Juliet Gloriously Naked

There are a few artistic releases every year or so that excite me. A new Woody Allen or Pedro Almodovar film; a new Radiohead album or a new series of HBO television magic all bring out that feeling of anticipation. When it comes to novels, I don't have the same number of exciting days with a single exception: A new Nick Hornby book.

It doesn't matter whether it’s a collection of his published essays (Polysyllabic Spree) or a novel for young adults (Slam) or his recent breathtakingly good novels (A Long Way Down) the quality and warmth of the writing makes it something that I always look forward to. It is also something that doesn't last; from the minute I started reading High Fidelity all those years ago I was hooked. Hooked to the point that I read High Fidelity in two sittings over a day and a half; highly inconvenient as I stayed up until 3am in the morning to finish it and had to get my zombified body to work a few hours later.

Ever since then it's been the same pattern; I would become that excited when a new novel came out that I'd have it over and done with in a few days. So, when his new work Juliet, Naked came out a few months ago I was determined to savour and enjoy it over a longer period of time.

Juliet, Naked is like High Fidelity set in the modern age. Gone are the compilation tapes, top 5 lists and record shops; this is 2009, man. This is the world of the internet, of bootleg concerts and obsessive fan worshipping. The basic story is thus: Man is obsessed with reclusive rock star to the point of destroying his relationship with Woman and is part of an internet community of obsessives. When Woman infiltrates this world and writes a review of a new CD of old demos, she causes a further rift with Man but embarks on a rather peculiar online relationship with the Reclusive Rock Star himself.

This is the celebrity age of fandom, where we are all consumers and are given so many more avenues to fuel this consumption. What is fantastic about the novel is that it spends the first half of the novel building this up, only to knock it down as you discover just how flawed the object of this fandom is as a human being.

Since the success of Fever Pitch and High Fidelity, Hornby has dabbled with different narrative structures on all of his novels. His big early success was writing from the male point of view, so he switched to the female with How To Be Good, making his lead character every bit as flawed and likable and amusing as the male ones that launched his career. Since then, A Long Way Down established a six way narrative where six characters told their individual stories in small segmented diary entries, while Slam focused in on teenage focused narrative.

Juliet takes the best bits out of all of these ideas. We have the story strands from all three main characters going concurrently and in doing so it makes all of these people identifiable. Sure, they're all flawed fuck-ups who are drifting through life but that's what makes the writing so warm. These are real people, with real flaws and real problems. Middle class existential problems admittedly but let’s not let that detract. By allowing all three story strands to develop independently, it gives us the opportunity to understand, like and empathise with each of the characters.

Ultimately, all Hornby books have similar themes and this is no different. His novels are about empathy and empathising with people; about family and how we struggle to understand how this fundamental part of our world works; about how the arts and music tend to reflect how we see ourselves; about how human beings often take a funny journey to get to a very obvious place or decision.

In summary then: Juliet, Naked is another work of triumph from Nick Hornby. And I finished it in a couple of days.