La educación sentimental

Amo a Hornby, todas las novelas que leí de él o las películas de las que escribió el guión me parecieron siempre muy buenas. Es un escritor que sale de la endogamia, no habla tanto de libros y escritores sino de fútbol y música y eso logra bajarlo al ras de la propia vida y convertirlo en el rey de la onda.

Digámoslo claro, este libro se lo publicaron porque es él, porque sabe que su firma basta como para vender varios ejemplares de lo que sea; aunque se trate, como es este caso, del repaso de 31 de sus canciones favoritas, o las que marcaron su vida. Obviamente, como todo buen libro, no es solamente eso, las canciones son una excusa para hablar de una filosofía y experiencias de vida. No falta la canción que elige para su funeral, la que escuchaba en su infancia y las que escucha de adulto. Es muy divertido cuando habla de Heartbreaker de Zeppelin y conmovedor cuando habla de la preferida de su hijo con autismo. Fue publicado en el 2002 y en un capítulo hace un alegato sobre las disquerías independientes y queda casi un testimonio arqueológico.

Está bien el libro, es simpático, pero la verdad es que se me hizo un poco largo. Hay una playlist de Spotify con las canciones mencionadas en este libro que está buena para ir escuchándola a medida que se avanza con el libro.

Bijzonder boek. De vele muziekbesprekingen zijn slim, genuanceerd en inspirerend en geven meteen zin om de besproken titels te gaan verkennen (zelfs Bruce Springsteen). Maar wat het echt goed maakt, is hoe Nick Hornby zijn bedenkingen en associaties bij de songs gebruikt om zichzelf te omschrijven. Doorheen het boek krijg je dan ook op een heel subtiele manier een duidelijk gevoel over wie de auteur is. Heerlijk.

Een van de citaten die ik aanduidde (over Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen):
'When it comes down to it, I suppose that I too believe that life is momentous and sad but not destructive of all hope, and maybe that makes me a self-dramatizing depressive, of maybe it makes me a happy idiot, but either way 'Thunder Road' knows how I feel and who I am, and that, in the end, is one of the consolations of art.'

Music is such a personal experience that, in the course of writing about 31 songs, one is bound to alienate some and endear oneself to others, possibly at the same time. I think that's why I found it difficult to rate this book. I was both delighted by it and disappointed with it. Some lines were illuminating and others made me laugh out loud. But I found large sections irrelevant and actually skipped a lot of it. The pace felt schizophrenic and overwhelming, as he pulled in random tidbits from different parts of his life. Rather than writing a coherent response to it, I think I'll write down my thoughts in an equally schizophrenic and overwhelming list.

1. Two of my favorite songs were included in his analysis - Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road and Ani Difranco's You Had Time. The parts about them were difficult to read because he loved them for different reasons than I do. While this is completely understandable, it had the unexpected result of making me feel like my world was being reshaped. I have known and loved these songs in my own way for years. Suddenly, Nick Hornby is forcing me to look at them from HIS perspective and HIS life experiences. I don't like it. Hornby says that, in the end, "mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do." I would just add that I also get cross when other people don't like them for the same reasons that I do.

2. "If you love a song, love it enough for it to accompany you throughout the different stages of your life, then any specific memory is rubbed away by use." I've thought about this for some time and I don't know if I completely agree. I fell in love with both of the songs above in college. It happened at my desk next to the window in the apartment on Ridge Road. I don't remember any specific day I played them but I remember sitting back in my chair and singing along as the problem sets and papers that I was inevitably working on melted away. Likewise, I remember every other occasion that they have resurfaced in my life. For Thunder Road, I remember my delight when I unexpectedly found its lyrics snaking up the wall in a spiral staircase at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. I remember trying in vain to play it on youtube in the car while we were driving around Cleveland afterwards, for a car full of people who didn't particularly care and couldn't understand why I was so insistent upon them hearing it (see #1). I also remember the moment of happy surprise when I found it on NV's playlist as we were driving into Austin and his subsequent dismay when I played it at least once a day (usually much more) for the remaining week of the trip. Furthermore, to this day, I cannot listen to Arcade Fire's Neon Bible album without feeling like I was back in London commuting to work on the tube while reading Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind. So, in fact, I wholeheartedly disagree that a beloved song blends into your existence, losing its context and blurring out associations with your life. Rather, for me, it puts a spotlight on those moments in life and makes me more keenly aware of where I was and how I was feeling. But that, of course, is very specific to my relationship with music.

3. On defending Nelly Furtado's I'm Like A Bird and pop music in general (This one's for you, JM): "Yes, it's disposable. But then shouldn't we be sick of the 'Moonlight Sonata' by now? ... Or 'The Importance of Being Earnest?' They're empty! Nothing left! We sucked 'em dry! That's what gets me: the very people who are snotty about the disposability of pop will go over and over again to see Lady Bracknell say 'a handbag?' in a funny voice. They don't think that joke's exhausted itself?"

4. This one made me laugh. "Would it be possible to fuck to the tune of 'Let's Get It On' without laughing? (Not that there's anything wrong with laughing during sex, but laughter was not, I suspect, the sound that Marvin intended to provoke.)"

5. This is unrelated to music but also made me laugh. "My advice to young writers: never begin a title with a preposition, because you will find that it is impossible to utter or to write any sentence pertaining to your creation without sounding as if you have an especially pitiable stutter. 'He wanted to talk to me about About a Boy.' 'What about About a Boy?' 'Are you excited about About a boy?' And so on. I wonder if Steinbeck and his publisher got sick of it? 'What do you think of Of Mice and Men?'"

6. His description of Danny's (his autistic son) relationship with music is both heartbreaking and uplifting. "Though (Danny) has very little language, he has managed to find words for things he fears he might not be given unless he asks for them. In other words, there are some things so desirable that they can burst through the blanket of silence that smothers him, and music('goggo,' as he calls it), ranks right up there, along with crisps, and swimming, and biscuits, which is pretty much where I'd put it, too."

7. On being a Brit who loved America: "In the 1970s we were trying to live the American life, but without any of the things that make an American life bearable. What we did have was history, and this, apparently, was enough to make us feel superior... I would cheerfully have swapped England's entire heritage -- Stonehenge, Stratford, Wordsworth, Buckingham Palace, the lot -- for the ability to watch quiz shows in the morning."

8. "Dave Eggers has a theory that we play songs over and over, those of us who do, because we have to 'solve' them, and it's true that in our early relationship with, and courtship of, a new song, there is a stage which is akin to a sort of emotional puzzlement." I've never thought of it this way but I think this is spot on.

When I started writing this review, I gave this book 3 stars. After thinking through my schizophrenic list, I am now kicking it up to 4 stars. I think it is worth a read, if only to figure out what you agree and disagree with.

My new purse book.

I had been looking forward to this book for a number of years. I enjoy Nick Hornby's writing, and his credibility as to music is certainly set in my mind after the fun HIGH FIDELITY. I was a little let down by the book itself. Hornby makes it very clear from the beginning that he is concentrating on only pop music and its only songs he loves, and the reasons he loves them, but I found each essay a bit too meandering, without a real center. Often Hornby spent almost no time talking about the songs themselves. Overall it struck me as a book that was likely far more fun for Hornby to write than it was for me to read.

That said, you won't be reading for ten minutes before you start mentally compiling your own songs for YOUR list, and that is great fun!

Loved the music discussion, listened to each song while reading the chapter. Each of our perfect playlists are so personal - it doesn't matter if you are famous or not, geekily into music or not - my playlist is going to be totally different to yours. And that's OK.

Nick Hornby's songs are not my songs, but he has a lot of interesting things to say about music that you can apply to the music I do like. After reading this, I really felt like listening to music and thinking about it.

This was my first introduction to Nick Hornby, and now that I've found an author who shares my feelings and taste in music, I'm completely willing--even more willing than I might be for a writer who's "only" as great as Hornby--to explore the novels he's written. For one, he's hilarious. I laughed and laughed deeply at his jokes (especially those regarding his Billboard exploration and songs to have sex to). And secondly, he has a writing style that's both candid and eloquent, serviceably invisible. My third point--though I have plenty more--is that he really brings back the mixtape. What I mean is that he adds a personal touch and certain amount of "Screw it, I do love Rod Stewart" that I find lacking in music websites and magazines (which I understand serve a different purpose than Songbook). Anyway, I seriously recommend that you set aside an afternoon, pull up the playlist, and enjoy.

I read this book a few years ago. I picked up the book because this is the author of high fidelity. One of my favorite movies. I also was interested because the idea behind the book. In this book, Nick Hornby takes the reader through a list of his favorite songs, their significance to him and why and what he loves about music in general as well. This is a great book and I believe everyone can relate to the author's emotional connections with a song list, in their own unique way. We all love music. We all have that special song or songs. And we all have unique reasons why. This book is the author's song list and why and how each song touches him. Don't expect a work of fiction or a repeat of high fidelity. This is a different type of book that shines on its own, due largely to the authors ability to connect with his reader and his skill as an artist of words.

I've been a Nick Hornby fan ever since I read High Fidelity and was blown away by what I consider to be one of the best "pop" novels ever written. But ever since reading High Fidelity, I've felt let down by his work. It's not that the other novels aren't enjoyable, but they don't emanate the same kind of raw honesty and personal meaning that High Fidelity did for me. There was something about that book that just seems very true to me.

That said, this is best book I've read by him since High Fidelity, and it might have something to do with the ground it covers: pop music. Rather than seeing and feeling pop music through the eyes of a fictional character, like we did with Rob in HF, Hornby writes about his own personal connection to music in this book. Each chapter talks about a song that has some sort of meaning for him. He tells the story of how he came to discover the song or of the moment that the song touched him. The moments would seem trivial if related by anyone else, but Hornby uses the stories as a launch pad to generalize about human experience, communication, and emotion. In one chapter, for example, he talks about his autistic son and how music is the one area in life where is son expresses himself, not by singing or dancing but just by listening intently and passionately. Subsequently Hornby writes about how he thinks all of us use music to express emotions that we can't verbally communicate very well with others.

Most of the songs he discusses is stuff you probably haven't heard before. But after reading the book you'll definitely want to listen to them. I recommend googling each song as you read the chapter. Google has a neat feature that will connect you to an mp3 of the song if it's available. You can stream the song for free while you read the chapter. You'll discover that Hornby has great taste.

Nick Hornby is a good writer and it is obvious with this book. But this was a really boring book. As I was reading about songs I didn't know or could care about I wondered how this book even got made and who would really buy it. I fill like it was something he just did to fulfill an obligation. I'm glad I could read it in a day.

I won this book on Goodreads and thank the publisher for my copy.

Does anyone know if Mr. Hornby was serious when he cited the following lines (from Aimee Mann's "Ghostland") as excellent?

"Everyone I know is acting weird
or way too cool
they hang out by the pool
so I just read a lot and ride my bike around the school."

Nick Hornby on Thunder Road....seriously, what could be better? Some of the essays were better than others, especially since some of the music was pretty seriously obscure, but I enjoy Hornby's thought processes so much that he can pretty much write about anything and I'll dig it.