How to Be Good by Nick Hornby Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of How to Be Good
Book Review: An Affair: Sticky Subject, Great Writing
Summary: 4 Stars
Katie, the heroine, was an epitome of a person that recognized problems in her marriage, wanting to change, and having the capacity to change but not having the courage to follow through because of the possible ramifications. This was the kind of problem, Katie, a mother of two preteen children faced in her life. In addition to this was the inability to escape for a couple of hours a week to enjoy good music and good book. Then there was a husband, a local columnist, who directed his cynicism towards the society and Katie herself who was cynical to her husband. Naturally there were conflicts of opinions, disagreements with ideals and clash of goals between the two.While reading this book, I thought, these are the kind of problems many people are faced with in their lives, especially people in long-term relationships. So I ask, why chastise Katie for having an affair? That is where Nick Hornby came in to show us his talent as writer. Instead, you want to love and love Katie, and wished she stole peaceful moments alone.
How To Be Good cleverly showcased Katie and her naked honesty about her life in a troubled relationship, and how she managed to with pull things together was commendable but disappointing to those (readers like me) who wanted her to have more.
Book Review: An Ambivalent View
Summary: 3 Stars
This summer, I got hooked on Nick Hornby. I listened to an audio version of A Long Way Down and remembered the magic of High Fidelity and About a Boy. It set me off reading some of Hornby's fantastic works that I'd not yet gotten to (Juliet, Naked and Fever Pitch) as well as revisiting those old favorites. I was on a roll. As soon as one was finished with one book, I'd pick up the next. I read them all until only two were left--How to Be Good and Slam. I read the back covers, and How to Be Good had a great premise. I opened to page one. Unfortunately, though, How to Be Good just didn't do it for me. I'll get there someday, but my momentum was stopped, and several months later, I haven't begun Slam yet.
How to Be Good didn't satisfy me for three reasons. First, the plot hit one of my pet peeves concerning the fantastical in literature. I don't mind the fantastic (believe me, I love the magical realism of Garcia Marquez and others), but the characters should react believably, especially when the miraculous even occurs in a setting in which such occasions do not happen. If someone's family were to experience the sort of miraculous healing as happens in this novel, it would change you. I simply never thought that the main character responded to the events around her as a person would do, and it irked me throughout the novel. It felt to me more like a strange fable than a novel.
Mainly, though, I think that the novel lacked some of the humor and, especially, the wisdom with which Hornby's novels are usually imbued. Hornby is fantastic at first-person narration, and his narrators are always flawed in their unique way, but they are also intelligent, are somewhat self-aware (or are moving there), and are funny. Kate isn't that sort of person, though, and Hornby's not trying to make her be. Also, I usually, when I read one of Hornby's novels, find myself constantly thinking, "Yep, that's true. I've thought that. I've felt that." Hornby is so successful because he understands human life, why humans act in the funny ways that we do. He's observant and wise. For whatever reason, though, I didn't have those responses with How to Be Good.
How to Be Good isn't totally without merit. It asks large questions, how do we find transcendence, how do we live good and purposeful lives in a desacralized world that gives us little help anymore in answering those questions. I would like to see Hornby revisit those problems again. But How to Be Good, unlike his other books, left me a little cold.
Book Review: An armchair, feminist, post-modern "Candide"
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're at all interested in practical ethics (Is there any other kind?), you'll be fascinated with Hornby's HOW TO BE GOOD. Told from the perspective of a woman doctor whose misanthropic husband suddenly stumbles across his own personal stash of holiness, coincidentally at the time the good doctor is engaging in a half-hearted love affair. The husband's newfound spirituality and concern for the poor sends Dr. Carr and the couple's two children into a bit of a tailspin. Everyone in the family must wrestle with what it means to be good (and to be "good enough). Like Voltaire's great satire, the puzzled heroine-narrator is forced to confront many of society's sacred cows (New Age spirituality, conventional charity, the Church, careerism, marital fidelity, the nuclear family, art, literature, and the role of pop culture).
Hornby's ability to draw flawed but likeable characters infused with wit and humor (even the children) keeps this somewhat uneventful novel from ever becoming dull or pointless. In the end, I very much identified with Dr. Carr and her ambiguous feelings about everything she holds dear. Her questioning helped me question all my relatiionships--with family members, friends, significant others, my church, and my job. It's very much the kind of novel I want to pass on to a friend.
Book Review: An entertaining read with many levels
Summary: 3 Stars
This book will keep you in stitches for a few hours (it's on the short-side) -- your airplane rowmates will wonder what you are sniggering at. The book can go much deeper than a couple laughs if you allow yourself to muse over the difficulties of actually "being good." I found the narrator, Katie Carr, to be a completely unsympathetic character - at one point she tells her daughter that her parents will not get divorced if she is good. However, because I did not like or relate to Katie or her husband, David, I was not on "Katie's side" or "David's side" throughout their quarrels. I think I put a lot more thought into the read as an unbiased observer. My boyfriend is reading the book now, and he is enjoying it as much as I did. A bunch of my friends would really enjoy this book, and I would recommend this book as a present for anyone except the devoutly religious.Book Review: An utter waste of time, from an otherwise great author.
Summary: 1 Stars
Reading this book reminded me of the experience of hearing a new, bad album from a usually incredible band. They are your favorites, you really want to like the album, you try and convince yourself that it is good... but, in the end, you know that it is not. Hornby is an incredible, inventive, original writer - so where did this terrible book come from? It reads like a college creative writing project written by a young student who has yet to learn anything about the real world. Pointless characters, no plot to speak of, unbelievably crass plot twists, parts that are supposed to be funny but are not. Then, worst of all, the constant, harping moralising that reminds me of 16-year-olds who think they 'know it all' about the evils of the world - but don't. The only possible explanation that springs to mind is that Hornby had a publishing deadline to meet, panicked, pulled some old high school musings from under his mattress and slapped a title on it. He's just ruined his hard-earned reputation, and gone from the Beatles of novelists to Milli Vanilli...