High Fidelity (1995). analysis

Introduction

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby is a story about Rob Fleming and his struggles to find purpose and love. Rob runs a record shop called Championship Vinyl where he sells classic pop records and makes fun of his customers' music taste (which is most of the excitement in his life). Throughout the story, readers learn about Laura, Rob's ex-girlfriend, who he is hopelessly in love with though she left him for a man who lived in the apartment above them. After the death of Laura's father, they get back together, but still struggle with fighting and a slight hatred toward each other. A lot of the novel is on Rob's thoughts about everything that goes on and his life is one of a depressed, thirty-something year old man, who struggles with commitment and a lack of confidence. 

Body paragraphs

Rob Fleming is a London record shop owner in his mid-thirties whose girlfriend, Laura, has just left him. At his record shop, called Championship Vinyl, Rob and his employees, Dick and Barry, spend their free moments discussing mix-tape aesthetics and constructing desert-island, "top-five" lists of anything that demonstrates their knowledge of music.

Rob, recalling his five most memorable breakups, sets about getting in touch with the former girlfriends. Eventually, Rob's re-examination of his failed relationships and the death of Laura's father bring the two back together. Their relationship is cemented by the launch of a new purposefulness to Rob's life in the revival of his disc jockey career.

Also, realising that his fear of commitment (a result of his fear of death of those around him) and his tendency to act on emotion are responsible for his continuing desires to pursue new women, Rob makes a symbolic commitment to Laura.