Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - High Fidelity by Nick Hornby with Nikesh Shukla

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

This week's book guest is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.Sara and Cariad are joined by author, screenwriter and editor Dr Nikesh Shukla to discuss obsession, music, lads mags, red flags and toxic masculinity. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss sexual assault and racism.High Fidelity by Nick Hornby is available to buy here.Nikesh's book The Council of Good Friends is available to buy here.You can find Nikesh on Instagram: @nikeshshuklawriterTicket for the live show on Thu 25 Jan at Foyles, Tottenham Court Road are available to buy here.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Aniya Das for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming books. be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions. Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.

This week's book guest is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. What's it about? Well, it follows a story of hapless Rob, a 30-something record shop owner who's just been dumped and is trying to work out why women don't want to be with him and whose fault that is. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, everything from the 90s seems really weird looking back. In this episode, discuss. Obsession. Music. Lads mags. Red flags. Author's intention and toxic masculinity. And joining us this week is Nick Hes Schuchler. Nick Hesh is actually Dr. Dr. Nickess Shukler, author and screenwriter and editor. His books include Coconut Unlimited, the one who wrote Destiny, Meat Space, the Boxer, Brown Baby, and he is the editor of The Good Immigrant, a collection of essays published in 2016.

You can find Nikesh on Instagram at Nikesh Shukla writer and his new kids book, The Council of Good Friends, is available right now. Trigger warning, in this episode, we discuss sexual assault and racism. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to you, Nikesh, doctor. Doctor, Nick Sucla. Hello. Hi, hi. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for addressing me correctly. Did you get your own doctorate or was it honorary? That's made it sound like he bought it. No, honorary. Oh, I see. I have two honorary. doctorates, which I feel like all the people who have PhDs who told me that an honorary

doctorate isn't a real doctorate, I've got two. Oh yeah. They're definitely 0.5 of a doctorate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Two honorary ones. Thank you so much for being here. We're very excited.

Very excited. This week we're talking about high fidelity by Nick Hornby. And I just want to jump in and interrupt you as is my want. As I literally introduce the book. This is the first time. Yeah. The guest has chosen the book. Normally we kind of give a little.

list and we're like, well, just tell them. Yeah, yeah. You have to read it. Well, you know, it's because I'm a doctor. Yes. Authority. Yeah, we did. You said it. So, yeah, we want to know, why did you choose this book? Yeah. Mostly because I reread it recently. Yeah, that's a good reason.

But do you think it's relevant to sort of the weirdo ethos? Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this book. And I confess I misremembered this book. That does happen. I think that's common. We change. The world changes. And the book stays the same. Every book we've done that has, like, that we had read 10 years ago. And I think older than a month is out of date. But we've come back to a book and gone, wow, I don't remember those bits in the book, being offensive. Oh, okay.

There's some awful stuff in the book and there's some really questionable stuff. But the thing that I think I'd misremembered about the book is I think there's a certain type of satire or comedy where the audience that it's satirizing doesn't get that they are the joke. And I feel like Al Murray's pub landlord suffered from this or finance bros who watched the Wolf of Wall Street and they think it's like a lifestyle documentary. And high fidelity, I read it at, look, in my early 20s when record drops were not cool and records were affordable. And I really loved it when I read it. But then so much of what followed was loads of men not realizing how scathing it is

about men. It's really scathing. And I think that's the bit that I'd miss. remembered that he's not a hero. He's an awful, awful person. He's a very unlikable character. All the way throughout. And I think I just, I think because, you know, John Cusack plays him in the film.

Well, this is it. I was going to say, I think the film came out, which I saw before I read the book. I remember going to see it. And he, he's played as a cool loser. I mean, that's John Cusack's career. And he's, he's cool, cool, cool loser. And he's, he's cool, and he's funny, and he's attractive, and he's sort of a loser, but you sort of love him for it.

But it's definitely of that. Friends era where men were kind of shitty, but that's men, right? Men behaving badly, like happening comedy in this country at that time. And I agree with you, it became that this book was definitely not a comment. It was like, hey, record guys are kind of funny, right? And that's evolved so far that now, that awful man most recently was played in a TV production by the most beautiful woman in the world. Yes.

Yes, they read it as a television show, made it a woman. Because that's how you would make him likable. Yes. You have to go all the way in other way to make it incredibly exquisitely beautiful woman. Yeah. And what's interesting about that? Because this is why I decided to reread it. I was re-watching the TV show.

And I was talking to Nishkima about that show. And a thing that he said that I thought was really interesting was he said, it's funny that the book and in the book and in the film, the space of a record shop is like it's a space for outsiders and it's a space for weirdos. and now it's sort of it's come back around and it's seen as a very cool space but although it was interesting that that space that was for me like a difficult space where I was desperate to be liked and seen in those spaces but it's full of men who know a lot about Prince

and they take one of the world's sexiest, funkiest artist and they make him so fucking dull. Well also it's snobbery. Yeah. So I don't know about music. As a conscious choice, as a daughter of a jazz musician, Sarah, has rejected music. Because I don't like snobbery so much. So one third of this book to me could be Greek.

There are so many names of bands and names of singers. And the only time I'd ever heard of them was when he was listening to people he didn't like. So I'd be like, okay, Tina Turner. Okay. For some reason, he doesn't like Tina. Or people who like Tina Turner. And I would like this man not to like me because I appreciate. appreciate things that he doesn't.

Yeah, so the music snobbery in general, that's like, and I know that as you say, he's satirising those people, not very generously, but you still have to spend a lot of time with one. Yeah. In his head, hearing his unrelenting point of view. And I don't, I, I'm interested about the satire because I think as a woman reading this now,

he's so unlikable. Yes. That any charm he had late 90s, early 2000s, is gone. and he is at times sexually assaulting someone. Yeah. It's dealt with so flippantly in a way that's really shocking to read that back in that time, it was like, oh well, that happened with that girl. I don't think Rob gets enough shit.

I think Rob gives out a lot of shit. And I think you definitely get the sense of like, you know, this, like, oh, he runs a record shop and he's a loser. But the reason that an audience can go, yeah, that's me, because Rob doesn't get enough criticism. sometimes for the things he's doing and saying. I felt like I was reading Ladsmag after Ladsmag. Like nuts, Maxim, nuts again, FHM, because of the tone of the comedy. He has this thing about women's pants. Oh God, yeah.

And I was reading it, like I would feel if I was watching a stand-up doing this routine, going, I know you're joking, because you think this is funny, I also think he believes it. Yeah, that's what I agree with you. That's what I mean about the satire. It's like, he doesn't quite satire at so far that you think, oh yes the author is making of what you're... He says he's complaining about how women's knickers aren't exciting enough. I mean, it's really hard not to throw a book across a room when you're reading this.

I have never really recovered from the shock of discovering that women do what we do. Be human beings. They save their best pairs for the nights when they know you're going to sleep with somebody. When you live with a woman, these faded, shrunken, taty M&S scraps suddenly appear on radiators all over the house. What women are told growing up, I don't know if you remember this from women. Women's magazine. Yes. We were told,

don't worry about your pants. All men are interested in and what's underneath. Yeah, what's in your pants. I don't care what you're wearing. Which is also really bad. Also, thanks, Sugar, Miz, more just, indeed. So I'm just drawn to, again, when he's talking about women, and this is, again, page eight, he says,

he's talking about foreplay and how, again, it's such like 90s stand-up routines. He's like, oh, well, men are supposed to be bad at foreplay. That's because when we were teenagers, like, no woman let us do it, and now they all want foreplay. and he says, the perfect match if you ask me is between the Cosmo Woman and the 14-year-old boy. And I read that and I was like, wow, like how times have changed

that he can casually write a 30-year-old woman should have sex with a 14-year-old boy. That's their match. The bit that I really thought was fascinating about that in terms of a male author. He has this thing about foreplay and it was such a, I really wish you'd got proof read by a woman because... Sensitivity read. sensitivity to read because he says that this thing about, you know, these girls pushing hands away, not wanting foreplay, why don't they want to let themselves be aroused or, you know, they don't want their erogenous zones touched? And it was such a male understanding of the female body. Yeah. Because I really wanted to explain to him that you'd have to be aroused to want to have those places. Yeah, like you're already in the wrong place. Yeah. Them being touched when you're not aroused. It'll be fine. Why don't you want to enjoy this? those women aren't they aren't pushing his hand away

because they don't want to allow themselves pleasure it's because it won't be pleasurable to them I've never felt more like a grumpy feminist as he described in the book the paranoid feminists yeah he goes through his exes at the beginning the character Rob has been broken up with by a serious relationship at the beginning of the book he goes back through like every lost love

and the one that really got me was was Penny which is treated so flippantly that he was a teenage boy he tried to force Penny to have sex and she got really upset and then the next week she one of the boys at school was like oh I've nobbed her and as a girl reading that who's been a teenage girl I was like I know from page 10 why Penny did that because you broke her heart and you made her feel frigid and you made her feel like disgusting but reading Rob having no idea what he did at page 10 and then being expected to

have any sympathy for him after that I was like I am still Penny's friend who had to deal with Penny writing poetry about you, self-harming, crying, like years of discussion about what you were doing. And then your life is sort of fine. And like, I found that really,

that's, for me, that golf between 1995 and now is that like, that was funny then. It was a funny story that like, oh, one of my exes, like, wouldn't sleep with someone else straight away. And I should say, I mean, this is all just such downers, but then when Penny is brought back. Oh, the way Penny is dealt with at the end, I found really difficult. Really, really difficult.

But then maybe this is the difficulty of comedy in general, because I should say, the reason this is so hard for us is because Nick Hornby is really good at what he's doing. Yeah, he's a brilliant writer. Like, the book is good. So our criticisms are not criticisms of Nick Hornby. No, and I have to say, we'd be. This book is really effective at what it's doing. I enjoyed reading it.

In terms of rereading it, Yeah. Did you find these moments? Well, you was triggered as we were. Clearly were, yeah. Well, I guess one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is this thing that's sort of happening in culture at the moment where we're kind of, culture is reinterpreting the 90s or things that, you know, watching the Beckham documentary and understanding.

Well, I don't remember the too posh to push headline. Oh, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But sort of seeing that re-contextualized properly. And I don't, thinking about that. that and then thinking about, you know, people like Andrew Tate and how Andrew Tate has this very persuasive message in boys schools. I do a lot of school events and I go and talk in boy schools and his name comes up quite a lot. And so I've been thinking about what, how being a man was defined

when I was growing up. And so, and when I read it, I thought, well, this is fun. This is fun. And I think reading it now, reading it in my early 40s, I spend the whole time just going, this is awful, but I feel like Nick Hornby knows this is awful. And I do agree that Rob does not get enough of a comeuppance. He doesn't get enough of enough shit. And actually just rereading it was like, this is so much about the power of who gets to tell the story. Because you tell the story of Penny from her perspective,

and it's a completely different story. Even, you know, the way he stalked Charlie. Yes. Yeah, that is dealt with. It's like sort of funny. And then he lies to her later on when she's like, you're not having one of those like moments where you need all of the women in your life who are seven important to you to make you feel better about yourself years later.

And he goes, no, no, no, it's fine. And then that's exactly what he's doing. And so if it felt to me rereading it like Hornby, no, I want to believe he knows this is an awful person. And I guess just part of me just wishes I'd sort of seen how toxic it was at the time. I completely, yeah, I completely agree that. I, you know, read it, watched the film, thought he was a charming, funny. great guy. Also, not just who gets to tell the story.

Because actually you are allowed to be completely authored and completely immersed. And that person does think they're right because we all do in their own heads and that's where we're spending our time. But actually, the unhappiness of people, I guess we would now use the word like privileged. He's so privileged and he's so depressed. Yeah. And their unhappiness has to make us forgive them. But I think that's also changed.

But now we go, do you know what I wanted to do? This is my, go for a run. Get some endorse. I kept thinking, it's never exercising. I wanted him to get out. I'll do a hot yoga class man. Men in literature who need therapy. Yeah, there's no therapy.

Sort him right out. I kept thinking, do the work. We don't allow people anymore. We just do a little bit of work. And then I'll be like, yes, you do deserve your girlfriend to come back. I mean, there's a real lack of self-awareness, even when the girlfriend does come back. And I don't think it's a spoiler because this book has been around so long. But like, I don't think we're encouraging anyone to read it.

No, I think it's rather... When her dad dies, so she's gone off with someone else. She seems to be having a great time in his mind. And he's only obsessed with the sex she's having. It doesn't seem to miss her. He only is upset that she might be having better sex. But that is a satire on men. That is the penis-sized thing and that is him doing...

But it makes you hate Rob so much. And then her dad dies and she kind of ends up realizing maybe she does actually like Rob and she kind of would like to get back together with him. But even when... Even at the funeral, he's kind of... She's still playing his... She doesn't like him. She says she's too tired.

Yeah. It's an act of defeat. That is clearly there. But it's so funny to me because it really reminded me of men behaving badly. Yeah. When you think back to that show, it's two men who are dating two women who essentially are their moms. Like that is the job of the female characters. They come in, they tell them off, they tidy up.

They are moms that they're sleeping with. It's so weird that that was so successful. And again, with this book, like Rob's behavior in 1995 was, was normal. It was normal. But I think this is part of the reason I found it so interesting meeting now. Yes, yeah. Because it is so normal. And that awful behaviour is probably so recognisable for a lot of people.

But what I think is interesting is a lot of people would have read it and gone, just like me, just like me. Or as a woman, that's what men are like. Yes, lots of men aren't. So probably some of my sexism is that that's what all men are. I projected a lot of negativity about assumptions. The things that were from a male perspective that I consumed were men behaving badly and high fidelity. So not that we talk a lot about the battlemen are having.

But when you talk about toxic masculinity, some of that is inherited and people are fighting to be individuals within it. It's funny, isn't it? Because Rob is trying to differentiate himself from the bros at his school who just sleep around. But he differentiates himself by being like, yeah, but I like music. That's like it. It's like, I'm still trying to. to have sex with every woman I know, but I like music. So it's, it's sort of like a timepiece about how the,

the dominant male at the time was the Jock. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, if you were a sort of air quotes, sensitive guy who liked the arts, then you're just one of the nice guys. But, you know, the nice guys are just as fucking awful as the Jocs were. And that's say he was seen as a better character than a Jock character because he's in, he has a record store, guys.

He's sensitive. And it, and it's a place where all the weirdos, there's sort of the outsiders kind of congregate who are all just as awful as him, if not, in some cases, worse. That's his, the guy who works there, Dick, who gets that girlfriend, and they have that awful conversation

where Dick literally tells her, no, no, one day you'll understand this is the music you have to like. And that's left. But they all do that with female partners. Yeah. Is they're trying to instruct, not you know, mix tapes.

Yeah, this is what you should like. Yeah. And to be, and the idea that you're supposed to be embarrassed about what you like, We read this book straight after Claire Deder as Monsters, which ends really beautifully, which is about you can't help what you love. In terms of culture, certain things speak to you,

musically, cinematically and especially books and they're incredibly personal, and just like loving people, that's it. You know, the creators are often flawed, but you love them. So to read that, which is like, you just like what you like, and then it call me and be like, you like this, you're a dick. What idiot. But there's a quote in it that it's not what you're like, it's what you like.

Yeah, yeah. is awful. Okay, but here's a question. Would you still look at someone's bookshelves if you went around their house? The kids don't read, do they? Because I'm looking for my book. Obviously.

Your first thing is to do you have my book. I've been thinking a lot about how to write men and how to write a version of a man that feels like what I need, what I need to read, and what the default of man is. And this type of male was so you. ubiquitous in the 90s. And I'd sort of read it now kind of feeling sad for my late teen self because I wanted to be that guy. And I would go into Mr. Bongo's on Saturday and like

nod with appreciation at the one record I was buying or whatever. And I'm rereading a lot of books at the moment or reading books that have passed me by. And so I went from reading high fidelity to reading Love in the Time of Color, which I've read before. And it's amazing, but also the men in that are fucking awful. And, you know, the poor her. of the novel. Like, she's just surrounded by men who dictate her life for her and wear her down. And it's all about attrition in a way that, you know, when you were talking about how he, he wears Laura down.

Yeah. The American singer who he, oh, that's hilarious. She sleeps with him and is totally fine with her. Because he blanks her three times. He kept walking away rudely. Yeah. And that was seduction. Yeah.

And then also he has a one night's down with her. And then she's cool with that. She doesn't need anything else and she then meets his girlfriend and is like, don't worry buddy, I got your back. I'm not going to say anything. I was like, that is a moment that doesn't exist. In terms of like the ubiquitous, this is the default. Yeah.

Version of this. It feels very real, I think. But she is not a real. Yeah, she's not real. That's the one where you're like, and she's friends with the guys from the record store, even though they are obviously losers. But this also adds to people's, I'm not going to say depression or say dissatisfaction with their life.

So what you have is people having normal life. where people behave typically. And then you have works of fiction that tell them there will be other people that would behave a different way. So the problem with the manic... Manic pixie dream girl. Manic pixie dream girl. That they would meet girls like that who would fancy them.

And they won't. Yeah. They don't exist. They're not real, yeah. It's not real. It needs real people to go, oh, other people are having a better life than me. Yes. Rather than I need to put myself out there or behave slightly differently or be vulnerable.

Yeah. But he is a manic pixie dream boy. Like Rob is the equivalent of like, I'm just a guy that likes records doesn't know what I'm doing my life, just waiting for a girl to tidy me up and tell me what to do. Like it's like it's the same genre.

And it's quite, I guess it's quite fairy taleish, isn't it? It's like, but what's weird about it, I guess for our generation is you don't realize what's wrong with your generation until 20 years on. So we could look at 1950s dad and be like,

oh look at him with his suit and tie and his not able to express any emotions that's what's wrong. But the man we grew up with, we're like, no, that's normal. And now we're in 2023, we look back and go, what the fuck did we grow up in? That was awful.

And you understand what your parents went through or your grandparents went through of like, yeah, no one knows what's wrong with their generation until you've walked past it and gone, sorry, guys, sorry about that. Keshe, I'm really interested in terms of the men that you're trying to write or should be writing. Yeah.

So what are they like? Yeah. Just nice guys. They're really into music. So I think this sort of thinking about how men are written, just I've been thinking about, I guess, as a writer, how do I make a difference? You know, I started writing YA and I wrote a YA book called The Boxer, which is inspired by a thing that happened to me when I was touring the Good Invergant.

I was nearly attacked on a train and I was really scared and so I took up boxing after it. And I wrote a book called The Boxer, which is sort of imagines what would have, what would have been like if I had been a teenager who'd been attacked in a racially aggravated assault and taken up boxing. And I did loads and loads of school events. And I would talk about the incident that happened to me. I'm really sorry that happened.

I was about saying thank you. No, no, it doesn't want to gloss over like that. No, but also, Sarah, you shouldn't have done it. No, you shouldn't have done it. But what I noticed when I was sort of doing this talk, because I purposely made it as vulnerable as possible. So I could, you know, being an Asian mayor, talking like in schools where teenage boys are the first you know they stop reading for pleasure

before girls do you and so how do you write fiction that resonates with boys and how do you write fiction that is punchy for one of a better way but sort of says something and so and I just noticed that the box have really resonated with reluctant boy readers teachers and librarians were always recommending it whenever I talked about it in schools and I did this talk about the vulnerability I felt, just the scaredness I felt like walking around my streets or in the train station that I go to most days, like the one that I came to today, but you can just tell that like two or three boys in a room full of 180 students, it sort of moved the needle for them just by a millimetre. And so I've just been thinking, how do I continue to do that? For the first time

they hear an adult talking about something that's their experience. Yeah. And being vulnerable, is that what you mean as well, like allowed to be vulnerable? And yeah, and then touring that book going into lockdown. Over lockdown, I started like an informal movie club with Nish, Kumar, Musra Okwanga, Inuit Ellums and Vinay Patel, lovely guys. And we'd watch a movie every Sunday. And then afterwards we'd talk about the movie for five minutes. And then we'd just like talk about how sad and scared we were. And it was like a really nice, vulnerable space. And I thought, we all expressed this at some point or another. God, it would have been really nice to have friends like this when we were that age. And I did have that friend. And I really

remember like my best friend when I was at school, a kid called Annand, when I was 13, he moved to America and it just devastated me. I lost all of my confidence. I just like, he was just my confidence. Like when I was with him, I just felt unbeatable. And, you know, we're still great friends, thanks to the internet and I see him every couple of years now. But I just really remember that dip in confidence. So I did have that. And so I thought, well, how can I do something with all of this stuff. And so I created this kids' book series called The Council of Good Friends

where I thought I'm going to honour Nish and Moussa and Inou and Venei because there aren't that many kids' books that have kids called Nish or Moussa or Vene or Inouin. So I named characters after all of them and a character after me. Also celebrating male friendship that's about intimacy. Yeah. And so it is so rare.

Like I, as a, sorry, I'm going to sound like a hashtag. As a mother of sons. Oh, she can understand. The myriad of things I don't feel qualified to do and that I am looking already for resources and it is how do I make sure their lives, I'm not crying. It's okay to be vulnerable.

Their lives are enriched and wonderful. I don't want to project on like, if you don't play sport with them. You don't know what you would do. So the point of the book is that they're like, a shenanigan happens and they all rub each other up the wrong way because boys do. Shenanigans, I am going to cry.

But they have the emotional language to talk to each other when they've upset each other, they can be vulnerable in front of each other, they can be honest. She's going to go. They can make fun of each other. But the way to do that is make it really funny because otherwise it just becomes very didactic. Yeah, of course. And all the rest of it. And so I have very limited skills.

I'm quite useless in the grand scheme of things. But I feel like if the boxer was having that impact with teenage boys like 13 to 16, which is like a difficult age for teenage boys, then maybe if I go a bit younger, then maybe presenting the council of good friends and, you know, it will be a series. maybe we can get to a point where I know these kids are able to talk to each other and they don't need a person like Andrew Tate. Like I don't want boys to either end up like Rob from high fidelity or like Andrew Tate. It's interesting you talk about Andrew Tate isn't it because we're talking about

oh lad culture that we all grew up with and that man being like, that's ridiculous. And now we have Andrew Tate. There's so much worse than Rob Fleming. Much worse than Rob Fleming. So if you take this penny situation. Oh my God. Which is... implicit sexual assault.

And he's very insensitive and he's completely lacking in self-awareness, it's Rob. It's unempathetic, yes. But Andrew Tate is explicitly saying, that's what she does. Women aren't real people. So it's mad for us to sit here and go, God, that was awful, we grew up with that. And yet the kids that you're talking to in school are dealing with a worse, they don't, it's not even like, men, we know what they're like. It's like, men are can be dangerous.

This is dangerous. And I think what you're... And also that it hasn't gone away, I guess it's mutated. Yeah, it's mutated to. to something more extreme, which I think us growing up would have, we felt like it was already quite extreme. And it's actually, because we're having those conversations and saying, oh, you know, that's not okay, Penny has feelings. It's like, then the edges of that opinion have to go further away to make their point. And that's what I thought with, with Rob to come back,

is that he doesn't have any vulnerability. And what you're talking about is so beautiful. And the council of good friends sound so, so lovely. But I think the only moment of vulnerability that he does have when he finds out that she's going out with the old neighbor and he's worried that he's fucking a better than he could have ever done and that's the moment he feels most vulnerable. Yeah. And he does feel really vulnerable and he expects you as a reader to kind of come on, you know what it's like. Like I don't know what sex she's having. It could be really good sex. But I guess the weird thing about reading it as a 43 year old is I read it and was like, what a fucking idiot? What is wrong with you? I think the other moment of vulnerability, although we might not

recognize it as such is he doesn't have friends he's got no one to come to his birthday yeah that is so sad he goes to his parents who have a better life than him he's been so horrible about him and he's so mean to him even though he is his dad yeah he's so mean to and then he goes home and he watches a couple of VHSs yeah it seems really sad and then he has to essentially bribe a couple of friends to come out who aren't real friends who he then criticises so he does need a council of good friends it's like friends save you they are the people who can say that's a bit that or you shouldn't do this or have you consider this other person's point of view. And she does say that, doesn't she?

I think actually I did like the character of Laura. I thought she was very believable when she criticises him. She's not like, oh, you're an arselled. She's like, I've changed and you just have stayed the same. And I do have new friends. And I really enjoyed that when he, those friends that he's refused to visit because he assumes they'll be arsoles. And then when he goes to meet them, like they put the kids to bed and they're just like nice people.

And he has a nice evening where people don't mention records. and then he sees their record collection. It's like, oh shit. They are people I should hate. Oh my God, I don't hate them. And yet, his only friends, they're just all in a competitive relationship. Yeah.

And reading those scenes again. And I don't know why I maybe didn't acknowledge this at the time. But those friendships, they used to make me feel so anxious. Yeah, you can tell. Like, they're not happy. The record shop is a terrible place to work. Yeah.

HR needs to get involved. This is why it took me until like 2008 to finally admit I'd never seen With Nets. El and I, maybe I should watch it. And I did it and it was fine. But also, it's absolutely fine that you hadn't watched it. Like, that's fine. It was, it was bad that I hadn't watched it in 1997.

Oh my God, I can't believe you haven't seen Withnell. And don't know, Nikesh, if you do this in your real life, so please don't be offended. People who list favorite things. Oh, the top five, top 10s. But this book is very of its top, like, I feel like this book started that trend. Okay, so here's the thing about that, that I was thinking rereading it was, and this This is where I think it plays into the, I think people missed that this was. It spawned a lot of top fives and top tens.

So maybe, I'm not saying it created the BuzzFeed listicle, but it's not far off. It's not far off. It's definitely the birth of it. But when I read it, I was like, these are avoidant men who can't talk about their feeling. So this is what my ex-boyfriend used to do. That he would have considered this what you do in pubs. You sit down, you get your pint, your friends it's opposite you, and you throw at each other topics. and you create lists and then you argue about each other's list.

Yeah. And that's connection. That's their emotional connection. Which I think for me and you who sit in the pub facing each other and be like, I need to tell you every single thought in my heart. It's not just fair. It's not because I think I have better conversations because I think it's so disrespectful to the people who make stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Who made you in charge. It happens in Edinburgh sometimes. Actually, you know, it happens even before Edinburgh. They go top ten things to see in Edinburgh. And I just don't think that's how things are valued. Yeah. But you have a deep respect for the artist.

I do have a deep respect for the artist. But so, you know, there'll be like the Booker Prize. You're annoyed with the booker prize. How else could you pick out of the amazing, how different books are? Yeah, any form of competition. Who has more worth or value? And I guess that's what they find fun. And I find really, I'm the teacher saying everyone won.

Yeah. All the books won this year because everyone finished their book. Everyone did it. And they all offer something. All of them will be someone's favorite book. What a wonderful time to be alive. One other thing I want to get back. back to is just to mention it just because I think people should be aware is there is a lot of fat

shaming. Oh yes. I was really shocked at the level of fat shaming, which again I think is very 90s and like just the way he talks about. That's what bad people think. But even remote like he describes, he even uses afraid, oh, Schopenzor, she was nice, she was round, you know, not really round, not Dawn French round. And I was like, at the time, Dawn French was an incredibly successful, brilliant comedian. Imagine being referencing a book at the time as like, that's the way I'm telling you that character is. So go about to what Nick Esch says about the Beckham documentary. I think that's what, oddly, we're now having these blinkers taking off to us about how the media

talked about famous people. Yeah. And so we thought that was okay and that they weren't human beings. I know. And there's another bit which really shocked me where he said, he's talking about weight. And he says, oh, well, you know, come on women, basically. Like, we wouldn't want to have sex with Hattie Jakes just like you wouldn't want to have sex with Bernard Manny. that may want to throw the book.

I don't know if Hattie Jakes is. Like Hattie Jakes is beautiful. Okay. But it makes me think that I wonder what the reaction to the high fidelity vibe would have been like if he wasn't played by John Cusack in the film. Yes. He was played by like Dwight Shrewt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because who does really run a record record show.

Yeah, who does really run a record shop in the mid-90s, you know. And there's something about the fact that John Cusack's cool and attractive and charming. So attractive. But the one thing I. I felt conflicted about was how much I enjoyed reading it. And I know it's a weird thing to say after all the criticism, I looked forward to picking it up. When I got it out of my bag on the tube, I was like,

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's such a good writer that despite everything I have said, I feel a bit bad because he is a brilliant writing. I feel a bit bad as well, and I feel like it's not pushing back about the quality of a piece of work. No, that's me. Or his control as an author as well as his humour. I do think it's interesting that I guess my reaction to reading

it as a man in his 40s was this guy thinks that this main character in everyone in his world are utter pricks and is very scathing about them and you guys had a very different reaction and I thought I thought that was really interesting there's a bunch of stuff in the book that is definitely of its time and very time capsully but the thing that sort of fascinated me about that depiction of a male is I guess I felt like he was deconstructing the nice guy that we're all supposed to think so a nice swell guy and actually he's awful. Well, maybe that's it. That's why I find it so comfortable.

So I wrote down, I prefer Hannibal to this guy rock. And I had to deal with that. Why do I prefer? Is he a psychopath? This man is solid red flag. He is a bad man. What is happening? But I think it's such a well-drawn version of that.

The reason I prefer Hannibal is I'm not going to accidentally go on a date with Hannibal. He is not going to turn up in a bar. He's not going to DM me and I'm going to be full for it. our reactions, like, we've had to date that man. Yeah. So it's really triggering for us. And I wanted to be seen as called by that man. Yeah, you wanted him to be your friend.

We had to wake up to him and have him list his five favorite records. Have him reject us because we've got cellulite. Oh, my God. Or we didn't want to have sex with him immediately. Pants are too gray. It's so visceral for me. Remember being in my early 20s and being told off by men for not knowing things that you now think, why would I think? What do you mean you gave up?

What do you mean you gave up from David Foster Wallace? Go back. My favourite tweet ever as a woman who tweets, and she says, my favorite thing to do is to pretend that I don't know who David Foster Wallace is. And then men just keep tweeting her going, no, no, he's right. She's like, I've never heard of him. And they go, no, no, you've really got, she's, I don't know who, I don't think you're getting confused with someone else. Just act like he never existed. And I was like, that's really enjoyable.

But I think you're right. It's really interesting because we all know that man. And we've all had different reactions to that man. And I think I was just so upset about Penny. And I found it and I was annoyed at myself as well I was like oh I wish I could get past this penny thing And just enjoy this book If we weren't reading for this podcast

I would have stopped Yeah I was really shocked And I'm glad that I'm glad that I didn't Because I did actually enjoy the rest of it Can I ask a question When what is it When you're reading a book that is told from a narrator's perspective And they are an awful person

And you're sort of Oh this is this is delicious What is it about those books? Because the writer tells you why. First of all, meet them, have your reaction, and then a writer lets you in. And you go, there's a moment in the American office where you see a clip of Michael Scott on a children's TV show and he's a child. And all the other people have brought children into the office, which is something Michael doesn't have. He has, you know, he's got its arrested development.

He's not yet an adult. And it's a child saying that he wants to have a wife and lots of children because he would have lots of friends. And no one would say they didn't want to be his friend. And it's at that point that the office goes from being quite good to, for me, beautiful. Beautiful. Because we are laughing, but we also absolutely forgive him. Yeah. Because he's a sweet person who is a good thing.

The British office doesn't do that. The American office constantly delivers heart. And this is a very British feeling novel. His big revelation at the end is, why do I keep doing this again and again? Even at the very end, he tries to have another event. And it's not even that deep a realisation. I needed more. To answer your question, I want my narrator to get vulnerable and to understand why he's behaved

like that. And I just felt like he never gave me. And he was like, that's enough. But yeah, you kind of, you kind of have seen that he and Laura had lost another six months. I don't. They get married. His explanation. They get married and have kids and Sheila does all the tidying.

Like that's what it's so to me. I know women who've married that guy. But when she says to him, she has, you know, the slight awareness to say, you were just about to make this mixed tape. I know what that means, you know, you just fancied someone. Why do you think married will stop that? And he has this really unsought through logic. Yeah. Once he's made a commitment, that will be the reason he doesn't.

Yeah, it's terrible. It's a terrible reason to get married. He needs a contract. And I just wonder if anyone actually believes themselves. I'm like, oh, I've cheated in this relationship, but I won't want to be married because you're not supposed to. I've definitely promised. That's also for me what I found sad. I was like, they definitely get married.

He definitely has an affair. And they definitely have kids and they get divorced when the kids are about 8 and 10. Like that's what I could see Laura's future. And I'm friends with Laura. I'm not friends. I have to listen. I'm the one in like my perspective of this.

I'm the one who has to listen about all the stuff Rob's done. And I'm spending the whole time going, but we knew this before you married him. He mentions what Laura earns a lot. Yeah, she's an important lawyer. It's always sort of 45, 50 grand a year. He used to be earning 20 grand.

He's told a lot. And it's always very angry as well. Yeah, he's angry that a woman ends more than him. This is the thing that, like, that I hadn't seen the first time that I read it. He's fucking angry. He's so angry with everyone. And it's mostly because he needs a therapist to help him understand that he's really angry with himself. He's hateful about his mother.

He's hateful about his parents and his childhood. Right from that first phone call. And also, the other thing I did find hard was like, yeah, his reaction to death and grief. Here I go. that he's never, it's, when you get to that bit and he's basically never really had anything really bad happen to him. Yeah. And that's who we would now call. Oh my gosh, you're so, you might like it.

Cues of being so privileged. Oh, I liked it. Because he said, he has a very brief conversation with Liz about the fact that she lost her father. Oh, he's terrible to speak to me. And then he says, I'm only going to be friends with people whose parents have died. Yeah. Because it's the most, that's the deepest conversation he's ever had. I put, can I have him one of my notes, the privilege of his life.

No grief, his own shop, his own choice. He has never known sadness Until she dumps him That should have been the advert For the film But you know what Like I say I will say it I think it's worth a reread

I did enjoy it I thought it was really interesting Timepiece to go back And also as you said It's not like now is perfect Like we're not dealing with And now men are great And we give them space

And it's okay Now they're angry Now he would go to the internet And Andrew Tate And Andrew Tate Would tell him You're right to be angry Laura is a bitch

So like maybe 9095 was better than we thought. Yeah, he's got discogs.com forum getting all over. Yeah. That's it. That's what used to happen is men, teenagers, young men who felt they weren't connecting, straight men who weren't connecting with women,

used to have the robs. Yeah, the robs of this world and the music. And now they have the internet, which tells them that women are wrong to with. I think my biggest lesson, actually, with this book is that, yeah, I was a teenage girl. I thought things about men. I sort of worked out by reading other people's work and, you know, what was wrong.

And then I thought we'd solved it and I'd ignored everything else happening since. We never, it's just because you've worked it out. Yeah, it's a constant evolution as well. Like the arrogance of every generation that thinks this is how men shall be. Like people will be reading stuff written in 20, 23, in 20 years being like, God, I can't believe they thought that was progressive. And also, as Nick Esch, as used to said, it's not getting back to teenagers. So 40-year-olds being like, we're sorted with this now.

It doesn't mean anything's changed in the playground. Meanwhile, all those 40-year-old men are saying, I was a father of daughters. I do actually care because I've got a woman in the house now. Not the one I'm married to, she doesn't come. A friend of mine who is also a father of daughters. I called someone the C word. And he said, are you sure you're allowed to say that?

I mean, we are fathers of daughters. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, and I realised he was being really serious. And I didn't really know what to do in that. Yeah. I mean, don't use it at the doctors. If you're going in for some medical reason with your family, that's not the word. It's so complicated, isn't it?

Because it also implies there is a right answer to any of these things. It's like there's not a right or wrong answer, but because you have daughters doesn't mean that I would. I need to ask my dad if that's the reason I've never heard him used to see. word that he'd had sons it'd be alright he'd be fine with it yeah yeah on that note we've run out time um nikesh thank you so much i really thought i i as soon as i read this i was like this is going be a good chat we're going to be have a good chat oh yeah it's also the most you've ever texted about a book yeah oh my god have you got to that bit oh my god i can't believe it did he just did he do what yeah so and i and i i i would recommend it i still think i enjoyed the process i would

It's a very... You wouldn't? No, because I think there are two... People have too few times to read. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. And there are better books to read. But if you did... If someone had read it, I'll talk to about them.

If you remember it first time round, I think that's quite interesting. It's worth revisiting. Yeah, I enjoyed the revisit. Because I think I read it at a completely different time in my life. And I'm glad I reread it now. And yeah, that men are not okay. Yeah, exactly. There's a really interesting passage in Claire Dedera's monsters about Nabokov's Lolita,

but about writers. intentionally writing bad men, unlikable men, problematic men. And I'm really glad I'd read that before reading High Fidelity because sometimes the flavour of not liking someone makes you think the author is a bad person who believes everything they're written down

rather than someone who's masterful that's creating something to show you something that's not very nice about people. There we go. Dr Nickas, thank you so much. Double, double doctor. Dr. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. Nigger Shugler.

Thanks for having you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. Next week's book guest is Monsters, A Fans Dilemma by Claire Dederer. Sarah's novel, Weirdo, and my book, You Are Not Alone, are both available to buy now. And you can come to a live show.

It's the 25th of January at Foyles in London, and we'll be celebrating and exploring Carriads paperback launch of You Are Not Alone. and we've got some brilliant guests and we'll be talking, and crying and laughing, and grieving. And grieving and talking about writing, grieving.

We're going to be joined by Joe Caulford and Rick Samada and it's going to be a lovely, intimate chat about grief and the paperback of You Are Not Alone coming out on the 1st of February. So join us on the 25th of January. And thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.