About a Boy av Nick Hornby

Characters

Marcus is a boy who is twelve years old and he is one of two main characters in this book. His parents got divorced when he was eight years old. In the beginning both of his parents lived in Cambridge but when Marcus was twelve he moved to London with his mother. For being a twelve years old boy he is very adult. Maybe because his mother is much depressive and he feel he had to look after her.

Marcus is a short boy with thin body. He is vegetarian because his mother wants it so. He always wore outdating clothes. In fact he was a bit different. In school he doesn´t talk so much. He has not so much friends. The only time he opens his mouth is when he sings a song that he is thinking of.

The other mail character is Will Freeman. He is 36 years old. He doesn't work and never had. Her father wrote a song who gives Will so much money that he doesn´t have to work. That life is good he think. He spends most of the time watching TV, driving around in his cool car and listening to Nirvana. Will is a tall good looking man who lives in a nice apartment with his CD-collection. He thinks he is such a cool man. Will compare himself to an island. He thinks he doesn´t need anybody to survive. In fact it is the way he lives. He doesn´t have anybody around to love and anybody who loves him either. Lots of women come and goes in his life but he doesn´t love them. He has no family and not so much real friends either.

The story

It is in 1993 and Marcus and his mother had just moved from Cambridge to London. In school the kids treat him and everyone except from his mother and her friend Suzie think he is weird. Marcus life isn´t funny at all. At home he has to take care of his mother and in school the older kids steal his things and even the teachers make fun of him.

In another part of London lives Will Freeman. He has just broken up from a relationship with a single mother. He thinks it is a good thing to have relationships with single mothers. Now he is wondering how to get contact with more of them.  He got an idea. He is pretending he has a son called Ned. Then he can join SPAT which means Single Parents Alone Together and now he can go for their meetings. He hopes he will meet sexy single mums there. At the first meeting he meets a woman called Suzie. She invites him for a picnic in a park the following Saturday with SPAT. He accepts the invitation but he has to learn a lot about babies and he has to buy a baby seat for his car. Just to make Suzie thought he is a father.

The same week Marcus mother Fiona tells him that he will go for the picnic with Suzie. He doesn´t want to but his mother says he must. 

On the picnic Marcus and Will meet each other at the first time. Will think like anybody else that Marcus is weird and Marcus thinks that Will is a good-for-nothing man who just wants to earn points to Suzie. With other words they don´t really like each other. But when they are at the picnic Marcus kills a duck with a piece of bread. It is an accident but the park-keeper thinks that he did it with like. Will helps Marcus at that time and a strange relationship begin between them. When they come home to Marcus house his mother lay down at the sofa. She had tried to suicide but failed. That comes like a chock for Marcus who doesn´t have any other parent. If she succeeds next time he will be all alone.

The story goes on and Marcus will found out that Will doesn´t have any son. But their relationship starts to grow even if Will not want it so.

Well I think I will not write more about the story now. I think it is better you read it yourself. But I want to share an episode from the book.

Marcus couldn't believe it. Dead.  A dead duck. Ok, he had been trying to hit it on the head with a piece of sandwich, but he tried to do all sort of things, and none of them had ever happened before... There must have been something wrong with it. It was probably just about to die from a heart attack or something. It was just a coincidence...

-What is that floating next to it? Will asked. Is that the bread you threw at it?

Marcus nodded unhappily.

-That is not a sandwich, that is a bloody French loaf. No wonder it keeled died. That would have killed me.

This is a key episode in the book. It is about when Marcus accidentally kills a duck in the park. This is what makes the connection between the two characters. They had not known each other if it doesn´t happened. In that case both of them had going on being the tragic individuals they were before. With this meeting Marcus got one more people in his life. If you are a child you need more adult persons in your life and Will becomes an important male for Marcus. I chose that episode because I think the author will show us that one little happening can change a hole life.

In the book there are many powerful messages, the importance of family, friends, and all sorts of relationships. No one is an island, you need other people to live a happy life. It doesn't matter how strange they are, as long as you love each other.

Comments

Nick Hornby writes about serious things with great humor and warmth. About a Boy is a great story about the different relationship between Will and Marcus, where he describes important questions in a funny way, but still with ...