Mostly brainless

I've just finished reading Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's trilogy in four parts. Perhaps one day I'll move on to the fifth book, Mostly Harmless, but it's about Arthur's daughter and I have a general aversion to books containing revisited characters, especially if they've gone on to have children. I don't care to imagine their lives post-adventure; I like to leave my characters free in the big wide world with endless possibilities before them. (I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but this was my biggest problem with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.)

Whilst I'm sure Adams will have treated this altogether differently, I'm not sure whether I want to read the book. So, in the meantime, I'm searching for something to read next.

As I was packing my photo albums the other day, I flicked through one and came across a quotation from one of my favourite books, Emily Climbs: "To love is easy, and therefore common -- but to UNDERSTAND -- how rare it is!"

I started thinking about it. If there's one piece of advice this media-saturated world gives us, it's BE YOURSELF! I am myself. I am myself everywhere I go, but how often do I come across someone who actually sees me? It's one thing to 'be' yourself, it's quite another to have friends who know and understand that self. I'm blessed to have a few such friendships.

All this gave me an itch to read L.M. Montgomery's Emily trilogy again, but the books are packed away. Right now, with thesis-writing and house-moving upon me, I need two things from a book:

1. Brainless. I do occasionally read chick lit, but it doesn't give me the sucked-in, switched-off feeling I need, because I tend to over-analyse it. What I need is lad lit.

2. An ebook. Because pretty much everything I own is in boxes, but my ereader is still out.

I think I'll go download me some Nick Hornby.

Juliet, Naked

Last night I finished reading Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked. I actually read the last 200 pages of it (and there are only 250) in one sitting.

I'm tempted to say it's not the masterpiece that is About a Boy, but then Hornby seems to be daring reviewers to say he's getting soft in his middle-age. The book is, after all, an exploration of what makes art valuable and to compare it to his earlier works would be to miss the point entirely. It was a brilliant book, and I suspect that in twenty years or so, experiencing the decisions and revisions of middle-age, I might pick it up again and understand the characters better.

Hornby's work is always incredibly character-driven, and this time we meet an obsessive fan, a critical reviewer and a fallen artist. The story revolves around cult rock musician Tucker Crowe, silent and reclusive for the last twenty years. Scoring a demo version of Crowe's most famous album, die-hard fan Duncan is sent into a spin and his long-term partner Annie writes (horror of horrors) a bad review. Her review reveals the fractures in their relationship, but it also captures Crowe's attention.

I was fascinated by the exploration of the nature of art. The reader is confronted with the paralysis experienced by an artist who has produced, for once and for all, his 'masterpiece' and doesn't know where to go from there. There are also questions about the lies we tell to make sense of things, and the way we rely on other people's art to illuminate our own lives.

For an interview with Hornby about the book, click the 'Nick Hornby' label which appears at the bottom of this post, and the page will display an earlier blog with a link to said interview.

What people like to read

To what extent is "literary merit" mutually exclusive with being a good read?

Says Nick Hornby of literary awards: "the books that have actually come to mean something to the culture have all been ignored, so what you are saying to people is the books you like are no good. It is not true and it is not right."

You can see the full interview in The Australian, here.

Nick Hornby's About A Boy is one of my all-time favourite books. If you've seen the film, don't presume you know what the book's about!

Meanwhile, another story in The Australian discusses popular misconceptions about the romance genre, and why women like to read it.

Even so, I read the first few pages of Candace Bushnell's One Fifth Avenue the other day and found myself completely disgusted with the poor grammar and overt plot devices.