Aug 19, 2004 11:33 PM
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(Updated Aug 19, 2004 11:43 PM)
Even though the book was written before the movie came out, I wrote the movie review before the book review because that's the order I saw it in (therefore, you could say I arranged them in autobiographical order, just like Rob Fleming would do!) I read this book in the summer of 2001, by which time I had memorized every line from the film.
I read most of this book at night, and I was be laughing so hard at half past two in the morning that my roommate would knock on my door to see if everything was alright. One of the reviews about the book said something about hiding this book from your girlfriends, because it has too many of our secrets in it. Its funny 'cos it's true!
High Fidelity is the story of Rob Fleming, musical elitist who owns a failing record store called Championship Vinyl in London. He majored in architecture but his top five dream jobs almost all have to do with working as a musical journalist for Rolling Stone in the 60s and 70s - you get to meet a lot of famous people - Bob Dylan, Chrissie Hynde, The Talking Heads, etc. - and make a lot of money and get tons of free records.
He runs his record store with the help of two other musical misfits - Barry and Dick, whom he *affectionately* calls the musical moron twins. Together, these musical elitists spend their time making up top five lists for everything under the sun (top five track ones, side ones, top five episodes of Cheers, etc.), sticking price stickers on used LPs and making fun of anyone who knows less about music than they do (which is everyone). In spite of all this *excitement*, Rob is sick of the store and sometimes fantasizes about going berserk, throwing the Country A-K rack onto the street and joining a Virgin Megastore and never returning.
The main reason for his most recent state of depression - his girlfriend of many years, Laura Lyden, dumps him. Rob tries to deal with it the only way he can - convincing himself that Laura's rejection can't REALLY make him feel too bad, because she didn't reject him early enough in his life - to prove this to himself, he makes up a chronological list of his desert island, all-time most memorable break-ups: Allison Ashwell, Penny Hardwick, Charlie Nicholson, Jackie Allen and Sarah Kendrew.
Those were the ones that really hurt. He decides to get in touch with each and every one of the names on this top five list to try and find out what he has been doing wrong, why he is doomed to a life of rejection and suffering. Is it his love of pop music? Or does he listen to pop music because he is miserable? As he goes through his old address books and reminisces about each of the girls on his top five list, he (along with the reader) discovers that *some* of the break-ups might not have been *completely* the other party's fault....
In the meantime, he finds out that Laura's shacked up with their erstwhile neighbour, Ian Raymond (How could she?! Ian had HORRIBLE taste in music - Latin, Bulgarian, whatever world music was trendy that week!) and tries to employ Liz's (their common friend) help in finding out more. This backfires when Liz learns the truth about their break-up from Laura, leading Rob to explain more about their relationship to the reader. He gets infatuated by an American singer, Marie La Salle, because she plays Peter Frampton's Baby, I Love Your Way in a way that brings tears to his eyes, and gets *distracted* for a few days - but is soon back on track, wondering why Laura would want to sleep with Ian??? Will stalking her night and day help??? Will hounding them with his phone calls help?!
Even if they get back together, does Rob really want to spend his life with someone who has a terrible record collection? Someone who doesn't really have a lot of exotic underwear, who is, after all, a bourgeois lawyer who hates her job??? Or does he want to date to a musician, so she can mention one of their little private jokes in the liner notes to her latest album? How about a musical journalist, even? Maybe he could make her a mix tape, to start with? (this is how Rob hooked Laura in the first place, making mix tapes is an art, and should not be messed with unless you know what you are doing. You are using someone else's poetry to explain how you feel, so there are a lot of rules!)
Full of funny observations about life in general, about music and movies (but mostly music) and about being a GUY, this book is hilarious and will definitely have you laughing out loud a few times through it. The book is *DEFINITELY* funnier than the movie, even though the movie was pretty funny itself! If you haven't read this book, read it! If you read it, have you followed it up with About A Boy (made into quite a comedy with Hugh Grant, Toni Colette and Rachel Weisz) and How To Be Good yet? No? Well, what are you waiting for?!
