High Fidelity takes a pretty fascinating look at relationships and how men view them. I don’t want to say it’s a man’s book, but the perspective is decidedly male orientated. Rob, the protagonist, runs a failing record store, and engages in provocatively funny, but inane conversations with his coworkers, and spends most of his time musing on his most recent failed relationship. Rob tries throughout the novel to find the real reasons why he so decidedly bad at relationships, and conniving how to get his ex, Laura, back. It’s a funny and frank look at what makes relationships work and what doesn’t. Rob, with his engrossing pop culture manner, and his neurotic nuances, plays the jilted everyman shedding light on some at times fairly heady topics.
This book is written really wonderfully. It’s smart, and funny, and pretty incisive. But, style aside, the book is so enjoyable to read because it is so true. Rob may be a little overboard, his cavalier ‘beauty is not in what you’re like, but in what you like’ attitude, gives us a fresh and interesting look at both friendships and relationships. For me it really struck home how much his life reminded me of my own. Oh, not the particulars, mind you there were some eerie similarities, but in Rob’s attitudes and ways of dealing with heartbreak. I enjoyed reading something that expresses my befuddled emotions as clearly as this does. Hornby has crafted a real gem of a story; he understands how people, men especially I think, can get so caught up and confused by heartbreak.
I want to mention the movie quickly; because I’ve just recently seen it, and I honestly haven’t seen a film adaptation so well conceived in a long while. The movie casting was inspired. Cussack makes the perfect Rob, he gives the impression of a fairly neurotic love-lorn guy in all of his films. He also has a sharp pop-culture edge that fits perfectly into line with the character of Rob. But the funny thing I noticed about the novel as compared to the movie was in the character of Barry, played in the film by Jack Black. Now, I always like Black’s characters he is a consistently biting and funny comedian, and his characters ring quite true most of the time. Even though they all appear at times to be an extended stand up act. The really interesting thing about his character here is that although Barry has by far funniest most satirical character, the dialogue, that before I had attributed really mostly to Jack Black, comes directly from Hornby. This is really some wickedly funny stuff, and well suited to Jack Black’s comedic tradition. I was really just surprised to find it so true to form in the film. Anyhow, that said the movie was excellent too, and if you’re the kind of person who maybe can’t be bothered about reading a novel like this, I’d highly recommend the film.
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