About a boy - Nick Hornby

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”About a boy” by Nick Hornby


The story begins with a conversation with Marcus and his mum. That’s when you find out that Marcus mum is a single mother and have just split up with her boyfriend Roger, or they are going too anyway. You see that there are big problems between Marcus and his mum already in the beginning, those problems is mostly the main part of the book.
The end of the story I personally don’t think is any good, you really don’t get it. After a trip to Marcus father Clive in Cambridge. Over there a lot of troubles come up but also many get solved. But finally all the persons in the book seem to have change and everyone are really friends. You get the feeling in the first pages of the book that Marcus doesn’t have a friend, not even some on his side.
It was fun to start reading the book, it felt like you came in to it directly because of the dialogues in the beginning.

I don’t think the story has got one climax, there are several. First when Marcus mum gets to the hospital after trying to kill her self. Then when Will start to change from a young over class bachelor to a person who really can have certain feelings, especially about love. The good about the book is that it’s just not one special thing it’s all about. You read about everyone’s different feelings and thoughts, which make the story very varied.

I don’t think the ending is happy, it could be much better! But the one thing that’s good about it is that the characters have grown up and begin to start a new life. Thru the journey in the book everyone learn new things and realize that life is more about friends and love than just trying to survive the day. That message which the writer, Nick Hornby, gives out is one of the best. I think a lot of persons can compare with at least on of the characters.

The book kind of affects me in two ways. The first which I wrote about in the piece before, how people changes by just meeting other people and learn new things. The second effect is that you get emotional in the way he writes the story, both happy feeling and sad feelings. I don’t think I’ve gotten this emotional with another book before. So I really think the book is worth reading.
I think Nick Hornby writes about ideas he come up with himself or ideas he experienced in the real life. That’s why the story feels so real.

I definitely think he wants to deliver a message to the reader. You can connect it to the things I written already, but the biggest message I think is that he wants you to think about life, and realize what a great thing it really is And if you’re having a hard time there are always someone out in the world who can help you, maybe the one you least expect.

Nick Hornby is as far I as think an emotional person who thinks a lot about life and so on. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to write like he does about every characters viewpoints of life and all the thoughts. If I took a guess I would say that Nick has a great relationship to everyone in his surroundings. And that he has a sensible attitude about family, love and marriage.

I would see Nick Hornby as an optimistic person but who can have pessimistic days. If you are a writer and sits and write your book, you write in it when you got different feelings. Maybe when you feel sad about something you write some sad things for the character. Your temper affects the book, and probably Nick is a person who changes his temper in a good way and can write about absolutely perfect. He takes his life humorously I would think, but you also have to think before you act. With that way of thinking I believe you can go far.

The story takes place in the centre of London between the years 1993 and 1994. Places you get to read about it mostly Wills great apartment, Fiona and Marcus house, Marcus school, Rachel’s place and just out in the environment. Fiona and Marcus lives in a middle class life while Will is in the upper class. You can tell that because of the descriptions of their flats and also their life and job.

The main character is Will and also Marcus. I start with describing Will. He is an upper class bachelor with nothing to do, he spends all his days at home, at the hairdresser, at the video store, shopping or looking for woman. He doesn’t have to get a job he gets all his money from when his dad wrote a famous Christmas song: “Santa’s Super Sleigh”. Will is happy with his life in that way but he changes in the book and experience true love for the first time. Before he just met woman then he broke up with them and hurt their feelings. He is a person who doesn’t think a lot about life and other important stuff. And when he meet someone he haven’t really got anything to say, because he don’t got a job, no contact with his family, no children or grandchildren. He realized that he is kind of an boring person with noting interesting to say.
“It was true that something had happened in him immediately, but what had pushed him over the edge into the land of permanent daydream was a remark Robert had made a couple of days later, when Will had phoned to thank him for the party.” (pages 189)
An example how Will change and realize that you do can have real feelings about someone else.
Marcus is a special little boy with a silly haircut, different clothes and he also sings out loud at bad times. He is twelve years old and if you see his mother Fiona you know where he gotten his style from. She is a vegetarian hippie you basically can say. Marcus is bullied at school and he don’t have any friends. He is short and ha brown hair. Marcus is a person who is independent and he thinks a lot. He really has a hard time both at school and at home. But when he meet Will it all change. Will understands a bit more about his situation than his mother Fiona does. He knows he gets bullied at school, while his mother just wants to close her eyes for it. Wills and Marcus relationship is the main plot of the book and you get to follow how both the persons change and grow up.

Quotes

“He didn’t want to put up with thing as they were, but the other choice meant that he’d have to be his own mother, and how could you be your own mother when your were only twelve?” (page 119)
An example which shows that Fiona isn’t a great mother to him, that’s why he search for response from Will.

“He was having a shit time at school and a shit time at home, and as home and school was all there was to it, just about, that meant he was having a shit time all the time, apart from when he was asleep” (page 40)
Another example for Marcus way to think of life He really is going to a hard time at this point.

“Occasionally, when the mood took him, he applied for jobs advertised in the media pages of the Guardian. He liked the media pages, because he felt he was qualified to fill most of the vacancies on offer.” (page 72)
Here it shows that Will doesn’t do anything for a living. He searches for job when he doesn’t have better things to do.

“Will wrestled with his conscience, grappled it to he ground and sat on it until he couldn’t hear a squeak out of it. Why should he care of Marcus went to school or not? OK, wrong question. He knew very well he should care whether Marcus went to school. Try a different question: how much did he care whether Marcus went to school or not? Answer: not a lot. That was better. He drove home.” (page 143)
Will realize that he indirectly cares about Marcus, a feeling he never felt before. This is kind of the beginning of their relationship to each other.

“Will fell in love on New Year’s Eve, and the experience took him completely by surprise. She was called Rachel, she illustrated children’s books, and she looked a little bit like Laura Nyro on the cover of Goma Take A Miracle – nervy, glamorous, Bohemian, clever, lots of long, unruly dark hair.” (page 171)
Love, another feeling Will experience. He is not used to it but he thinks he likes it, anyway he will get used to it.

“Will was beginning to come to the conclusion that he as not, as he had always previously thought, a good liar. He was an enthusiastic liar, certainly, but enthusiasm was not the same thing as efficacy, and he was now constantly finding himself in a situation whereby, having lied through his teeth for minutes or days or weeks, he was obliged to articulate the humiliating truth.” (pages 187-188)
Will is a big liar and he can not always lie in every conversation with a woman. He seems now to get the hang of not lying.

“People like Fiona really pissed him off. They ruined it for everyone. It wasn’t easy, floating on her surface of everything: it took skill and nerve, and when people told you that they were thinking of taking their own life, you could feel yourself being ragged under with them.” (page 221)
In the beginning of the book Will would never had thought like this. He really has change as a person, which is good to see. Before in his life he never met problems like these, and now he has so solve them.

“Most Saturdays now, Will took Ali and Marcus out somewhere. It had begun because he wanted to give their mothers a break…No, that wasn’t true. It had begun because he wanted to wriggle his way into Rachel’s life, and he wanted to make her believe that there was some kind of substance to him.” (page 273)
Will is truly in love, you can definitely tell so. He wants Rachel back, she dumped him after the lie that Marcus were Wills son. But it’s great to see that he fight for love and what he wants now instead of just laying in his sofa and watch “Countdown” all day long.






Short summary of the plot


Will is 36 years old and is the wealthiest, trendiest, but also the most selfish and lazy man in the world. He lives off the royalties from his father´s single hit, "Santa´s Super Sleigh".
To try and meet some women who are desperate for sex, he joins a single parents group called "SPAT" (single parents alone together), and pretends he has a son. There he meets Fiona, and her son Marcus. One day he and Will meet on a picnic, but they don´t like each other very much at first.
Marcus sometimes sings in the classroom without realising it, which causes him to suffer even more. He also spies on Will one day, and sees that he doesn´t have a kid at all. He tries to make Will a friend to his depressive...