High Fidelity – Review
I have always been a massive fan of the movie of High Fidelity and I know that this has most likely warped my eventual reading of the book. But, I am not convinced that this is necessarily a bad thing.
Perhaps it’s just because I feel that all the actors involved in the flick did a spectacular job or that the script kept so much text complete from the source material but I feel that the actors’ voices all seem to match the dialogue and characters completely. I wonder what they would all have sounded like as I read without the cinematic influence rattling across my mind? Brit to Yank comparison aside, of course.
If you liked the movie then I have no reservation in presuming you will like the book, and surely only the most pig-headed purist for the literary form wouldn’t like the movie. I find the two completely complimentary pieces to the puzzle and found myself very interested in what had been left out of the book in its translation to the screen.
The main character of Rob Fleming is an interesting one, and one that you don’t see enough of in literature. He’s a real bloke and so has likable sides and sides that won’t exactly appeal to all. He has those real flaws that strike even the best of people. He is neurotic, self-doubting, and a constant walking contradiction. He’s turned upside-down that his girl leaves him and lands in another man’s bed and he just can’t get over that male fear that the sex may just be better where she has ended up, which is strange because earlier Rob informs us that he previously cheated on his girl and that the resultant relations were the best he ever had. He also manages, while his girl is elsewhere, to bed another hot bird, an American musical recording artiste. I love that she’s described as a post-Partridge Family pre-LA Law Susan Dey and the movie keeps the description even though they cast Lisa Bonet in the role. Genius.
The biggest thing that got me was how truly miserable and slightly annoying Hornby is able to make his lead. Rob takls, at length, about his worrying over sexual dysfunctions and inadequacies, he ranks himself so obsessively against others that you worry it’s a swirling pit of despair he might never come out of. John Cusack made his Rob slightly more likable in that he’s not so incessant with his complaints.
Overall, the book reads very well, it’s the sort of experience where I don’t even know what page I’m on and I don’t really care. It’s also the perfect holiday read because you’ll be conversing about Top Five lists for the whole trip.
Posted on January 1st, 2010 by ryan
Filed under: books
One of my favourite novels, long before the movie… which became one of my favourite films. You’re right that the character in the book is slightly more flawed than in the movie, but I think that’s one of the gifts of a novel, allowing you to really get inside a character’s head and present behaviour that might be thoroughly unlikeable on screen without so much internal narration.