High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Review

High Fidelity was thoroughly enjoyable. I'm not sure what I expected, but I honestly liked it a lot more than I had anticipated from this novel. It’s so sharp and well thought-out and so so so entertaining.

The narrator is the archetype of a normal guy. He’s so unremarkable and not very likable, but I've found in my experience that it’s difficult to encounter any normal guy who’s inherently likable, they need to be pretty remarkable to be remotely likable. So his unlikable-ness adds to his character and even his charm, and allowed me to understand the purpose of the novel. I found that it’s a insight into the mind of a man without an impressive career, love life, or anything really. His parents are just there wishing he'd settle down with a girl, because that's what most older generations sees as success in one's personal life, which is relatable unfortunately. His co-workers are kind of nerdy and annoying, but good-hearted and he doesn't have many other friends because everyone's got their own lives going on so they become the "closest" friends he has because they see each other everyday. And the focus of the novel is mostly him coming to terms with his love life that's in disrepair. Throughout the novel, Rob is just a guy observing how romance and a rosy view of the world sort of fizzles as time goes on. He flails around as a guy in his mid thirties who is supposed to have it all together, but doesn’t. Because who does? Flailing around in this unforgiving world isn’t reserved for teens and twenty somethings. It's a universal experience that everyone does through, and who could understand and narrate better than a guy who is stagnant like him and is sort of at a crossroads of where to go from there. Settle for good (enough) or keep holding onto a fantasy of what life should be? (He refuses to take the actions necessary to make the latter happen but that’s besides the point. Yeah he’s kind of unbearable but his delusion is relatable).

Given that the book is mostly focused on his love life and past relationships as he comes to a reckoning with his most recent breakup and the potential of getting back together, and spoiler alert, actually getting back together, it was fascinating to understand his perspective on love and romance. Because he decides to get back together after everything they went through, the money issues, infidelity, arguments, mundane issues that are inevitable in long term relationships, it's such a refreshing look into a real life relationship between normal people. People who aren't perfect. People who make mistakes and have doubts and frustrations and issues outside of the relationship. It's such a breathe of fresh air from romance novels that solely focus on the getting into a relationship part of the timeline, the exhilarating, rosy, butterflies, and façade part of the relationship. 

I really liked stepping into the mind of Rob with this lens of him as a normal average man in today's society. Ultimately. he realizes that his idealizations of romance and women that music and media and society has fed him are wholly unrealistic, and that chasing that fantasy is futile. I particularly liked the moment where he realizes that his relationship with women and perceptions of them are flawed. He realizes that women aren’t the picture perfect addition to a guys life and that they’re human too, claiming that men can't "function" in a relationship because of the "disrespect" women have for them, and that such fantasies of candle-lit dinners and negligees have no basis in reality. I had a bit of a giggle because it’s true, women are disrespectful if respect equates to encompassing the fantasy of a woman who is picture-perfect and is nothing more than a visually appealing prop for a man to leer at and possess. Most guys don’t give us a reason to be “respectful” aka subservient. It's a bit sad to think that men would rather have a beautiful doll than a human being, someone you don't need to work to stay with and keep when they get fed up with your mistakes and disrespect towards them. Is that why so many men leave their partners for something fresh and new, younger and more naïve, with less self-respect? It's funny to see the situation from a man's perspective, because what is there to respect in a man like Rob, the average joe who has little to offer to a woman with enough on her plate? A guy who refuses to grow up and take accountability for his actions, and does horrible things, and doesn't understand what love and romance really is. But as the story goes on, the reader can see his character development, no matter how small it is, and just see how he realizes things about himself and life and his relationship with Laura and although it doesn't wrap up every loose end or ends on a perfect "they lived happily ever after" note, I'm glad and it was extremely satisfactory in it's own right.

Ultimately, Rob is not a bad person at his core. He’s just human. There is often not black and white when it comes to people, and I liked the exploration of that idea in this slice of life story.