High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

High Fidelity, the movie, has somehow become a sort of comfort food for me. I watch it every now and then, and even though it's become exceedingly familiar, it continues to entertain. It seems the same may be happening for the book version. This was the second time I read the Nick Hornby novel, which, I guess, makes for a total of almost ten repeats of book and movie. High Fidelity is up there with The Truman Show for entertainment that I have yet to tire of. There is nothing wrong with repetition, but there is some irony in going back to reread books about being afraid of moving on in life.

Rob is a music geek who, with a pair of attendants, one anodyne and one aggressively insecure, runs a low-key used record store in London. His store is losing money and, as the story opens, his girlfriend Laura has left him for the guy upstairs. In an effort to understand why he keeps striking out with his loves, he tracks down his "top five" breakups, starting from high school. To exercise his demons, he hooks up with an American musician, because he (and I'm quoting from memory, either book or movie) "had always wanted to sleep with someone who had a recording contract". Along the way, Rob has to contend with his insecurities and learn to be a decent human being. Hornby's tone hides the fact that the main character is a genuine jerk for most of the time and, once the realization hits the reader, it's a nice way of realizing how immune we are to bigotry when the bigot is us.

It's a Nick Hornby novel, so the characters have whimsy and depth and the plot is gentle, but a little preachy. It shares a space with other contemporary fiction, like The Martian and The Cuckoo's Calling, that is approachable, funny and moderately well reviewed by critics. It doesn't take itself very seriously, which all but precludes it from winning a Pulitzer or making it to any best-of-the-decade lists. But in terms of quality - of writing, character development, insight or tone - High Fidelity is an excellent work and not to be dismissed.

It's difficult for me to talk about High Fidelity, the novel, in isolation and without reference to my beloved movie adaptation. While I was reading, I could hear John Cusack's voice speaking the part of Rob and Jack Black singing Let's Get It On. Some of the lines are shared word for word between the two medias. At times it seems like the movie is more a reading of the source material - it even shares some of the music references! High Fidelity has been there to support me through several stages of my life. In adolescence, I could sympathize with the terrible breakups. Now, as an adult, I'm more a sucker for the "Where is all this going?" -part. I keep finding new levels.

A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgård

I read the first part of Knausgård's My Struggle series a few years ago. I had every intention of moving on to the second part immediately, but there was something to the opening pages of A Man in Love that put me off. I put reading the book on hold indefinitely. Now, I suddenly felt that I was ready to face the familial themes of Knausgård's autobiographical work. The book opens with a passage, where Knausgård takes his first child to the playground with his wife. In all its ordinariness - I even struggle to remember the exact contents - it's a great introduction to a book about love, lust, morals, family and masculinity that is tied to the world of early 2000s Sweden.

The strangest thing about Knausgård's novels has been that they make me distinctly bored at times, and not for insignificant amounts of time. In A Death in the Family, a new year's foray to a friend's party seemed to drag on forever. In this one, discussions of German philosophy could cause an onset of somnambulism. Yet, both books have been immensely rewarding all the same. The slower pace of his novels forces the reader to sit down for longer periods and adjust their rhythm to the pace of the writing. There is an element of victorian drama to it all: when everything is deliberated and considered, and the drama plays out in chapters and not paragraphs, even the slightest changes in tempo have an immediate impact on the reader.

Part of what makes A Man in Love, and all of the other books in the series, magical is the way they subvert your expectations without leaning on tropes or plot twists. Most other novels are built around traditional drama rules, things that you would learn in art school or drama class. If a gun is introduced, someone must pull its trigger. Emerging love interests need to be resolved or rebuffed. Tension is built up, then released. A Man in Love adheres to none of these. Drama unfolds as it does in the real world: conflicts are left unresolved and motivations are either left unexplained or are unexplainable. It takes some time to get used to this and as the novel plays with your expectations of what can happen in drama, it gets under your skin.

Nowhere is this more evident then when Knausgård takes his daughter to a toddler music class. He sits among mothers with their children, chanting silly nursery rhymes and feeling emasculated. Anger builds up inside him, because he is unable to act on his instinct to make an exit. He feels humiliated in front of the attractive instructor, a young woman that barely acknowledges him. He wonders if he could make advances on her after class. A scene like this would have some cogent resolution in ordinary fiction. But here, nothing happens. Knausgård and the instructor never speak or see each other again. He doesn't charge off cursing.

The sixth and final part of Knausgård's saga was released in English a few months ago and many reviewers mentioned the previous books, especially A Man in Love, as some of the greatest novels of the 2000s. Personally, I'm a bit torn. I haven't actually finished it yet and I'm stuck a few dozen pages before the end. Then again, I already feel that both A Death in the Family and A Man in Love have had an outsized impact on me as a human. I adore books that get in the reader's head, and both novels do that without a hint of trickery. It reminds me of Andreas's effect on Pip in Jonathan Franzen's Purity. Knausgård has power over the reader because he is present more in their brains than on the page. He has charisma, looks and a prickly personality. Keeping him in check is part of the struggle.

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

I'm even a little embarrassed to be posting this, but I feel it's more important to be honest than to hide something that I actually read. The reason for my embarrassment is insignificant but perhaps a little revealing. The Last Wish is a collection of short stories set in the world of The Witcher trilogy of video games. The books came first and the video games later, but that makes neither no less nerdy nor suspect. Sci-fi and fantasy have been making more excursions into the pop culture world - just consider how big Game of Thrones has become - but the connection is still mostly held together by couplets of video game and book or movie and book. Without its game counterpart, The Last Wish would languish in book shops among hundreds of similar looking fantasy romps, exotic elves or glistening swords or dragons adorning their covers.

That is not to say that The Last Wish is all bad. Its decidedly more mature than typical teenage fantasy books (which is not the only thing it has in common with Game of Thrones). Some of the short stories are genuinely good (especially The Lesser Evil and The Witcher) and they make use of the format's strengths: the increased weight of every line of dialogue, the opportunity to focus on smaller themes and the natural tension of wondering how each story will end. Sapkowski does a good job of giving characters personality even within the confines of individual chapters and the individual stories add to the others as well, as the reader starts to understand Geralt's, the main character's, predicament.

I would never had given The Last Wish the time of day, if I hadn't enjoyed The Witcher 3 video game so much, it's as simple as that, and having read it, it seems unlikely that I'll read any of the four other novels in the series. I couldn't shake the feeling that there is little of consequence in the world of The Witcher. How am I the wiser having read this? The Last Wish didn't really surprise me, nor did it delight me. It's good, but it represents a genre that I tend to categorically discount. It may be beloved in its original Polish, but some of the context is clearly lost in regions that are not familiar with what kind of fairytale monster a striga is. Geralt isn't your average monster slayer, but he isn't that unique either. In the books, at least.

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn

Summer reading is supposed to be fun and The Woman in the Window is fun, for the most part. At the same time, though, its derivative, predictable and repetitive. It follows the tradition of recent summer romps like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train so closely that despite the pristine prose, I kept feeling cheated: it takes a lot of convincing to show a skeptic like me that this isn't just some calculated effort to run down a trend. Even Daniel Mallory's pseudonym, A. J. Finn, is so similar to Gillian Flynn (author of the much better Gone Girl) that you can't help feeling a little duped. And what's wrong with his own name in the first place? To me Daniel Mallory is a perfect novelist name, albeit a male one that might not look as convincing on the cover of a book about a woman aimed towards women in general.

Anna Fox is an agoraphobic - someone who fears open spaces - and spends most of her time indoors in her town house in Harlem, New York. From her window, she spies on her neighbors with a long lens camera. When she witnesses a murder across the street, she has to deal with her phobia and past trauma to work on finding the killer. The framing of the story is standard Hitchcock by way of Agatha Christie and overall I had a hard time seeing the forest from the referential trees.

Here's a list of references to give you an idea of how The Woman in the Window "pays homage" to other books and movies: almost all of Hitchcock's films (most notably The Rear Window, Vertigo and Strangers on a Train), The Girl on the Train (especially the alcoholism, the voyeurism and the titling),  and perhaps even The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (the interactions between an obstinate protagonist and a good-guy cop). These are just the ones that I recognized. The New York Times review is almost exclusively dedicated to describing how The Woman in the Window fits in with the wider tradition. It's more a gala of dignified references than an actual book review.

As a simple summer read, The Woman in the Window is perfectly adequate and I imagine that the obligatory, fast-tracked movie version will be as good or even better. Its above most detective fiction because it is so well built. Pacing and exposition are excellent, the reader is hooked with shocking revelations and a surprisingly humane touch. A mid-book aside about a skiing trip is haunting and a definite highlight. Mallory overdoes the alcohol and prescription drug aspect of Fox's persona, however, so much so that readers of The Girl on the Train are already plenty familiar with the drill. Was the murder just a product of an over-active imagination and unscrupulous use of medication? The answer won't surprise you.

All that being said, there seems to be nothing stopping The Woman in the Window from becoming a success both in print and on film. It makes for perfectly pleasant reading, especially if you haven't seen Vertigo. Its faults will be pointed out by critics, but as a product of today's pop culture, we could do worse. It's the Bruno Mars or Robin Thicke of detective fiction. You can't really complain about production values, but don't be surprised if copyright infringement lawsuits start popping up.

Rework by Jason Fried

Rework isn't really a book, it's a manifesto. Sure it's packaged like a paperback, has compelling blurbs to go along and seems like your average management-self-help effort. There's barely any structure, for one, which clearly differentiates it from most of the other management books out there. "Chapters" are more like op-eds, covering a few pages at most and only a few paragraphs at least. Where others try to convince businesses based on scientific (or pseudo-scientific) evidence, Rework relies on sound argumentation, passion and chutzpah.

Many of its core ideas are as valid as ever. Working late nights and weekends is useless and often ruinous. Budgets are guesses. Meetings are (mostly) a waste of time. Companies should sell their by-products. All are excellent guidelines for would-be entrepreneurs and business managers. Even when its arguments are backed up by barely more than an anecdote and a few wise words, Rework is convincing. There is a transparency to making bold statements with limited evidence. Most business books leave you with a sense of being duped; their evidence, often in the form of graphs or cherry picked data, is often too neat and too convincing. Rework shows you its weaknesses and is better for it.

I'm always surprised to find out how much the actual world of work differs from that of Rework. Its ideas are sometimes obvious to the point of banality, yet most companies are unable to implement them. For example, there is no evidence that meetings are suddenly becoming less prominent or their content more engaging. Why are we stuck in this imperfect world? I would like to understand what is actually standing between us and the world of Rework. Is it our inability to question tradition, handed down from previous generations of managers? Is it our overconfidence and hesitance to learn and read? Or is it the surplus of poorly formulated and contradicting management advice? Whatever it is, Rework makes a compelling case for a new era of work.

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Not many are familiar with him, but most of us have bought the products he inspired. Phil Knight is the founder of Nike, the inescapable, all-around sportswear company. Introducing Nike as a sporstwear company feels like introducing coffee as a beverage; there is hardly anyone that has not heard of it. Most of us even have an opinion of its products. The name of Phil Knight, on the other hand, probably won't ring a bell for anyone except the most ardent Nike fans. His face isn't recognizable either. He once ran into Bill Gates and Warren Buffet outside a movie theather and realized that passers-by could only identify two out of the three, even though his personal wealth is on a similar level.

Phil Knight was brought up in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. At the University of Oregon, he trained under legendary track and field coach Bill Bowerman, who would later become the cofounder of Blue Ribbon, Nike's predecessor. Having graduated, Knight decided to travel around the world to visit spiritual places such as Mount Fuji and the Ganges river. At the same time he dreamed of putting an old business plan in action: importing running shoes from Japan.

The trips to post-war Japan are some of the more memorable parts of an otherwise adequate but not extremely titillating book. Knight took an amazing leap of faith by ordering untested foreign running shoes to import to the United States. He sent most of his money to the Onitsuka company as an advance for his first order. There was no explosive beginning, just a series of years, when Nike grew slowly and struggled to raise cash for growth. First the shoes were sold from Knight's parents' home, then from a small office, then from one store in California. At the time, ordering and producing the shoes was slow, so Knight was constantly on edge, as he waited for the next shipment to arrive.

Shoe Dog is mostly pop culture and meant for casual fans. There is a business book in there somewhere as well. Knight is not an ideal leader, he says so himself, and his gaffs are both heartbraking and hilarious. You can trace his development from a wide-eyed twenty-something into a pin-stripe suited corporate master. As he yells at his colleagues and tries to outsmart his suppliers, you can feel his idealistic past peel off. Whether or not this is intentional, I cannot say. It is this arch from idealism to capitalism that drives the reader's interest. Will he completely abandon his principles at the altar of the goddess of victory?

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

I didn't really know what to expect from 4 3 2 1. I went in barely having read the back cover and blurbs. I was on vacation in Sri Lanka, overwhelmed by the sounds, smells and sights of that wonderful island. The paperback was mostly there as a companion to the beach or for relaxing on a long (and sweaty) train ride. Reading on vacation is often a completely different experience than reading under a bedroom light. Vacations are often simultaneously relaxing and draining. You have time to slow down and let your mind rest. At the same time, I can't help myself planning the next stage of the trip or comparing dinner options. As my stress levels went down, I felt more receptive to literary fiction. It was as if work had muted my ability to focus and now as I huddled in my hammock, it had come rushing back. 

Unlike all of Auster's other work, 4 3 2 1 is a massive brick of a book. Instead of telling a single story, it tells one story four times. Archibald "Archie" Ferguson's life begins as one as his immigrant grandfather arrives in New York. His life takes four diverging but concurrent paths through mid 20th century America. For each stage of Archie's adolescence, four (or fewer) different stories are told that trace Archie from school to college and beyond. The reason for these repetitions may seem unclear or without motive at first, but a satisfying - and typically Austerian - conclusion ties up the loose ends nicely. I especially commend Auster for leaving clues along the way that point toward the end without giving it away.

Auster's previous work could sometimes feel like exercises in vanity. His novels would often crowd out character development for the sake of metaphysical themes like chance and subjectivity. His past works would get stuck on topics like black and white cinema, leatherbound notebooks or obscure writers and while that often served a purely literary purpose, they also interfered with the plot. The plot (mostly) takes center stage in 4 3 2 1, which makes it Auster's most conventional and approachable work. This also showcases his previously less visible talents as a storyteller and yarn spinner. 4 3 2 1 is breathtakingly excellent throughout, and without the small hiccups around the middle of the last third, it would be remembered as a masterpiece of the 2010s with the likes of The Goldfinch.

An interesting thing about 4 3 2 1 is that it has immediate rereading appeal, unlike almost any other book that I've encountered (excluding my adolescent fascination with all things Lord of the Rings). Because it is structured around phases in Archie's life, the next logical step would be to read the stories of the different Archies in character-centric order instead of chronological order. Reading four versions of the same adolescence messes with your head in a satisfying way and has readers looking for similarities between the Archie who lost his dad to a fire and the Archie who's father is a misanthropic millionaire. Mixing up the chapters and focusing on one incarnation of our hero would create a series of more conventional mini-novels.

What I loved about 4 3 2 1 was that it doesn't need to cheat the reader to be as good as it is. It's an excellent novel even without the trickery of the multiple Archies. Chapters are vivid but concise as they draw Archie's life in varying contexts. He's rowdy and inspired, then he's gloomy and sexually frustrated and then he's a young author with a name for himself. His parents support him, then they don't. His family disintegrates and then, in other circumstances, it doesn't. All these instances are there simultaneously, creating a comprehensive character study, across a universe of Archies (and Amys, Stanleys, Roses and Celias). It is hard not to be enchanted.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

It's been over two months since the last time I wrote. You would be forgiven for thinking that I had taken a longer leave from reading or had given up all together. It's true that it has been a while since I last read something that really got to me. For the last year, I've sometimes felt that I'm running out of steam. Reading hasn't given me as much joy as before. Those are not the reasons for such a long break, however. I've been inching through two tomes of epic length simultaneously: Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton and Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1 (more on that in the next post). Combined, they make up over 2000 pages. When traveling, you can only take one with you, as the combined weight from the two would surely push your luggage over the weight limit or break the seams of your backpack.

Alexander Hamilton is, naturally, the biography of the United States' first Secretary of the Treasury. Born out of wedlock in the West Indies, Hamilton rose to key roles in the American Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence and the cabinet of George Washington. After years of hard-fought political battles, Hamilton died in a duel with the Vice President Aaron Burr. More than any of his fellow founding fathers, Hamilton's life was a roller coaster of great heights and astounding lows. Even as he left his indelible mark on the country - writing the Federalist Papers, creating the Post Office, the Coast Guard, the Bank of New York, The National Bank and establishing New York as the center of finance and commerce that it still is today - his legacy has often been shrouded by attempts by his detractors to discredit him.

Alexander Hamilton bears some striking similarity to today's world. The first thing you notice is the utter likeness of the 18th century political world to the current one. Political slander in the 18th century was as vicious as it is today with the confounding factor that key members of the president's circle used pseudonyms to trash talk each other in the press. For example, Thomas Jefferson eagerly spread false rumors that Hamilton vied to create a US monarchy and that he was embezzling money as Secretary of the Treasury. The same conflicts that haunt today's America are there as well: the divide between the rural populace and the cities, the feud between the north and the south and the fear of giving too much power to a central government.

Chernow's book is a wonderful work; an enlightening and engrossing read that isn't afraid to ransack archives to prove a point or unearth some new piece of evidence. His prose is pristine and his personal passion for the topic shines through constantly. Quotes from the time slow down the pace a little, but are a critical component in understanding the era which, despite seeming eerily similar to our own at times, is often bewildering in its beliefs, customs and systems.

The last piece of this puzzle is the extraordinary musical Hamilton by Lin Manuel Miranda. It may be mostly unknown outside of the United States, but it has been a source of endless inspiration for me. I would never have read Chernow's biography, if I hadn't listened to the musical on repeat for the last two years. I am unable to say, which of the two should be considered the main oeuvre and which is more a supporting work. Even as the musical is based on the book, it transcends it in every way. The biography hints at the connection to today's America; the musical blows it wide open. I notice that even in this somewhat lengthy review, I have only said a fraction of the things that I want to say about Alexander Hamilton. His life story is a rabbit hole that ultimately explains the modern world as much as it reveals our history.

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

It's taken me an unusually long time to find something to say about Homo Deus. I've been struggling to come up with a way of describing it that would both do it justice and elaborate some of my frustrations with it. Just as its predecessor Sapiens, Homo Deus has been received with almost universal acclaim. It has a sense of gravitas and distinction that raises it above many better books. I couldn't quell a feeling of history-in-the-making as I read chapters on the nature of fiction, spiritualism and data, while simultaneously feeling extremely frustrated with Harari's extravagances and general pomposity.

A friend had an accurate description of Homo Deus: if you take everything at face value, you are either extremely gullible or will never finish it. Harari has opinions. You will agree with some and disagree with others. So expecting to read Homo Deus in the same state of mind as you would read something like Alexander Hamilton's biography (as I'm currently doing), will inevitably result in disbelief at the amount of leeway Harari has taken. Parts of Homo Deus recall editorials in science journals and in some ways the book is just several of those strung together.

I've always been a fan of telling stories through examples, and this is where Sapiens and Homo Deus diverge most. Sapiens was a riveting read, because it could enlighten the reader with stories of early humans and modern history. Those stories were the backbone of the book, and served to prop up other, more speculative, parts. Homo Deus is largely devoid of anecdotes, especially toward the end. This is understandable, as Homo Deus has less source material to go on. The future is unwritten, and Harari's goal is to look as far into the future as possible, so theorizing is the more common mode by default.

All this doesn't mean that Harari's message isn't important, even vital. As humans, we are so focused on daily drudgery that slower changes seem not to register. Harari succeeds at taking several steps back and looking at changes that have been brewing for decades or centuries. With the decline of religion and the lure of individualism, humanity has lost its sense of purpose. If there is no god, and humans are mostly (or wholly) algorithms that react to changes in their environment, how can there be free will or meaning. These questions have been posed by others before, but Harari ties them into a larger discussion of where humanity is headed. It is an important, but partly demoralizing debate.

More than with any other book, I struggled to give Homo Deus its due. I absolutely loathed reading some chapters. Harari goes on for pages in the style of "By equating the human experience with data patterns, Dataism undermines our main source of authority and meaning, and heralds a tremendous religious revolution, the like of which has not been seen since the eighteenth century.". As important as the message may be, his prose is too overbearing at times and he can't resist shoehorning in his personal opinions (on meat production, for instance). I struggled to finish it, because of its faults. Yet, I have a feeling that Homo Deus will come to mark an end of an era, as artificial intelligence overcomes human intelligence. As a guide to that future, Homo Deus is the undisputed leader.

Selected Short Stories by Philip K Dick

Philip K. Dick may be better known to most for the movies based on his novels. “Blade Runner”, “Minority Report” and “The Man in the High Castle” (among many others) have become staples of the science fiction genre and are known to even the most casual moviegoer. “Blade Runner”, especially, is more than a movie: it launched the career of one of the most recognizable actors of his generation (Harrison Ford) and defined the visual esthetics of science fiction in general. The underlying novels and short stories, while less well known, are classics as well. They are often funnier and stranger than their movie adaptations and work as great companions to the movies they inspired.

The short stories in this collection – compiled expertly by Jonathan Lethem – offer an enticing overview of the author’s work. There is an enviable amount of variety in the stories, but they are not all equal. “Second Variety” and “Impostor” are instant classics. “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” and “Minority Report” are excellent, but better known as high budget action films (the former was retitled “Total Recall” and inexplicably starred Arnold Schwarzenegger). “The King Of The Elves” and “The Electric Ant” are delightful diversions, but don’t necessarily warrant another reading. Even the weaker chapters – namely “Rautavaara’s Case” and “Roog” – have their own role in the ensemble. They work as asides and transitions between the main material.

What stands out is that each short story has merit on its own, yet the collection adds something to each individual piece. Themes of apocalypse, insanity and the nature of reality are observed from different angles to create a surprisingly compelling whole. “Autofac” and “Second Variety” describe a world, where factories have been automated to produce weapons without the intervention of humans. The quest to win wars leaves all sides on the brink of humanity’s end. The last humans desperately look for respite in a world ruled by apocalyptic wastes and bloodthirsty machines. Yet in spite of the chilling and sometimes gruesome content, Dick has a knack for the absurd. Many of the stories have surprising levity, even as they explore serious topics.

If Ender’s Game mostly attracts nerds and military types, Philip K. Dick has a much wider appeal. The science fiction is mostly there as a backdrop to explore humanity's fears and frailties. His descriptions of future technology with gears and wires, clicking and whirring, may seem quaint in our digital world, but the consequences of that technology are depicted disquietingly. Casual readers will quickly pick up on how, half a decade later, humanity is still on the course outlined in these short stories – only we are closer to their future than ever before.