Hey All,
I'm miffed at Nick Hornby, or maybe it's his publishers I ought to hate right now. I'm very careful, always, about having a book with me whenever there is a chance I could read. Especially when I'm on public transit, which I take (if I'm not driving to work with my girlfriend) for about two hours each day. Never do I want to be stuck on the dirtly hole that is the TTC without the distraction of a book to take my mind off the filth and stale air that lurks on the trains and buses I have to take.
So when Hornby's Songbook
abruptly ended on me, with still about another fifty pages (it seemed) left, while I was on the TTC one morning this past week, well, I was beside myself.
A little explanation is likely in order, as you're probably asking yourself, "How can it end, with fifty pages still to go?" It's like this: Hornby wrote Songbook as a number of chapters, each chapter about a song (or songs). That's how the book was originally conceived and written. The version of the book that I'm reading, however, has an additional five essays about albums. I knew about the additional chapters before starting the book, as their existence is clearly stated on the cover and in the Table of Contents. Still, it caught me off guard, as I took it as my right to stop this book after the chapters on the songs were over, since that isn't how he'd originally written the book. Kind of like skipping the Afterword, if you will, or the notes the publisher (or writer) adds to a later edition of a book: they might be a nice addition to the text you've just read, but not absolutely necessary. Plus, I feel that once a piece of art is completed and submitted (in this case Hornby submitted his manuscript to his publisher), that ought to be it. No more additions. When I wrote my essays in university, once I handed them in, that was the work upon which I would be marked. So it is that a writer of fiction ought to be judged: on the work they first publish. Certainly, Songbook doesn't fall under fiction, but it's not exactly the type of work that needs more added to it.
Reading this book just strengthened my opinion that the novel is a great format for reading. I found Hornby's approach to his book new and interesting at first. After about halfway through, though, I lost that interest, and just wanted the book to be over, which shouldn't have happened, considering my short attention span and the fairly short chapters that he wrote. Those two factors, mashed together as they were, ought to have produced in me a quick read, and one that I enjoyed. I found, instead, that I missed the long narrative, the arc, of a good tale.
I did not complete Songbook in it's entirety. I was too mad and too bored with it to read the rest of Hornby's blather. I've since moved on to The Devil in the White City,
by Erik Larson, the book recommended to me by Keltie Neville. It's a work of history, and so far probably the best such piece I've ever read. Seriously. This is the stuff I studied, in depth, while at university, and about which I wrote my thesis. It's good stuff from a reader's perspective.
-Bryan
abruptly ended on me, with still about another fifty pages (it seemed) left, while I was on the TTC one morning this past week, well, I was beside myself. A little explanation is likely in order, as you're probably asking yourself, "How can it end, with fifty pages still to go?" It's like this: Hornby wrote Songbook
as a number of chapters, each chapter about a song (or songs). That's how the book was originally conceived and written. The version of the book that I'm reading, however, has an additional five essays about albums. I knew about the additional chapters before starting the book, as their existence is clearly stated on the cover and in the Table of Contents. Still, it caught me off guard, as I took it as my right to stop this book after the chapters on the songs were over, since that isn't how he'd originally written the book. Kind of like skipping the Afterword, if you will, or the notes the publisher (or writer) adds to a later edition of a book: they might be a nice addition to the text you've just read, but not absolutely necessary. Plus, I feel that once a piece of art is completed and submitted (in this case Hornby submitted his manuscript to his publisher), that ought to be it. No more additions. When I wrote my essays in university, once I handed them in, that was the work upon which I would be marked. So it is that a writer of fiction ought to be judged: on the work they first publish. Certainly, Songbook doesn't fall under fiction, but it's not exactly the type of work that needs more added to it. Reading this book just strengthened my opinion that the novel is a great format for reading. I found Hornby's approach to his book new and interesting at first. After about halfway through, though, I lost that interest, and just wanted the book to be over, which shouldn't have happened, considering my short attention span and the fairly short chapters that he wrote. Those two factors, mashed together as they were, ought to have produced in me a quick read, and one that I enjoyed. I found, instead, that I missed the long narrative, the arc, of a good tale.
I did not complete Songbook in it's entirety. I was too mad and too bored with it to read the rest of Hornby's blather. I've since moved on to The Devil in the White City,
by Erik Larson, the book recommended to me by Keltie Neville. It's a work of history, and so far probably the best such piece I've ever read. Seriously. This is the stuff I studied, in depth, while at university, and about which I wrote my thesis. It's good stuff from a reader's perspective.-Bryan
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