Nick Hornby as good as ever!, 4. September 2007

How to be good ist eine super Geschichte über wahre gute Menschen und wie schwer es eigentlich ist so ein guter Mensch zu werden und es allen recht zu machen. Es ist aber auch ein Buch über den familiären Zusammenhalt und kindliche Erwartungen. Wer ein amüsantes Buch sucht, das gleichzeitig auch zum Nachdenken anregt sollte sich dieses zulegen.

       Gute Menschen sind anstrengend, 24. Juli 2007

Um Güte oder Pazifismus zu verbreiten muss man eine gewisse Vermarktungsaggressivität mitbringen, die diejenigen, die einem am Nächsten sind auf eine harte Probe stellen und das Zusammenleben sicher nicht einfach machen. Insgesamt ein amüsantes und auch sehr philosophisches Buch, das allerdings an einigen Stellen ein bisschen zu oft auf den immer gleichen Überlegungen herum reitet.

      Searching for Spiritual Meaning, 23. April 2007

How To Be Good is one of those books that flirts with an idea strong enough to be a great book, but doesn't execute well enough. As such, it's a marvelous study for novelists of what to do and not to do . . . but is unnecessarily heavy going for the reader. If you want to feel challenged about what kind of a life to lead, you will probably find this book resonates. If you are pretty satisfied with your principles, this book will seem like a lot of ado about very little.In case you haven't heard what the plot is, the protagonist is Dr. Katie Carr, a woman who is proud to be a physician and who wants to be a good wife, mother and citizen. She finds that being a physician uses up her emotional resources, and before the end of the day she's not giving her patients her all. By the time she arrives at home, she's not really there. Her husband, David, is a very angry man . . . who gets attention from others through his anger. Katie has wandered into an uninspiring affair with a man who doesn't please her sexually as much as David does. At the edge of a divorce, David refuses to let her go.One of David's sources of anger is his back pain. Nothing seems to work until he meets a lay healer whose touch warms and removes pain. Presto, the pain is gone! But David also seems to lose his anger, and is compulsively driven to do good. If a homeless person needs money, David gives him all that Katie and he have on them . . . except for Tube fares. The family has three computers . . . surely they should give one to poor children. Many neighbors have extra bedrooms. Why shouldn't homeless people be installed there?The book's opening is a bit hard to take. It's a painful description of a painful marriage. That part could have been greatly shortened up. The meat of the story is in David's attempts to do good, and Katie's less than enthusiastic reactions to those attempts. David's sensibilities open up horizons for doing good that had never occurred to me. On the other hand, the search for spiritual growth was doomed from the start as a story. The healer discovered his abilities through taking too many drugs, rather than through some religious or spiritual activity. That makes the whole search seem inauthentic. Katie and her family seem antireligious, although she does seek out a sort of religious counseling about her marriage.The real subject of the book seems to be the spiritual deadness that many people feel. Personally, I found the questions of our responsibilities to other people to be more interesting. The book was flawed from this moral point of view by overindulging in considering things that don't work . . . rather than in emphasizing what might. For instance, many people around the world respond in constructive ways to the homeless problem by donating time and energy to Habitat for Humanity International. A story about how a spiritual dead marriage was affected by working with that organization would have been intriguing.There are many funny moments in the book, especially when Katie's hypocritical views are tested. One of my favorites is when her clinic is overrun with people who want nonmedical healing after Katie brings in the healer to touch one of her patients. Katie doesn't want to give up her authority as a physician, even if people cannot be helped by her. So she refuses to bring the healer back.If you decide to read this book, I encourage you to consider the Recorded Books version (which is unabridged) and is ably narrated by Jenny Sterlin. She does a fine job of making a painful story seem more real.I was left with the thought of how I might do more to help the homeless in ways that I find spiritual uplifting and will be inspiring for those I love. That's a pretty nice benefit from a novel.

      Not a real female voice, 21. März 2007

It was a couple of years since I read this book. I have read High Fidelidy and About a Boy which I love. Hornby is great in these books because he captures 30 something men's thoughts in a true and very entertaining way. I do believe that a lot of men can recognize themselves in these books. And for me, I just love them, despite their inadequacies or more probable because of them.I can remember thoughts sweeping through my head in the past, reading women who aim to capture men and men who write about women, they always seem to be full of wishes and coloured by lack of firsthand experience. A great work of literature has to be truer than a real life story. Ok, you don't read Hornby to learn the secrets of life. But still, this book made this very clear to me, a writer who is good at capture the male psyche can not write equally good when picking a woman as the narrator voice (Henry James is an exception to this in A Portrait of a Lady, there are always exceptions). There is more to it then just change the name of the character. And this character, although aimed to be a woman, just dont think like one.

      Wann ist man ein guter Mensch?, 29. Dezember 2006

diese frage greift nick hornby in dem buch auf teils sehr sarkastische teils aber auch sehr sozialkritische weise auf. aus der sicht von katie wird erzählt das man selbst als arzt nicht unbedingt ein "besserer" mensch ist. außerdem geht es ja auch um die frage: was zur hölle ist überhaupt ein guter mensch?anfangs fühlt sich katie mit ihrem beruf als arzt ganz wohl aber kann eine solche tätigkeit der ausgleich für eine affiare sein? ist sie "gut" genug um solche und andere fehler zu begehen? oder soll sie anfangen wie ihr ehemann david und wirklich nur jede erdenkliche möglichkeit nutzen um ein guter menschen zu sein? es sind fragen wie diese die das buch zu etwas besonderen machen. es ziwngt einen praktisch dazu sich eine einstellung zu dem thema "gut sein" und "wie viel gut ist denn gut genug und woran wird gemessen?" sucht.katie verwickelt sich dabei immer mehr in absurde situationen die mit dem typischen hornby-humor gespickt sind. und allein für sätze wie "C(urch) of E(ngland) heaven is in all probility a quarter-full of unhappy old ladies selling misshapen rock cakes and scratched Mantovani records" (187) sollte man dem buch eine chance geben auch wenn es nicht so stark ist wie "about a boy" und "high fedelity".