Juliet, Naked ~Nick Hornby

–published/recorded 2009
–Riverhead Books, Audible Audio
–416 pages, 8 hrs-52 minutes CD
–3.5/5 stars

I won’t pretend to be a Nick Hornby aficionado. Though I have enjoyed his work, most of what I have read have been the three collected editions of his Believer Magazine columns, a recent reading of Slam, which I thought was very well done, and about half of the book Fever Pitch. It would probably be more accurate to say that I am a big fan of the films made from Hornby’s fiction. Juliet, Naked, Hornby’s most recent novel, is being hailed as his best work by some, while being held aloft of an example of how he has lost his touch by others. I cannot compare it to About a Boy, or High Fidelity, or any of his other celebrated works. What I can do is report that Juliet, Naked is evidence that Nick Hornby is a talented writer, despite my ultimate disappointment with the end product.

Juliet, Naked is a glimpse into the lives of a middle-aged couple, Duncan and Annie, who have spent the better part of the last 15 years living together. Duncan is obsessed, to put it mildy, with a reclusive ex-rocker, Tucker Crowe, who, for all intents and purposes, disappeared off the face of the earth twenty years ago. Annie is interested in Crowe, has a deep affection for his magnum opus, the album titled Juliet, and is beginning to see that the last 15 years have left her in a dull, perhaps loveless, and certainly childless relationship. When a soon-to-be released copy of an ‘unplugged’ version of Juliet comes to Duncan for review, thereafter dubbed “Juliet, Naked”, both Annie and Duncan have wildly different reactions to it. Each posts a review on the Tucker Crowe fan website, an act that begins the process of unraveling their lives while at the same time providing an opportunity for Tucker Crowe to re-emerge.

I listened to the audio version of Juliet, Naked and found it to be a very professional product. Since the story is told from the point of view of all three characters, three different voice actors were brought on board: Bill Irwin, Ben Miles, and Jennifer Wiltsie. Jennifer is a fantastic Annie, with an engaging voice. Ben Miles, a favorite of mine from the BBC comedy Coupling, voices Duncan and does an equally fine job. Bill Irwin voices Tucker Crowe, and it that mode he is very good. He narrates with a slightly gravely voice that fits perfect with the image of Crowe as a nearly 60 year old recovering alcoholic/ex-hard-living-rocker. Where he is less competent as a reader is in voicing Tucker’s son, 6 year old Jackson, and when he has to handle the female voices in conversations from Tucker’s sections of the story. He is not bad, but is not particularly good either.

Very early in to the story I had two thoughts: “Despite being somewhat depressing, I really do like these characters”, and “I have a strong feeling that in the end this novel is going to be the equivalent of the television show Seinfeld, where nothing really happens”. In the end I was partially right on both counts. Juliet, Naked starts with three characters that either know, or quickly find out, that they are tremendously dissatisfied with life and who may have actually wasted the better part of the last two decades of their lives. In Hornby’s deft hands it doesn’t read like the potential suicide-inducing downer that it sounds like. Instead it is easy to see one’s self in these characters even if their situation does not mirror the reader’s life. The characters feel authentic. They seem real. And that authenticity carries throughout the book in a way that can be a detriment to the story if you are looking for nothing but growth and positive change from your novels. Don’t misunderstand, revelations are made and insight is achieved, but that doesn’t stop all three characters from doing and saying things which are very much in character with their lives up to this point. And this can be frustrating and annoying, just like it is with real people.

The story of Annie, Duncan, and Tucker’s lives intersecting takes place over a relatively short period of time and touches on subjects like the meaning of art, as well as art from the creator’s and recipient’s perspectives; on how the internet is a tool for forming relationships, on the validity of differing opinions and much more. It is also a story about regret and loss and the beginnings of redemption. And it is that word, “beginnings” that ultimately left me feeling blasé about the end product. I have mentioned recently that over the course of the past year I have run across a number of otherwise excellent novels that, in my opinion, self-destructed in the end because it appeared that the author did not know how to end it. This is not the case with Juliet, Naked. I have no doubt at all that this is exactly the end that Hornby was going for, and it is an ending that fits the overall tone of the book, it just wasn’t the end that I wanted.

After finishing I took a tour through some of the reviews, and their comments, on Amazon. As if often the case, the very lowest ratings offered little in the way of great insight and were mostly bitter complaints with no information as to what was disappointing. A few of the highest ratings had really good things to say and I did not find myself disagreeing with them at all. In fact, I think they are dead on. I just did not have that same experience with the book. By way of contrast to my feelings, I found a few quotes that stood out to me for various reasons. The first is from a review by The New Yorker:

“The story is tinged with despair, and though the ending offers little by way of hope, its bittersweet ambiguity lends it maturity.”

This stood out because it is exactly the sort of thing I would say, if not as articulately, had I been wowed by the book. I have said that about other stories, and films, with similarly ambiguous endings.

The second is a comment on a 3 star Amazon review:

“Also, you don’t seem to have much appreciation for the whole people-living-lives-of-quiet-desperation thing… Not all narratives have to be about the main characters triumphing or struggling in some preordained, formulaic fashion.”

Again, I agree and can name both novels and films that I really like where the story was not formulaic in which the story ended without all loose ends being neatly tied up, without a perfect ‘happily ever after’, and sometimes with a lack of clarity about just what happened in the end. Juliet, Naked did not work for me that way, despite Nick Hornby being an author whose voice I enjoy. He made me feel something for these characters to the point that I wanted more. I didn’t hate the book. It is, after all, very unrealistic to expect massive character growth in a story that takes place over so brief a period of weeks. It would be fair to say that I feel somewhat ambiguous about it overall. My early premonitions of the path the story would take tempered my disappointment and the lack of a satisfying resolution (for me) keeps me from urging anyone to rush out and read, or listen, to it. What has not changed is my admiration for Hornby’s work and I will be returning to some of his earlier works at some point.

If you have read it and loved it, I welcome your thoughts. You’ll find a welcome forum for them here. If you did not, I would like to hear why. Have you had any experiences with this kind of fiction that left you feeling like you had just discovered a treasure? Or experiences where you wanted to fling away the book with disgust?
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This is the first book completed from my Summer Dreams reading list.

This is my 22nd completed book from the 2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge.