How to Be Good
Nick Hornby
suggested by
busker on
09/02/2004
05:14:30 UTC
How to Be Good
Because I crave to write like Nick Hornby, I tend to denigrate him as a heavy-weight writer, but I have to admit that he taps eternal verites in
me.
Katie Carr wants to be "good" - cares about Third World debt and homelessness, struggles to raise her children with a conscience.
She also tries to put up with her husband, self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway, and (in my vanity) all too accurate a mirror of
me.
When Katie sleeps with another man, it starts what I suppose one'd call a "spiritual journey" (ugh).
Whatever it is, it provoked
me to thought and renewed effort to keep my own relationship(s) in better order.
It's generally acknowledged that humor is difficult, written or on-stage, and yet we rarely celebrate the successes. When did a Lodge or Bradbury or Hornby win any significant prize?
A story like this, that can make you rethink your lazy selfish attitudes to others and - heaven forfend - 'grow up' is not one for the burning.
