The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 24 November 2010
by Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is a gifted story teller. His novels move along at a rapid, witty, sharp and often deeply insightful pace. In each, he takes the reader to the edge of his comfort zone. In each, a protagonist must confront what they are willing to do beyond their selfish wants, to help someone in need, a lonely someone, or just to find a way in this culture to be good. It's not as easy as it sounds. This is an individualistic culture, and by and large, if we've been able to satisfy our own desire for comfort, we tend to think our lives a success. But the rest of the world beckons, with all its troubles, pains, its loneliness and sadness. How to be good in such a world? Maybe it takes breaking the boundaries of our comfort. Here, we meet Katie, a woman in her forties who is deeply unhappy with her husband, David. He is a bitter and boorish man, disdainful of her and their children. On page one, she tells David she intends to divorce him. For a while, the tension swirls about them, and is only broken when David meets GoodNews, a young man with a talent for healing and sporting brooches in his pierced eyebrows. Before long, David has undergone a transformation. He is determined to be good, and determined to make his family good as well. He starts giving their stuff away, offers their spare bedroom to a homeless boy, and overall grows fairly smug in his goodness. Katie, our narrator, is disgusted by this, always suspecting David is doing this only to humiliate her, and yet his wide-eyed response is always unanswerable. If we're comfortably off, what is it that prevents us from helping those in need? There's that inconvenient comfort zone again. Katie resents being forced to be good. She is a doctor after all, isn't that good? Doesn't she earn good karma by having to look at a boil on someone's rectum? Good question. Hornby brilliantly illuminates our resistance at crossing beyond our comfort zone, even in the face of obvious suffering. But his characters are human. Katie and her kids know the contradictions in which they live. David, ultimately, knows this, too and their mutual forgiveness takes this parable a step beyond morality tale, to the realm of real human goodness. In many ways a brilliant book. Not perfect, but remarkable in the end.
Also by Hornby: [About a Boy] [High Fidelity] [Just Like You]