Juliet, Naked

I love the fiction of Nick Hornby, although I came to it indirectly, first seeing the movie High Fidelity. But his novels, for reasons I cannot fully explain, just pull me in. I think foremost it is the humor. He has a sense of humor unlike anything I have come across in fiction (not that I read all that much fiction). His characters are invariably likeable. Reading fiction is generally not effortless for me, or if it is effortless it seems pretty empty (mysteries). His fiction strikes both effortless and substantive. Which made his latest book a mixed experience. It had all the Hornby characteristics, the dry humor, the insights into what motivates us, the likeable characters. But there was an underlying, how shall I say, weight, a sadness, I would even go so far as to say a bleakness, to the whole thing. I would still give it a thumbs up. But, well, if you are not already on anti-depressants, this book might well cause you to sign on.





Juliet, Naked tells the story of a early forty-ish British couple, Duncan and Annie, that have been together for fifteen years. They live in some out of the way small English city.Duncan teaches at a college and is obsessed with an 80s folk icon, Tucker Crowe, who quit the business about twenty years ago and has become the stuff of legend to some obsessed fans, Duncan among them. As the novel begins Duncan and Annie are touring sites in America associated with the musician, including the bathroom in a bar where he supposedly had some kind of satori that caused him to leave.



The first major incident in the novel involves an unplugged version of a Tucker Crowe's final album that has just been released. Duncan writes a glowing review on a website devoted to Crowe. Annie thinks the album is shit and writes a review online saying so, offending Duncan not only because it shows a disagreement with his taste but because it is, in Duncan's mind, an incredible act of chutzpah, for this neophyte to be posting a review. Unbeknownst to Duncan, Annie actually gets a reply from the real Tucker, and they start up a correspondence. Meanwhile, Duncan has an affair with another teacher at the college.



All the while Annie is regretting the time the relationship with Duncan, the lack of passion and the loss of lovers that might have been but never were because of this fifteen year period of stultification; she is thinking all this even before she finds out about the affair. At one point she is commenting on the pictures of their vacations. She notes that being childless meant that your snapshots were a little on the dull side: "Nobody grew up or got bigger; no landark occasions were commerated because there were none. Duncan and Annie just got older, and a little fatter."



It's a sad comment on the inevitability of decline. As is the project that Annie is working on. Annie works at a museum and as the book begins she is putting together an exhibit about the summer of 1964 when the Stones played their little town and a 30 foot shark washed up on the beach. She has asked the citizens form momentos. but all they have been able to get is a picture of four young people obviously enjoying the day and the shark's eye in a jar.



The picture becomes a central image in the book, as Annie looks at the two young men and women and imagines this was a great day for them, as you can tell by their smiles, and reflects it may have been the best day of their life. And now where are they? She actually meets one of the women in the picture, who confirms that yes it was a great day with two blokes they had just met. Nothing happened between them, she said, because well, she was a good girl. And now she wonders what was the point, of being a good girl that is. More sadness on the passage of time.



And what about Tucker. He is living back in the States with yet another relationship about to break up. It turns out he has four or five (I forget) children from different women, and when for reasons I won't go into, goes to London to visit one of them (and to see Annie) he has a heart attack. But he survives, slips away from the wives and children who have descended upon London and sneaks off with Annie, bringing his son from his latest relationship with him. Annie and Tucker make love, Duncan meets his idol (and doesn't believe it's him) and Tucker goes back to the States.



Tucker ultimately releases a new album, which is all about how happy he is with his life in the States and with his son--an album all his old fans hate, though some new ones like it.And so what. Annie is alone without any real prospects, Duncan has stumbled into a relationship with a woman he does not have much in common with for no other reason than that he was bored. I mean, I'm not sure what to make of it. I think of the scene in Annie Hall, where an old woman tells Woody "Love fades." Yeah, and so does life, according to the book. And once its gone its gone. Well, I sort of knew that. There is some suggestion that if they had had kids, Duncan and Annie might have been happier (at least Annie). And Tucker is happy with his kid in the States. So is the answer to have kids?

In one of my favorite parts of the book--a classic Nick Hornby moment--Annie has written Tucker asking what do you do when you've wasted fifteen years of your life. And since Tucker really hasn't done much for fifteen plus years, he feel he can reply and does so, making observations such as that you should try to think of activities that weren't such a waste so you can get the total amount of lost time under ten years, and then goes about suggesting what might work. He also talks about Charles Dickens, who he has been reading, and goes on to mention all that Dickens did in his his life--the novels, the correspondence, the life. I think the point might be that no matter how much you did you will never stack up to Dickens, so don't get so depressed about not doing much. It's an interesting line of reasoning. I started applying it to my own time in academia, trying to get the number as low as I could. I think I got it down to around seven years, though I wished I had gotten it down to five.


Well, I enjoyed the ride because it was a Nick Hornby novel, but I am not very happy about the destination he dropped me off at.