ANORAKS OF FIRE! BRITAIN'S BEST ROCK NOVEL
All UK users of the Net know the term "anorak"...this style of windbreaker is traditionally tied to trainspotting. Trainspotting is the strange obsession by which men (no women) frequent rail stations merely to record the numbers of incoming trains. These "collections" are the source of singular satisfaction. Yet Brits are fond of calling anyone obsessed with a hobby's minutiae (ie LP catalogue numbers or computer codes) as both "anoraks" and "trainspotters".
Recently, however, the anorak has gotten sympathy. First came the smash UK stage show Anoraks of Fire. Now, in a brilliant new novel, High Fidelity, UK author Nick Hornby draws a brilliant portrait of the record-lover version.
High Fidelity is the story of anorak Rob Fleming, whose girlfriend leaves him on Page One of the book. Rob's first response? Comforting himself that she hasn't made it in his all-time Top Five Break-Ups.
With two sad-sack employees called Barry and Dick, Rob runs a down-at-heel London record shop. Here at Championship Vinyl, as at home, all the employees rank everything -- such as "top floor-fillers" at Rob's onetime West End Club. ('It's A Good Feeling' by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles'; 'No Blow No Show' by Bobby Bland; 'Mr Big Stuff' by Jean Knight; 'The Love You Save' by the Jackson Five;
and 'The Ghetto' by Donny Hathaway.)
Sure this is funny, but it offers much, much more. These characters offer real insights about British character, as well as how English listeners can relate to music. Just check the following -- Rob's first action at home after "Laura" leaves:
"When Laura was here I had the records arranged alphabetically; before that I had them filed in chronological order, beginning with Robert Johnson and ending with, I don't know, Wham! or somebody African, or whatever else I was listening to when Laura and I met. Tonight, though...I try to remember the order I bought them in: that way I hope to write my own autiobiography, without having to do anything like pick up a pen. I pull the records off the shelves, put them in piles all over the sitting-room floor, look for Revolver, and go on from there, and when I've finished I'm flushed with a sense of self because this, after all, is who I am. I like being able to see how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in twenty-five moves; I am no longer pained by the memory of listening to 'Sexual Healing' all the way through a period of enforced celibacy...."
For anyone who ever puzzled over UK-US cultural differences (not to mention certain similarities or the music press!), this is required reading. It's deft, funny, and the music refs are right on the nail. (Not that such trainspotters limit themselves to music...High Fidelity is filled with sidebars of thought on Top Ten films, kisses, movie endings -- even relationship "blunders". It's an excellent book, filled with care and (human) knowledge.
Right now, High Fidelity is available only in Britain (price in UK pounds 14.99, hardback). It's forthcoming in the USA from Riverhead/Scribners; in Germany from Kiepenheur Witsch; in Holland from Atlas; in Italy from Guanda and in Norway from Aschenbourg. If you can't wait, however, just mail order it by faxing Elgin Books (UK) 171- 792 -1457; they take credit cards, too.
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