High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

1995,Penguin Books Australia. 245 pages.

Yuh, why not go this way? The orange Penguin Books way. What’s not to love. 10 bucks a pop, for modern classics you know you will enjoy.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I still have a fairly clean slate to imagine the story. Although tainted abit by my general knowledge of the actors who played the main characters ( John and Joan Cusack, Jack Black, etc)

35 year old Rob Flemming is under going the quarter life crisis abit belatedly. Passionate about music (this novel is mainly about the influence of music , pop in particular), he runs a vintage record shop selling vinyl. It’s not exactly a thriving business but it stays. Compared to his contemporaries and men his age, Rob seems unambitious and dire in comparison. No high profile career, semi broke, single, and to top it all, freshly dumped.

He’s had his fair share of relationships and shags (as he half bakedly boasts), but its this most recent relationship with Laura that gets him spiraling down the emotional drain. He backtracks all his relationships since young, and tries to contact the women in the hopes of finding out what is ‘wrong’ with him.

It is a very charming work, as you read, it will feel like second nature to sympathize with Rob–because of his endearing quality of being honest, insecure, and unassuming. (so was this the character that molded John Cusack into the role of Hollywood’s eternal Mr Nice Guy?)

I can’t wait to watch the movie one day. I’m sure its one hell of a trip down memory lane with 80’s and 90’s music, just as the book had been.