h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Nick Hornby - A783551
Author: Emily Strange, a piece of Scottish Fiction - U129266

I've been working on this in dribs and drabs since the summer and finally got it finished about ten minutes ago. There are bits I think are a bit repeatitive but it's an entry I've wanted to put into Peer Review for a while.

Here's hoping anyhow.
Emily

Very nice article

It didn't feel too repetitive to me.
I like the way you contrast the books and the films.
One small thing is that there are no dates on the headings for the last two books in the article.

Thanks

*goes off to find dates*

*find something else prior and is a little dumbstruck*

um, 2001 and um 2001 as well.

sorry I just got some very um startling news for quarter past eight in the morning

Nothing too earth-shattering I hope!

Wanted to lend my weight to this forum to say that I liked this entry, and as already stated, the contrast of film and book is a necessary and well-written inclusion.

The following link http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/packages/uk/articles/hornby/intro.html might give you some extra material, if you care to make some additions (not that I think you need to)

I found the interview with Nick very interesting... but maybe you've already seen it.

Would it be worth just linking that site as a ?

I've also found out this morning there is another short story book, which I think I mentioned at the beginning, but there's another about music I'vee just read in a mag. Will add these when I find out more.

and it was simply that I got into the second round for a uni

Very comprehensive stuff. I've not read/seen all his stuff, but the bits I have you get very nicely.

Sprout

Thanks Sprout

I've just updated it again adding in the other reference and the books I managed to miss...do you think I'll need to write about them considering they're only short stories? Or should I do what I did with the others and just say who's written for it?

Great entry, Emily - I've been a fan of Nick Hornby ever since I bought 'Fever Pitch' as a Plymouth Argyle-obsessed teenager, and somehow it made everything all right! So it's only because I liked your article so much that I've been through it so thoroughly - please don't be offended.

First paragraph:
There's an 's' missing from 'Speaking with the Angels'...

Second:
I'd stick a comma after 'Cambridge University', and maybe consider splitting the sentence in two somewhere around 'but before'.

Third:
Nick Hornby at present lives in Highbury, North London, within walking distance of the now infamous football team, Arsenal - there's a link you can put in here, to A311248.

Fever Pitch 1992 - I like the way you've done the dates in brackets for some of the headings, so I'd suggest doing it throughout the whole article. Maybe you'd consider sticking in a hpyhen for 'football-crazed'?

Film: Fever Pitch (1997)
First paragraph:
Again, maybe 'football-crazed'?

Second:
maybe a comma after 'the film' and perhaps you need a different word to 'create', although I know what you mean there.

Third:
'long-standing'? i do like my hyphens...

High Fidelity (1995)
First
Just off the top of my head, I think there's just one 'm' in Fleming.

Second
A comma after 'For Rob' and another after 'and CDs'?

Third
hyphens again...'all-time'?

Film: High Fidelity (2000)
A wee pedantic point, but it was hammered into me by a Canadian friend of mine - when you say the 'US', or 'America' you should really say the USA... this is because among other countries, Brazil is also a 'US of...' and of course when you say America you're referring to an entire continent!

There's a couple of typos lower down (John Cusake) and 'five1' and perhaps you need an apostrophe for the smug idiot's teeth? And when you say 'prospectus' do you mean 'perspective'?

I'll go for a cup of and be back for the rest in a minute...

Cheers,
Number Six

Onwards and upwards...

About a Boy 1998
I have nothing to say - apart from what you've done is great!

Film: About a Boy (2002)
Maybe you don't need the 'and' after Roberta Flack? And I'd suggest Will's life to be either 'all-too free and easy' or 'all too free-and-easy'...

How to be Good 2001
Again, great stuff!

31 Songs
Maybe 'reggae-style'? I'd better appoint myself keeper of hyphens, the way this is going...

Another one! You're going to hate me! Anyway, what about 'self-indulgent'? For the paragraph, not me And also 'factors' rather than factor?

Hope it all helps, anyway...

Cheers,
Number Six

thanks Number Six, that's a lot of help. The reason some of the dats have brackets and other don't is purely because of the length of time I've been working on it and moving things around, all kinda got a bit muddled

I'll tackle all that right now

I've been doing a bit more thinking, Emily...

The one thing you perhaps need to touch on is how - within the football world, at any rate - controversial a book Fever Pitch is considered. I loved the book and was a bit disappointed by the film ... but the thing worth mentioning is that because the book was such a success, and an unexpected one too, it was a ground-breaking phenomenon in the world of literature.

Previously, the only football books published were glossy annuals for teenagers, or cliched players autobiographies ghosted by Fleet Street hacks. Suddenly, football became intellectually respectable - there was an issue of 'Granta' in which Ian Hamilton wrote about Gazza, and so on (the list of 'girlfriends dumped by' in High Fidelity also appeared in this issue) - and people who loved football but could still express more thoughts than anger, laughter or 'let's f***' finally started to get decent books to read on the subject.

All this was great in one way, and it meant that football was considered seriously by the so-called 'thinking classes', and it made it OK to be vaguely intellectual and like football. On the other hand, it was responsible for a multitude of feeble Fever Pitch imitations, and also in part for football's move upmarket that has sanitised the atmosphere at most Premiership grounds and taken the game out of the financial reach of those that had kept it alive throughout the 80s when the Thatcher Government would have loved to shut it down given half the chance.

Put simply, it's a great book because it made it OK for middle-class w*nkers like me to like football. Or it's an awful book because it made it OK for middle-class w*nkers like me to like football. It just depends where you stand. Or sit. Or eat prawn sandwiches...

see I loved the film and found the book really hard to get through because I'm not a huge football fan - unless it's the world cup - so I really found it hard to get into as there is also no discerning plot. Whereas the film I prefered because it did seem to have a beginning middle and end.

I think out of all I've read High Fidelity is my favourite of the books and my favourite of the films is probably either its adaptation or About a Boy (although they should have stuck to Nirvana instead of going to rap)

The three films are in amongst my faves as are the books.

I'll try and fit in some of your suggestions certainly

I can see how you would... I think the book only really works if it relates to experiences you've already had - and if you have, it connects remarkably well! I think the big surprise was how many people were out there that it connected with...

I agree with you about changing Nirvana to rap in 'About a Boy' but I can kind of understand why they did it to make it more contemporary. Although in that case, why does Will still play the guitar rather than rap a la Wyclef Jean?

Also in the film of High Fidelity, instead of starting up a soul club night, he manages that band that the kids that shoplift from the record shop have... I think that's the most appropriate change that's been made in the transition from book to film.

I know the changes were kinda ones that were inevitable when it came to the changing time of music, but people are still being effected by Nirvana, which is why I connected with that part of the book, Nirvana got me out of my teenybopper stage and into appreciating a much broader spectrum of music. That and I dislike rap with a firey passion.

I didn't mind the alteration from the soul night to the band opening in high fidelity, mostly because I didn't actually mind the track they used for the boys band. I was more annoyed at the change of setting.

Sorry for butting in!

I wanted to point out this: "Will's thirty-six and a hip Londoner, but he acts like a teenager, he reads the right magazines, he goes to the right clubs, he knows the which trainers to wear and he knows the right brand names to wear; he's single, child free and happy."

There´s an extra word in there, 'knows the which trainers'...

Also, when you´re talking about the short stories, I misunderstood something. To begin with, as I didn´t recognize the titles you list, I thought they were the titles for the stories. I thought that until I ran into something like Zadie Smith or someone, and realised my mistake...

Lovely entry, cool books (which sadly I haven´t even read, I should just go hide, but I´ve seen the films), good job

Congratulations on being on the second round... here's to the others


cheers ismarah

Hi Emily,

Cracking entry! really like this, and I'm sure it'll be a shoe-in when the time comes for a Scout to become involved.

Just a few pointers really.

- All book and film titles should appear between ... tags.

- I can see the bit where you might be referring to regarding repetition. Personally, I'd suggest deleting the para that starts 'The first three of Hornby's novels...' and instead adding a bit in the first para (after you've listed his books) saying 'the first three of which have been turned into feature films'.

- Fever Pitch isn't Hornby's autobiography in the truest sense. Probably better to say: 'Hornby's semi-autobiographical novel'. I'd probably add to this section that although it's about being a football fan, the emotions and responses of the characters are recognisable to fans of any sort, whether that be Rugby, Star Trek or stamp collecting.

- High Fidelity, the film. At the time of release, it has to be said most reviewers commented how little the change in location mattered to the transfer from London to Chicago. Indeed, many of the locations used in the film were actually similar to places you can find in London, so it was actualy quite easy to forget about the location change

- Speaking with Angels - I'd suggest that Roddy Doyle is possibly more famous for 'The Commitments', and Irvine Welsh for 'Trainspotting'. While I get the joke about Colin Firth, it might be less confusing to explain he is famous for playing Mr Darcy in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, and for playing Mark Darcy in Bridget 'Jones' Diary'. You could do this in a footnote - ... .

Jims

I'll get a shift on with all your suggestions now

Hang on though Jimster... isn't Fever Pitch entirely non-fictional and therefore not a novel?

I was under the impression that it was a fictionalised version of the true story. But you're right, I should check first.

I'm probably not going to be onsite this weekend (or rather, I *shouldn't* be), but I'll pop in and confirm if I can.