Great Expectations & High Fidelity

Yesterday I finished High Fidelity. Today I'm going to talk about it. I like to do these posts with three books so I'm also going to talk about The Scarlet Letter and Great Expectations. There are lots of links in this introduction. I'm confused because I started school on Monday! Also I don't know where I'm going half the time. Anyways. I expect I'll be reading a lot more during the school year, mostly books that are assigned to me. That'll be fun.

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I thought it would be a good idea to read this book because I dunno, apparently it's an American classic or something. Whatever, now I can say I read it and hopefully I'll NEVER HAVE TO PICK IT UP AGAIN. The most interesting thing about reading this book was finding a stamp on one of the pages that said "Nanuet Senior High School, Church St., NY" which is coincidentally like 5 minutes away from where Katrina lives.

This book is dense. I feel like it could've been written in two chapters if Hawthorne hadn't spent pages and pages describing shit that had no importance whatsoever. I'm probably insulting a lot of people right now. I'll say something good: there was a couple of pages at the end that I was really into. That is all.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Again, I wanted to read some "classic literature" 'cause it looks good on my book resume/list. Great Expectations was good. It wasn't life changing and it wasn't terrible. It was completely enjoyable, if not a bit long, but still fun to read. The characters were all developed really nicely and have their own background story, which is great since I love character analysis. Wemmick and Mr. Jaggers were my favorite, especially Wemmick because he's just so awesome (that is the formal way of saying it), also I think Herbert and Pip were lovers probs. Actually now that I think about it, I like Great Expectations a lot more now than when I read it. Which was like a week ago.

"You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since -- on the river, on the sails of ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets."

Pip to Estella, "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

I was really excited to read this book because 1) it looks super pomo and 2) it starts with a list. I was not disappointed. I was about 1/3 of the way through it and I was like "what the hell is this book about? this is weird" but it just got better as I went along. I think I got really into it when I suddenly realized that the narrator, Rob, is just like me. Or I'm just like him. There's also a ton of lists, which I love.

I'm kind of curious to watch the movie because there's so much narration that I don't know how they would do it. Anyways I'm going to watch it at one point and maybe I'll tell you about it. I can't really explain this book, but it got me thinking in a certain way and inspired me to write a "short story" which I may or may not post sometime in the future.

Also if you like Chuck Palahniuk, you will probably like High Fidelity.

"The difference between these people and me is that they finished college and I didn't; as a consequence, they have smart jobs and I have a scruffy job, they are rich and I am poor, they are self-confident and I am incontinent, they do not smoke and I do, they have opinions and I have lists."

-Nick Hornby "High Fidelity"