01/09/2010: "Juliet, Naked"

My son Cameron got a new Nick Hornby novel for Christmas. Since Hornby is one of my favorite writers I've been reading it too.

Everyone in my family is a Hornby fan. We came to the books through the movies, High Fidelity with John Cusack and About a Boy with Hugh Grant. The books like the movies are consistently funny and thoughtful and entertaining, except for A Long Way Down which is dark and pointless, mirroring the pointlessness that drives its characters to the edge and over.

Juliet, Naked is the latest. On one level it's about the relationship between Tucker Crowe, an obscure American singer songwriter who made one smash record and then disappeared; Duncan, who teaches at a small town community college and has become the world's number one Crowologist; and Annie, Duncan's girlfriend, who strikes up an unlikely email relationship with Crowe after crashing Duncan's website. On another level it's about the choices we make and the years we waste and how hard it is to change.

What I love about a good novel is the way it poses the interesting questions and then refuses to answer them.

Here's a conversation between Annie and her therapist on the topic of marriage:

"Well, lots of people I know have an unhappy or frustrating marriage. Or a boring one."

"And?"

"You see, they're quite content, really."

"They're happy in their misery."

"They put up with it, yes."

"Well, the reason I come to you at all is because I don't want to be content with my unhappy, boring, frustrating marriage. I want more. And you think I'm a bit of a crybaby. You'll probably end up thinking that anyone who sits in this chair is a bit of a crybaby really."

"You said you don't want to be quite content."

"Yes. With. A. Rubbish. Life. The context is important."

"But people who are quite content don't have a rubbish life," he said.

Annie opened her mouth, ready to fire off the dismissive one-liner that always came to her whenever Malcolm offered any kind of observation, but to her surprise, there was nothing there. Her mouth was empty. Could he be right? Did the contentment count more than the life? It was the first time she'd thought about anything Malcolm had ever said to her.

Two morals and one question from this story:

1. The family that reads together has something interesting to talk about.
2. Context is everything.
3. Does the contentment count more than the life?

Yours with creativity and imagination,
Darlene