Chasing down your exes to see if you were half the arsehole you thought you were is a lovely way to confirm that, yes, you really have been a completely self absorbed dick. The device of the early mid-life crisis, which, judging by the pool room chatter resonated with so many goons, is a good idea. His selection of pop songs certainly suggest that.
Rob is just so devoid of anything other than slacker, that I was thinking, the entire way through, that the sound track for this book should be a long list of Dinosaur Jr tunes or Stone Roses and the whole shoe gazing scene, but I guess Rob would be too old and washed up, in his mid-thirties, for that whole early-mid 90s London thing.
The two stooges (Dick and Barry) have a better grip on their lives, have a better understanding of what they are doing, and why, than poor old Rob. Rob has chosen the luxury of keeping all of his doors open so that he is never constrained by any of his choices. It hasn’t been forced on him, it is not the result of a series of events over which he has had no control. While this can be a useful literary device to explore themes of ennui and powerlessness, in this book, Rob’s life is the life that Rob wants. Rob Fleming is one of the most (deliberately) underwhelming protagonists. Sketches of characters, living in a world where nothing happens. For all the joy that great writing gives in, and of itself, if it not harnessed to a narrative, then it ends up being like this book. I remember reading this when it was first released, and I remember feeling just as disappointed in this book then as I am now.
I lived in London for a fair bit of the mid 90s, and the setting of place is so evocative of that London, in that time. We are allowed to use our own imagination and understanding to ‘feel’ the pubs where various gigs take place, the suburbs, the treks across town, to imagine the smell, the light and the tiny dust motes constantly on the air in Championship Records. Nick Hornby writes with such restraint that the reader is left with ample room to fill in the detail of where the action occurs.
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