Danny ChaiThe other thing I did while in the ER until 2:30 AM was read Hornby’s latest, A Long Way Down. As with most of the books I read nowadays, it was provided by Henry.
I’ve actually only read High Fidelity by Hornby prior to this book, and I completely loved it. Totally hilarious. But I’ve written what I loved most about it before, right? Most books, the narrator, when (s)he makes observations about life, serve as a mouthpiece for the author. Which is natural, of course. But yeah, the narrator is generally just the author’s mouthpiece.
What I loved about High Fidelity is that the narrator made observations about life that had hints of truth and insight, but they actually changed and grew in the book. When does that happen? A narrator having insights, then adapting to equal but different insights? I dunno, I thought that was interesting. But I’m not much of a reader, so what do I know. Jieun the one that reads the “important” books. In recent months she’s gone through like Tess of the D’urbervilles (sp? SN. I have yet to hear Jieun pronounce the title of this book without a faux English accent), The Kite Runner, A Thousand Sorrows, now East of Eden. My main pleasure reading has been Rurouni Kenshin manga (which, by the way, are excellent, but that’s a separate post). My next book purchases will probably be those hardcover, complete Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes anthologies. So yeah, I know nothing about literature.
Anyway, I loved A Long Way Down until the end, where I think it kind of ran out of steam. But there were some passages I loved. A couple:
The trouble with my generation is that we all think we’re f***ing geniuses. Making something isn’t good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. It’s our inalienable right, as citizens of the twenty-first century. If Christina Aguilera or Britney or some American Idol jerk can be something, then why can’t I? Where’s mine, huh? … talent is never enough to make us happy, is it? I mean, it should be, because talent is a gift, and you should thank God for it, but I didn’t. It just pissed me off because I wasn’t being paid for it, and it didn’t get me on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Absofreaking true. None of us are content doing something. We have to be something. Why? No clue. Some byproduct of this age where think we can instantly get everything we want.
It’s music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you’re being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you’re carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead.
Great quote. And yes, I know it’s properly “quotation”, not “quote”. Who cares. I believe in music rage, not grammar rage.