds. And at first I was thinking, "hey, this is just Bridget Jones's Diary but with a Penis", but it isn't. It is exactly the same.

The same whingeing. The same horribleness toward people the protagonists want to have sex with. The same horribleness toward the people the protagonists have had sex with. The horribleness toward the protagonist's so-called friends. The same self-serving ridiculousness and not wanting anyone else to be happy because they're not happy. The same whingeing, the same arrogance, the same patheticness. Maybe you could say that Bridget Jones's Diary is this but with a Vagina (but then all the whingeing is fine because having stuff coming out of your vagina once a month that isn't just always blood is really, super annoying, though I can't recall Bridget ever whingeing about Vagina-blood at all...)

Is that the point of these books? To take pathetic people and give them the spotlight because, deep-down, that's all of us? And we never have our voices heard, despite getting drunk every night and shouting our problems out to the night. Are you really like these characters? If you are you should be deeply ashamed and I'm glad you're stuck in a dead-end job and not actually in charge of anything. Stay there, keep your head down, procreate because you don't understand the menstrual cycle or contraception and then die. Please.

I can't work out if the protagonist-whatever his name is, I've forgotten already-is supposed to be horrible, pathetic, whingeing, annoying, perverse-in short, a complete cunt-or not: is this the anti-hero kind of thing? Where we like him because, oh, he's a bit not "normal" (whatever that is)? Bridget was a cunt, too. I hated them both. Is this what people are actually like? What's wrong with people?

This isn't Lad-Lit, or Dick-Lit, or whatever manly spin we have on Chick-Lit this week: it's just Chick-Lit. It hasn't even got a Penis, and Chick-Lit doesn't have a Vagina. It's just people being cunts. With no reference to whatever you think "cunt" actually means or the etymology of the word "cunt", anglo-saxon or Norse or whatever. Just the metaphorical sense of a person being a cunt. You know what I mean.

By the way, I've realised that Love doesn't exist, it's just Fear of being Alone: or it is if you read books like this. I had so many interesting points to make about this book and it was all going to sound like I'd thought long and hard about it, and was making fantastic points and really making you think, and going in to how Love is a construct, and Fear is also a construct so is Love really as unreal as Fear etc but I can't be bothered. I really can't. Why do men have to read this and not read Bridget Jones's Diary? It's exactly the same thing.


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[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched one of my favorite films, the 2000 Stephen Frears adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 book of the same name starring John Cusack. I realized that I had never read the book, so I read it and then watched the movie again.

John Cusack BTW is one of my favorite actors and I loved the faithful adaptation of the book’s protagonist making top five lists.

Top Five John Cusack films:
1. High Fidelity
2. Say Anything
3. Grosse Pointe Blank
4. Runaway Jury
5. Hot Tub Time Machine

Hornby’s High Fidelity is set in London, the film is set in Chicago, but other than that, the movie remains true to the book. Rob Fleming owns a record store that barely make it by but is patronized by a loyal clientele of music aficionados. Rob’s employees, Barry and Dick, join with Rob in music expertise that excludes the normies who only just listen. They make top five lists of everything.

Top Five movies set in Chicago:
1. Blues Brothers
2. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
3. The Untouchables
4. High Fidelity
5. Backdraft

Rob has a set of neurosis that is funny but also relatable. He’s hung up on sex and why girls have broken up with him, brought to the surface by his most recent break up. Laura has left him because she, like everyone, changes but Rob has not. Rob’s biggest problem is that he never got over the breakup with Charlie, a girl who was kind of out of his league, mainly because he lacked confidence.

Rob’s incessant lists, and his reorganization of his extensive record collection is a metaphor for his attempt, often misguided, to organize his own life and for his place amongst those around him.

Top Five songs about break ups:
1. Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Withers
2. Someone Like You – Adele
3. I will always love you – Dolly Parton
4. Give it Away – George Strait
5. If you see her say hello – Bob Dylan

The novel follows Rob’s awkward, quirky attempts to reconcile his ideas about relationships and love with reality and his fringe element, rock star, outsider looking in rejection of mainstream society. Hornby demonstrates his great ability by describing scenes that we can all understand and with much humor.

Ultimately this is about love, relationships and the redemptive qualities of music. Great book.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this wouldn't get near my top five reads this year, it's the best novel I'll ever read featuring top fives. Despite being written only in the mid 90s, it feels a bit dated now in the fact that independent record shops have practically been wiped out. And I don't know how the likes of HMV even manage to survive. The last time I went in a store (this before covid came along) it was almost empty and didn't have that vibe like it used to. Well, that's one thing this novel isn't lacking in, and it isn't just the music but sex and relationships too. In places when it came to the talking of sex, the movie is tame compared to the novel. Bad language too. Someone once said that reading High Fidelity is like listening to a great single where you know it's wonderful from the minute it goes on, and as soon as it's over, you want to hear it again because it makes you feel young, and grown-up, and puts a stupid grin on your face all at the same time. I've no plans to read this again straight away, but it's the sort of book that would absolutely make sense to do so. In Rob, Barry and Dick we have a trio of characters that were great to be in the company of. Together: when Barry can be bothered to get to work on time, they feverishly compile lists of top fives, from Elvis Costello songs, to episodes of Cheers, to bands that will have to be shot come the musical revolution, to name few. But the one that really matters: to Rob anyway, is that all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, brought on by his recent breakup with Laura. Made even worse by the fact she left him for the guy from the upstairs apartment. With record store owner Rob, I doubt I'll come across another character where pop culture seeps into their every sinew, and Hornby captures that lonely feeling of a recent spilt-up, as well as the childishness of adult life with such precision, that I was nodding my head far far more than shaking it. There was such an energy to this that I wish I had read it only in the mornings and not nights, as It was the the literary equivalent to a Red Bull almost. Especially when Barry was on the scene.

[Helena (helinabooks) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unlikable characters can be great, but when the character is the misogynistic, childish, self-pitying, elitist and egocentric kind of unlikeable with absolutely zero character development... that's just too much.

Let me summarise this for you: middle-aged dude gets dumped by his girlfriend for treating her like shit, and instead of moving on like a mature person, he spends the entirety of the novel blaming each and every one of his exes for his crappy life and stalking them. He also feels entitled to determine what Good Music™ is, and he enjoys making fun of people with different taste with his two pals (no wonder why his music shop is not doing well). Oh, and let's not forget that gratuitous biphobic comment in which he basically implies bisexual people are perverts that can give you STDs and compares them to drug-addicts. In the end, he somehow gets back with his girlfriend and is somewhat successful, despite not having learned anything in 245 pages and being the same piece of crap he was at the beginning of the story. The end!

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those feel-good books for people who want to keep their options open and kinda stumble about their lives only to realize they had already made up their minds and are pretty dully okay with it. :)

Does this sound kinda horrible?

Nah... but yeah, kinda, and no, because that means we're all a bit horrible. :)

But that's okay because we all have that music snob in us and we are all horribly geeky about certain things. I happen to love music just as much as Rob in the book and I'm much worse when it comes to my books, but you know what? It's freaking charming. I love it.

Just the way I loved the movie before I knew it was based on this book, I loved it. It was super charming and embarrassing and appropriate and pathetic and downright glorious. All at once.

And I'm a fan. Still am, now that I've read the book. And my only complaint? I need that soundtrack running in the background... OH WAIT! I HAVE SPOTIFY! :) Tee hee!

[Agnieszka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rob runs a record store in London, has two weird sidekicks, creates silly top-five lists of everything and his girlfriend Laura has just finished with him. What more could I say about him ? Well, Rob is thirty-five selfish asshole, pompous snob and a pathetic, emotionally immature loser. But I still like him . And who is immature now, huh ?

Do not worry, I will not treat you now with a tearful story about my ex, though I will tell you about a guy who, if I ever had compiled, in imitation of Rob, list of the most memorable and painful partings in my life, would have taken not only the first place. Actually he would take the whole podium. Piotr, do not let him remain nameless, after all the winner takes it all, so, Piotr was nice and sensitive guy, somehow wonderfully shy and helpless. He was a guy because of whom when we split-up I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn the credits, and the exit sign .

Well, he was a selfish asshole and pathetic loser.
Who said that? Oh, shut up ! My older and more cynical self, I'm not in the mood to listen to you today.

We were wandering around the streets, by whole hours listening to the music, discussing books . Nothing special. And Heaven knows I'm miserably now in my life ... I do not remember if Piotr loved The Smiths, certainly we listened to The Clash, jazz, a bit of blues. Piotr run a record store but nowadays works on the radio, sometimes I come across on his programme and ... it's always nice to hear his voice. Oddly enough, I never thought then he had a radio voice. And really he had .

But let's get back to Rob. Hornby created a bitter - sweet, ironic portrait of lonely and scared man. Rob is a guy with simple solution for everything, with justification for any situation. He is like a kid who believes that life is a movie in which all the others play supporting roles. But because life is neither pop charts nor listeners choice you seldom get what you think you deserve .

Hornby's observations are accurate and witty, spiced with wry humour, and even when Rob feels miserable and has a hard time - this is not any existential drama. And when he finally states that even people with, in his opinion, trashy collection of records, are ok, there is a hope for him yet.

[Suz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This read got me itching to watch John Cusack in the movie form, but I haven’t looked it up yet. It is in the making as a series with the gender of the lead flipped - interesting!

This was an okay read for me, I feel my lack of music knowledge may have not made it a winner for me. Meandering young guy, not knowing what he wants out of life it seemed to me, but he wanted a girl that's for sure. Funny hearing the angsty teenage relationship uncertainty and sexual frustration from a guys point of view as it's usually flipped in the contemporary reads I come across.

In general, the meandering feeling dragged this out for me and I wasn't fussed. Also, choosing the audio version may not have been the wisest choice, I lost interest quite easily.

A modern classic, but not for me. I'm probably just too boring, and not the target audience!

[TheBookWarren · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars — Oh yes, that feeling of grand nostalgia sure is a top-five emotive experience, for me that is.

I began this novel many moons ago and somehow did not finish it! Something I did regularly in my youth, a great book commencer indeed!!!

Turns out that taking the opportunity — at 230am the other night — as I scrounged through old many-multiple-home-relocations — was a smart one. For I located my copy of this classic the-one-that-got-away trope (wait, or is it more.. the classic I-hate-her-I-hate-her-I-miss-her-I-despise-her-I-love-her trope?) and I have to say it outshined even my most optimistic Nostalgic expectations.

Picturing A forlorn Cusack undoubtedly aided the process, but longing-for-Laura is such an enchanting train-wreck that is expertly written in a prose that’s befitting of the arc in a way that is hard to enunciate for some reason.

So many (literal) laugh-out-loud set pieces, an incredibly funny narrator and that magical combination with captivating images and moving passages that partner together to make those majestic-like pages!

Towards the final pages, it did begin to grind away a little slowly and feel a little ‘whiny’ but overall, the movie was a 4 star, The Novel is closer to a 4.50 Star..

[Jr Bacdayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember all those Romantic films or even the hapless Romantic Comedies you’ve seen, the infinitesimal, clichéd and hopelessly repetitive plots? The same guy and gal meet somewhere odd or mildly weird so that things are interesting. Probably a boss and employee type of thing (The Proposal? Go to hell, Ryan Reynolds, you big-mouthed wanker!) Or two people from very far places brought together by kismet or something as appallingly believable (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve got Mail, Philadelphia? Wait, Philadelphia’s about AIDS so it’s has to be mentioned. I’ve got nothing bad to say about Tom Hanks. I used to love you, Meg Ryan.) Or they’re sex friends, friends with benefits, all that modern freedom excuse (Friends With Benefits? No Strings Attached?) Or someone very rich and famous going for someone scrapping-by and morally compromised (Pretty Woman, Maid in Manhattan? No, Maid in Manhattan is pure rubbish. Pretty Woman is the lovable shit. I’d pick Richard Gere over Ralph Fiennes and Julia Roberts over Jennifer Lopez any day. Plus, there’s something more righteous and morally redemptive about loving a hooker than a maid. You know, I don’t really get why the men are always the rich guys going for the hookers and stuff. Is this a sexist thing? Is it? Probably it’s more of men’s domination. You know, wanting submissive women and stuff. Now we’re getting in murky waters. Don’t dare get excited, you feminist! This might be the insane reason why women love The Notebook. Cause, you know, the rich girl is settling for the poor lad, instead of the usual other way around.) Alright, enough examples, you get the drift. So there its exciting cause stuff’s pretty complicated. They meet up, become friends or something because of a certain unfathomable thing happening. Then before long, what-da-ya-know, they fall in love. They don’t care bout nothing but sex, and spending time with each other and stuff, the crazy, bat-shit, rick-rolling, fucked-up shit kinda love. Then as sure as the sun will set, something wrong happens, there’s a problem or trouble and you know the drill. They go separate ways, but somewhere along the line the guy realizes that he loves the gal. And so, it’s the its-amazing-how-writers-are-able-to-think-of-some-new-way-to-propose scene. Always lots of people, always making a big fuss, always saying something like: I’m an idiot because I let you go. (You are an idiotic writer, you slob.) The variances are probably minor details like: asking for marriage (insanely a sure bet), holding a stereo while saying it, change it to flowers, or probably make it rain to be more dramatic, or changing the stupid catch-phrase. So then the girl begins to cry and then they kiss and the end. Fuck you, movies! I mean, we all know they’re shit and they’re outrageously predictable. That they’re as cyclic as women’s cycles, but by Jove, we still watch the shit and feel all gooey and mushy inside. When we come out of that theater we all end up thinking: Someday I’m gonna meet someone and fall in luv. Well, too bad.

You know, these movies are largely responsible for us blokes getting the wrong idea about relationships. Sure, music’s done its bit, but movies are more demonstrative. Take me for example, I’m a wanker. I own up to it because I am. I go out with women and find fault with them, always happens with me. I’m like: she’s not smart enough or her hands are freakishly small, or she looks anemic. I was even once turned off by a girl because “her fingernails look weird”. These are real reasons why I copped-out on someone. I get it I’m an asshole. I’m pretty sure that I can pin it on something the movies led me to believe: perfect love. I’m hell bent on keeping my options open, I never settle for anyone cause someone perfect or better might come and I don’t want to be unavailable when that happens. Sure, I flirt and do the motions. But I’m pretty… not scared, more like stressed by the commitment. Ms. Perfect might walk through that door, and I won’t let (name of the very nice girl I’m out with) get in the way. When I read this book, the portrayal by Nick Hornby was so disturbingly familiar that I actually felt déjà vu on various occasions. Okay, I’m not as daft as that Rob Fleming bloke, but I’m pretty much made of the same worries. I totally get the part where Rob says he cheated on Laura because she might die. Some men do things for preemptive measures. Guys can break up with girls just because they think the girl might break up with them. And being the dumper is so much better than being the dumpee, so they do it just in case. Stupid, huh? But it really happens. Another thing is attainable women losing glamour. Say, you see a gal you like; you’re really into her and stuff. When she’s impossible to attain she’s more attractive. When you find out that maybe she likes you back, maybe she’s interested. My reaction would be to feel less attracted to her. I dunno why, but that’s true, in my case. And well, in Fleming’s case, when he finds out that Laura wanted him back, he immediately evolves from being depressed to moving on and finding some else, Ms. Perfect. I’m not saying all guys are the same. We’re all different, but there are also lots of similarities. We all are bound by certain tendencies like most women have certain similarities as well. I’m telling you, you wanna figure out the closest thing going through your man’s head then read this book.

Okay, maybe not all men are as suffocated by these tendencies. You know FRIENDS? There’s a character there named Ross, Ross loves to get married. There are Ross kinda guys. These are the types of guys born for relationships. They’re not scared at all by commitment and feel right at home in bondage. I’m not one of those. I have a friend like this, loves getting into long relationships and is always feeling very happy about it. Like Phil, who meets Jackie and then they break up cause of Rob then back together again to start a family. Like Ross, who gets married 3 times and gets divorced by each one yet still walks along the path of the holy matrimony. Maybe these are the kinds of guys women want; I think they’re pretty rare. I think they’re really weird. Then there are the Joey kinda guys, the players, scared stiff by commitment and marriage and love. Just guys looking for sex and fun, hopping from one bed to another, never finding that woman they wanna be with permanently. Why? Cause they don’t even want one. Permanence is like poison to these guys. Then we have the, badum-tss, the Chandlers. These guys start out like Joey, scared by commitment and all that crap. But along the way, they either trip and wake up or they meet a Monica, a game changer. I don’t think they’re changed from Joey to Ross overnight. No, Chandler was still very jumpy and scared when he was with Monica, but he worked for it and understood that there are things you sacrifice if you want an adult relationship to work. Shit! What am I saying? Take these things with a grain of salt, cause I don’t really know what I’m doing. But you know what? I always figured Chandler to be the loser among the guys. Now, I know different. Cause Ross was a natural, he was born to wed, Joey’s gonna end up an old man living on a shack by himself, and Chandler was the only guy who really worked for the relationship he had. Bloody Hell, I hope to be a Chandler some day, cause I know I ain’t a Ross, and Joey’s a pretty grim option.

Alright, I confess, I’m only 19 years old. So what? So you say I shouldn’t waste my time on love and relationships and the likes. I agree, I should focus more on my studies. But you know, it’s like a fad, romance is the thing that makes people feel jumpy-joyous and top-of-the-world happy. I know, it’s also responsible for massive amounts of suicides and murders. But, bloody hell, it’s the thing that makes us feel human. Also, I can’t seem to shake girls out of my head. Humans are pretty pathetic creatures, huh? It’s like this love or romance thingy is our gasoline and without it we can’t go anywhere in our lives. So if this is gonna adversely affect my future, how can you expect me not to worry about it? I gotta practice you know. So that when the time comes, I’ll do it right. Plus, I have other reasons. Heh heh. Oh, what a bunch of bollocks!

I must seem pretty well about, huh? Sure, I read and review lots of complicated books and stuff. Sure I go to one of top universities in my country. Sure, I’ve watched hundreds of romantic movies. Plus, I recycle. But that doesn’t mean shit about knowing anything about this love and relationship thing. I’m as stupid as a guy somewhere wearing a Guns n’ Roses t-shirt, sporting a Mohawk, coked out of his mind. Thankfully, I read this book. Here’s what my shackled guy’s brain managed to pick up: It’s never going to be as perfect as I imagined it to be, yet somehow it will work, if you make it work.

You ever heard the saying: “You don’t love someone because they’re perfect; you love them despite their imperfections.”? Well, I guess that needs a little elaboration. I guess you love them less because of their imperfections, but at the end of the day, you love them still.

Well, that was me giving my sophomoric thoughts about love and relationships and High Fidelity. What can I say? Nice try. Close, but no cigar. See you around.

[Chavelli Sulikowska · Rating 4 out of 5]

In times of stress people resort to different coping mechanisms – some do yoga, some do wine, some smoke cigarettes …Rob Fleming, 36, recently separated from his girlfriend and in the midst of some sort of mid-thirties crisis, reorganises his vinyl records collection. While this might usually restore his equilibrium, this time, his crisis is just too big; and he is instead, led to reorganise all his ex-girlfriends. Hence the reader is drawn into an obsessive evaluation of Rob’s previous relationships, and this makes for a very funny and emotionally interesting journey!

Rob is thorough, he starts right at the beginning, his first love interest when he was twelve that lasted about three hours – he was shattered. One never fully recovers from that first burn, eh? He moves on, methodically analysing other failed relationships, picking them apart, diagnosing the effects of how he got to where he miserably is. What does he discover? Well, that he is a commit – a – phobe for one thing! A common ailment amongst men. And while he is not alone, his escapism and methods of dealing with his fear of hunkering down with a girl for the long haul – through the good and the bad, seem unusual! “Is it so wrong, wanting to be at home with your record collection? It’s not like collecting records is like collecting stamps, or beermats, or antique thimbles. There’s a whole world in here, a nicer, dirtier, more violent, more peaceful, more colourful, sleazier, more dangerous, more loving world than the world I live in; there is history, and geography, and poetry, and countless other things I should have studied at school, including music.”

This is a very funny novel. I haven’t seen the movie version, but I imagine John Cusack did a brilliant job. As a character, Rob is both infuriating and endearing. We appreciate his will for self reflection and unashamed honesty if nothing else….”Me, I’m unmarried – at the moment as unmarried as it’s possible to be – and I’m the owner of a failing record shop. It seems to me that if you place music (and books, probably, and films, and plays, and anything that makes you feel) at the centre of your being, then you can’t afford to sort out your love life, start to think of it as the finished product. You’ve got to pick at it, keep it alive and in turmoil, you’ve got to pick at it and unravel it until it all comes apart and you’re compelled to start all over again. Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship. Maybe Al Green is directly responsible for more than I ever realized….”

He can be precocious and self-indulgent, at the same time lacking confidence and conviction. A memorable example is the dinner party scene: “I sit there like a pudding, feeling like a child who’s been allowed to stay up late for a special treat. We eat stuff I don’t know about, and either Nick or Barney comments on each bottle of wine we drink apart from the one I brought…”

Rob is also what I refer to as a “wobbler” (yeah, you know who you are!) I can’t stand wobblers (I know I’m sorry, I’m just one of those not on the fence, decisive people!!!) Stand up straight and make a decision, please! Which, ultimately Rob does when he finally realises that it is futile to “fear fear” – if we live in chronic hesitation to step one way or the other, we never move forward and we also risk missing out on life changing opportunities – so he stops “wobbling,” feels the fear and ‘grows up!’

Hornby’s writing, and capacity for witty and quirky dialogue is exceptional. He is highly original. I can imagine this novel in the hands of many other authors could have resulted in an uncomfortable literary mess. Written more than two decades ago, and couched very much in 90s popular culture, this novel still rings true today. We might not be listening to as much Simply Red (thank god!!!) or wearing denim with denim (unforgivable) and worrying about the Y2K bug (yes, it was a real fear), but we are still fumbling through relationships, hooking up and then breaking up, getting hangovers and having one night stands, enjoying live music (at least we were before corona virus, now we live stream instead), regretting and reflecting, loving and losing. And hey, thanks to hipsters we’re also spinning more vinyl records now than ever before!

[Glenn Sumi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh yeah. An easy five stars. Laugh out loud funny, painfully true, insightful look at a man-boy’s road to maturity. Review to come, after I sample some of his Top 5 song suggestions on Spotify.