This book embodies the term "First-world problems". While it raises some interesting questions, and supplies ultimately inadequate answers to them, this is definitely a book which could only be written by someone from a privileged perspective.

Katie is a thoroughly modern woman. She supports her nuclear family as a physician. Her husband, David, is a stay-at-home companion who cooks and tends the kids and half-heartedly writes. He is cranky and angry (a familiar state for many men in today's marriages) and Katie finds herself unhappy enough to wind up in bed with another man. After Katie asks for a divorce, David refuses and makes a sudden about-face, becoming an understanding, kind, thoughtful man overnight. He challenges the entire family to not just give lip-service to their progressive philosophy but to actually walk the walk, by giving away some of their possessions, offering their home as shelter to homeless waifs, and encouraging the family to right their past wrongs.

I strongly identify with Katie's dilemma. There is no lonelier place to be than trapped in a stale marriage with someone you no longer have anything in common with. Yet, when David attempts to become the sort of husband all women claim to want, Katie finds it irritating and annoying. I feel her. I would react the same way. And when David's journey toward goodness becomes stifling and sanctimonious, Katie's increasingly desperate and ineffectual attempts to bring David back to his old self backfire in often hilarious and always realistic ways.

Nick Hornby has created a fully realized picture of middle-class morality and hypocrisy which forces the reader to see how far we are from living our ideals.

Good book, read it awhile ago so I don't really remember much about it, other than I liked it.

Hornby is a great writer though. His characters are really good and the story evolves really well. I remember that nearing the end of the book I got real mad at Hornby because I thought that he had betrayed me. He had written this whole book making me feel like I could do so much better then at the end he started to rationalize all of my failures. But then right at the end he pulled me right back with a punch in the gut. It was great. He's good at manipulating your emotions.


Quotes:

"I think I was troubled by the lack of quirks and kinks in my autobiography."

"That is another chamber of my heart that shows no electrical activity - the chamber that used to flicker into life when I saw a film that moved me, or read a book that inspired me, or listened to music that made me want to cry. I closed that chamber myself, for all the usual reasons. And now I seem to have made a pact with some philistine devil: if I don't attempt to re-open it, I will be allowed just enough energy and optimism to get through a working day without wanting to hang myself."

"This is what it feels like: you walk in to a room and the door locks behind you and you spend a little while panicking, looking around for a key or a window or something, and then when you realize that there is no way out, you start to make the best of what you've got. You try out the chair, and you realize that it's actually not uncomfortable, and there's a TV, and a couple of books, and there's a fridge stocked with food. You know, how bad can it be? And me asking for a divorce was the panic, but very soon I get this stage of looking around at what I've got. And what I've got turns out to be two lovely kids, a nice house, a good job, a husband who doesn't beat me and presses all the right buttons on the lift...I can do this, I think. I can live this life."

"You see, what I really want...is the opportunity to rebuild myself from scratch."

"I'm a liberal's worst nightmare...I think everything you think. But I'm going to walk it like I talk it."

"You don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone."

"I don't care what gets done. I just don't want to die feeling that I never tried. I don't believe in Heaven, or anything. But I want to be the kind of person that qualifies for entry anyway."

"I wanted someone wise to teach me how to do the things I needed to know to survive the rest of my life."

"I can see the appeal of born-again Christianity. I suspect that it's not the Christianity that is so alluring; it's the rebirth. Because who wouldn't wish to start all over again."

"If we don't live rich, beautiful lives, does it mean we've screwed up? Is it our fault? And when David dies, will someone say that he too lived a rich, beautiful life? Is that the life I want to stop him from leading?"

"I can do this. I can live this life. I can, I can. It's a spark I want to cherish, a splutter of life in the flat battery; but just at the wrong moment I catch a glimpse of the night sky behind David and I can see that there's nothing out there at all."

She's a good doctor, a good mom, a good wife...well, maybe not that last one, considering she's having an affair. Events take a turn when David stops being "The Angriest Man In Holloway" and begins to be "good" with the help of his spiritual healer/guru,
DJ GoodNews.

Katie isn't sure if this is a deeply-felt conversion, a brain tumor—or David's most brilliantly vicious manipulation, because she's finding it more and more difficult to live with David the “do gooder”—and with herself.

A selection of reviews/responses

1. Alan Coren could never bring himself to write a bad review. When confronted by a dreadful Jeffrey Archer book (adjective redundant) he merely wrote that "fans of Jeffrey Archer will enjoy this latest offering." I'm sure fans of Nick Hornby will enjoy this one.

2. Everyone has one good book in them. Unfortunately for anyone reading this book, Nick Hornby had already written his good book. (Fever Pitch in case you're interested.)

3. A dreary and uninspired re-telling of Mary Poppins. Stick with Mary Poppins. It's faster, funnier and succeeds in telling us something about the human condition.

4. Starts badly, tails off a bit in the middle and the less said about the ending, the better. *But otherwise quite commendable.

5. I blame contracts and deadlines. This is a thin idea that would surely have ended in the waste basket if there were no contractual obligations to complete a manuscript.

6. Write about what you know is good advice. Which is why Fever Pitch is good and this is wearisome.

7. The one strength of this book is that it exposes the false premises of the metropolitan lifestyle. Unfortunately Hornby has no understanding of how other people live.

8. Middle class tosh. Entirely dreary but mostly harmless.

9. Very much the adult book that Michael Morpurgo would write if he lived in London. Shares the same sense of a long-winded school assembly where you are told right from wrong by someone who has less idea than you do.

10. The blurb comments by other writers (on the cover) smack of the sort of off-the-shelf-ness that suggests that they haven't read the novel. I cannot connect them with the contents of the book.

11. I'm sure Mariella Frostrup would think it deep and revealing of the human condition.

12. Reminded of how the potentially interesting Reese Witherspoon film "Wild" was destroyed by the script.

* Stolen from Blackadder script. Too good and apt not to use occasionally.

Nick Hornby tackles suburbia, white liberalism, marriage, and life according to the Gospels in a secular world in his excellent book "How to Be Good". While it's been a few years since I read this, the book resonated with me. I'm pretty sure, at the time, I was re-evaluating my status as a devout Christian, and the question of how to be good in a world that, occasionally, favored the bad was foremost on my mind. When I read this I had just entered my 30s, and my 20s were rough. I had spent a lot of my 20s getting drunk, going to strip clubs and raves, trying (unsuccessfully) to have one-night stands, and taking pleasure in pissing off friends and family. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, an asshole. It was right around this time, too, that I reconnected with some friends who invited me to a Bible study. Unlike many Christians, these guys weren't judgmental, boorish, or arrogant about their Christianity. They were pretty open and honest about it, and they knew the kind of lifestyle I was leading. They didn't seem to care. Long story short: I became a Christian. I've had my ups and downs (I'm currently in a "down" phase), but I've always tried to live by Christ's Golden Rule. Hornby encapsulates a 21st-century philosophical and existential dilemma: How can we be good when so many things around us are tempting us to be bad?

Protagonist Katie Carr became a doctor to “do some good in the world,” and she sees herself as a good person. However, she is unhappy in her marriage and is frustrated that she cannot help some of her patients. Her husband, David, writes an “angry man” column and she feels he treats her with apathy and even contempt. They have two school-age children. She tells David she wants a divorce. Then something unexpected happens. After visiting a healer who has taken the name GoodNews, David seems to become a new person. He is now on a mission to make the world a better place, such as getting his neighbors to take in homeless children, handing out his (and his wife’s) money to the poor, and giving away his children’s toys.

It is narrated by Katie and filled with sarcastic humor. When her husband changes, it forces Katie to examine what it means to be good, especially given that she feels uncomfortable with his actions, which, of course, fall into the category of “good acts.” It invites the reader to consider what it means to be a good person. I found this book engrossing and read it in one sitting. My only disappointment is the ending. This is my first book by Nick Hornby, but it won’t be my last.

Mi primer Hornby ¡Hurra! Gracias Kitty, gracias Núria excelente recomendación. Ya tengo 31 Canciones en la repisa.

¿Por dónde comenzar?

Será por mi absoluta identificación con el mundo reflexivo de la Doctora Katie Carr.

En su mente, es decir donde sucede toda la novela, soy ella. No en sus acciones y decisiones, y definitivamente no soy ella en el rumbo que toma su vida ni en su destino final, yo de la primera página en adelante hubiese derrotado por caminos bien distintos.

Pero a donde quiera que vaya, suceda lo que suceda en el mundo exterior y con los demás –cambien milagrosamente o no– yo como Katie seguiría atrapada en mi mente, en mi autocomplacencia, en mi autocrítica, en la eterna reflexión, en la duda, en la insaciable búsqueda de reafirmación, en el escepticismo, en el miramiento del eterno “y si…”, en la necesidad de cumplir con estándares pero escapando a los clichés, en la manía de adelantarme hacia la idealización, en saltarme por completo la realidad presente y esa necesidad de ser más: más aceptada, más correcta, más feliz, más perfecta, más buena y esa irreducible sensación de que por más que lo intento algo no encaja, algo no está bien

“Porque la gente como yo siempre está pensando que está equivocada; casi siempre está segura de que va a ir al infierno, por mucho que en grandísima medida sus pensamientos de vigilia vayan encaminados a la consecución de lo contrario”.

Como ella, yo me estrello contra la terrible ironía que nace de tanto fermentar ponderaciones, juicios, opciones, pensamientos y decisiones porque

“A veces hemos de ser juzgados por nuestros actos únicos.”

Como comentó Núria “tiene muchas capas” esta novela.

Crisis de la mediana edad “En cierto modo he perdido el norte y eso me asusta.”; complicaciones de existenciales sobre la vida matrimonial “…como si dormir en la misma cama fuera lo único que importa en el hecho de estar casados.”; sobre la vida familiar “Los rituales familiares se asemejan a esas flores del desierto increíblemente resistentes, capaces de florecer en los terrenos más inhóspitos.”; sobre la comunicación en pareja “El cinismo es nuestro lenguaje común compartido.”

Todo comienza como una anécdota más bien gastada sobre la vida en el matrimonio y sus momentos menos amables.

A pesar de esa simpleza es tratado con gusto de escalpelo … “…de súbito me asaltó la nauseabunda sensación de lo bien que conocía ese silencio, su forma y su tacto y todos sus mordaces recovecos.”

El tacto del silencio.

Que lance la primera piedra quien no conoce el tacto del silencio en pareja. ¡Que profundamente dolorosa y literal es esa metáfora!

Para entonces creí que me encontraba ante un largo pesado y doloroso drama. Y lo es. Sólo que se pone tan absurdamente divertido y es delicioso.

Poco a poco la historia comienza a adquirir matices de globalización de cierto modo toda la novela es una tremenda cachetada. ¿A qué?

Hornby responde en una entrevista: "Si tuviera que resumirla de esa manera (y no es que quiera hacerlo) diría que muestra el reconocimiento liberal de las contradicciones del liberalismo."

Yo lo reduciría a semántica.

Ser buenos y tener una buena vida no significan lo mismo, y querer que ambas cosas coexistan en la praxis definitivamente producirá una antinomia moral en la psique.

En castellano, por ejemplo, no puedes pretender que tener aire a acondicionado es bueno para el planeta. Y así mil millones de ejemplos de cómo lo que queremos tiene un alto precio social.

Ser buenos no garantiza una buena vida y para tener una buena vida no es necesario ser buenos (eso es muy evidente, si no pregúntenle a los narcos dueños de la mansión en Desierto de los Leones en México que tenían hasta tigres albinos, dos panteras, un león.. etc etc etc)

Es una crítica a querer demasiado supongo o una crítica al no saber lo que quieres, a la ambigüedad de pretenciosas expectativas.

O te dedicas a ser bueno según algún manual y pagas el precio de ello, o te dedicas a tener una buena vida y pagas el precio de ello.

Pero ambas cosas en sentido absoluto como que es mucha soberbia pretenderlo. Y una imbecilidad creer que no tiene precio.

Y hasta perece que lanzara yo un sermón.

Pero es que creo que ese es conflicto nuclear de la novela. Queremos tanto, tanto, tanto así que somos obscenos.

Queremos casa, una pareja romántica sexy dulce colaboradora comprometida que nos entienda que vaya en nuestra dirección, queremos hijos modelos bellos inteligentes sociales sanos, queremos un trabajo bien remunerado reconocido con categoría y para colmo queremos ser buenos.

Queremos que cesen las guerras, queremos que los ancianos sean amados, queremos justicia en el mundo, el fin de la violencia, erradicar el hambre, que no hayan más locos, enfermos vagabundos ni niños ni mascotas abandonados en la calle.

Queremos eso. ¿Quién no? ¿Quién quiere lo contrario?

Lo queremos desde la comodidad de una buena vida, en el centro de una buena sala, frente a una buena comida ante un buen televisor al lado de una buena pareja. (Yo quiero eso)

O por lo menos, mínimo, que todo eso del hambre la enfermedad la guerra y la locura estén bien lejos de mi calle de enfrente.

Y además, no queremos ser hipócritas. Hablo de mi y de las y los Katie del mundo.

No queremos reconocer que queremos eso y la buena casa. Y que, que broma no?, la buena casa no es compatible con indigentes en la puerta a los cuales darles una ayuda.

Supongo que es una critica la vida fatua y pretenciosa del “suburbio”. Critica nuestras expectativas y el formato según tomamos las decisiones de nuestra vida.

Yo decidí no intentar ni en lo más mínimo ser buena genéricamente hablando. Prefiero encontrar ser buena en algo y ser feliz con ello.

Y si eso choca moralmente con ciertas tristes realidades del mundo, pues qué se le hará? tocará dejarme meter en el gueto de los cínicos.

Porque los seres humanos disque civilizados no podemos andarnos sin etiquetar y clasificarlo todo, sin separar lo bueno de lo malo, ¿será porque no podemos conciliar nuestras contradicciones, nuestras expectativas de vida privada con nuestras expectativas de vida colectiva?

Al fin y al cabo, también quiero que los demás sean felices… pero que trabajen y se esfuercen por ello. Que ellos (todos, los demás, incluyendo a mi pareja) sean buenos para algo y encuentren su felicidad allí.

¿Pero para qué tanto moralismo y evaluación si lo que me parece más importante de la novela es otra cosa?

Es ser Katie Carr y escucharme/leerme/darme cuenta de que

“Es el acto mismo de leer lo que echo en falta, la oportunidad de apartarme más y más del mundo hasta hallar por fin un poco de espacio, un poco de aire no viciado, un aire que no haya sido respirado ya un millar de veces por mi familia.”… “Y no es sólo la lectura sino el hecho de escuchar, de escuchar algo distinto a los programas de televisión de mis hijos y la cantinela pía de mi marido y la cháchara la cháchara la cháchara del interior de mi cabeza…”

Porque al leer ya no estoy atrapada ni en mi mente ni en el mundo ni en las dicotomías entre lo bueno y lo malo.

Leyendo ya no hay autocomplacencia, autocrítica, reflexión, duda, búsqueda de reafirmación, escepticismo, necesidad de cumplir con estándares, escapar a los clichés, manía de adelantarme hacia la idealización… etc, etc, etc.

Leyendo no me siento perdida pero si soy absolutamente inubicable.

Al final la novela me dejó tan profundamente deprimida, me tomó un par de días si quiera comentar lo triste que quedé.

Katie… pobrecita ¡Qué bueno que no soy ella!

Hornby dice: "Creo que la gente se ha fijado en dilemas morales que no era mi intención plantear; el libro acaba con una imagen desoladora de la vida familiar, y sin embargo uno o dos críticas que me he permitido leer sugieren que el libro acaba con Katie redescubriendo la cultura, como si el libro tuviera un final reconfortante. No lo tiene."

La disfruté infinitamente porque me agarró como una buena obra de teatro de esas que producen catarsis, que desatan reacciones internas y en algo, por mísero que sea, te toca y te cambia.

I started reading this on the subway ride home after I'd had several drinks and very little food, and I thought it was pretty funny. Unfortunately, my sober reading of it was much less enthusiastic. It was depressing and odd, instead of whimsical and quirky which I think was the intention. I read High Fidelity a long time ago, it was fine, cute, sweet, and as in this book, I like Hornby's scenes, which can be almost perfectly set: a chicken dinner with a miserable family and its two outcast guests can glow. But it's the story around these lovely scenes that drags, and the confused narrator who steps out of the scenes that mars them with aimless commentary. Humor is subjective, and this just didn't hit the mark with me.

4.5 Incredibly introspective stars Not recommended for those who are looking to escape

This was the first Nick Hornby book I've ever read. I've seen some of his films, and I enjoyed them a great deal!

I thought this book was extraordinary!!! I would normally be quick to shout "what does a man know about a woman", "how dare he write in the first person, from a woman's point of view", but Hornby is spot on! He must be a very perceptive person.

I loved the tone, the British sarcasm and wit of the liberal, middle class doctor, Katie Carr, who's trying to figure out how she's ended up in a loveless marriage, with an over-bearing, enraged husband, with kids who aren't too bad, but whom she sometimes doesn't like that much. Basically, she's having a mid-life crisis, where she doesn't know what's the point to anything, or if there is a point. She's having an affair, after twenty years in a monogamous relationship, but she's not very enthused or sees the point of that either.

And then, things change. More exactly, her husband changes. There's a case of be careful what you wish for, when David, Katie's husband, becomes a very altruistic, mild, "save the world" type of person, who no longer finds everything and everyone aggravating and worth of his disdain. There is a case of better the devil you know, when Katie has to adapt to different changes, that take even more energy. There is a lot of doubt, some outbursts, confused kids thrown in the mix. Will Katie and David's marriage survive? Is surviving enough? But is giving up and walking away the answer?

I suppose this book is not for everyone. While there are some funny moments, it's a very realistic, therefore dry and depressing account of a middle aged couple and their struggles. But it is extremely well written, it's very introspective and I suspect one could draw lots of conclusions from it.

Great book, although depressing!

This book made me realise how important it is to read a book's customer reviews before committing to read it. There's so many novels I want to read, and just not enough time to read all of them! If I'd done my research on this book I would have (hopefully) heeded the warnings about the lack of plot, the insufficient ending and the indifference a lot of readers feel towards the characters.

I look for books which completely draw me into their world, where I get so drawn into the character's life and their problems that before I know it I'm on the last page and genuinely care about the conclusion of the whole thing... While reading this I kept finding myself being very conscious of the fact that the author was trying to write from a female perspective, and even though I can't fault his attempt, I was just left wondering why?! Maybe it was intentional to put such an ordinary and bleak story on paper, as it is the life that so many people find themselves living? But surely a novel needs a positive life-affirming message, or at the very least it needs to be entertaining... With How To Be Good, I was left feeling as though the book was completely pointless and wasn't any better off for reading it.

The writing itself seemed aimless at many points, and although there were a few gems of insight into life today, most of the dialogue and narration seemed contrived and unrealistic. It's a shame because I had really high hopes for this book - Nick Hornby's High Fidelity is one of my all-time faves.

A Nick Hornby book through and through -- whatever that means to you!

"A Long Way Down" is still my favorite. "About a Boy" is still my second favorite. And this book would bring up the back since I've only read three Hornby books. Even if it's lesser than these other two books, it still has that Hornby charm.

What is the Hornby charm? Take an interesting situation (an affair by a self-defined "good person"), add some eccentric details and characters (a faith healer named DJ FeelGood), frustrate your expectations and your desire for a clear-cut resolution to very human problems (divorce and finding happiness), but never go to a place that feels like all hope is lost.

Hornby will resolve your very human problems very problematically with loose ends and upset expectations...it's as frustrating as life, but never as frustrating as tragedy; at times uplifting, often funny...

So, what's the problem, if any? Well, just like a mainstream movie from a well-known director, you might get tired of the formula, you might read the next move a little too well, and -- if the book is easy to consume -- well, then you might be left wanting not just fiction, but genuine literature...

...and thus, my next read will be something more serious.

Moby Dick should do the trick!

Stuff to think about in society and family dynamics.