Juliet, Naked

Juliet, Naked marks a true return to form for Nick Hornby, as he delves back into the subject matter that put him on the map with High Fidelity. Instead of being about music marking romantic relationships between two people, it's about music explaining our relationships to ourselves, giving us a better understanding of how we perceive and interpret the world.

The common thread among Hornby's books is the idea that others explain our worlds much more fully and aptly than we are able to ourselves. Media and celebrity give us a common reference that allows us to communicate thoughts through others. In High Fidelity, this was exemplified by the mix tape. In Juliet, Naked, it's exemplified by a self-selecting community of fans expressing show more their shared passion for one forgotten man's art. Rob Gordon expresses himself through mix tapes; Duncan expresses himself through an idolatry of celebrity. Music illuminates emotions and situations that these men cannot find expression for through their own art.

What is different, though, is that Hornby has written a highly believable, highly relatable female character that shares the stage with Hornby's bread and butter aimless male characters. The prose is tight, the characters engaging, and the style classic Hornby.

The only negative is that the end comes too quickly, is largely implied, and is a bit too neatly wrapped. Definitely worth your time. show less

This is my first Nick Hornby novel in several years (the last would have been Slam and A Long Way Down, which I read in relatively close proximity to each other), and while I still enjoy Hornby's work, I'm finding myself spotting the tropes that are starting to become a little too repetitive: grown men in arrested development, women looking for fulfillment, an obsession with a cultural hobby that both fills and reveals a critical void in the lives of its practitioners. In no way is it a bad story, but Juliet, Naked just doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table - except, perhaps, to elucidate Hornby's growing pessimism toward modern culture and the virtual world in which so many of us choose to drift away our lives (says the woman show more reviewing a book on the internet!). I don't actually disagree with him, but it can get a little wearying trying to care about these washed-up characters, each of whom fundamentally realizes that their lives have not mattered - and that there may not be time or energy left to do much of anything about it. That's certainly a catalyzing message for the reader, but at 8 CDs of narrated audiobook, it's an increasingly tough slog to the (by a certain point, inevitable) conclusion. Hornby treats his characters and situations honestly, which is entirely to his credit, but I do find myself wondering if he only has variations on this story to tell. show less

Tucker Crowe mysteriously walks away from rock n' roll while touring with his successful album, Juliet. For twenty years, he's hidden away, living a recluse life. All that's left are a group of dedicated aficionados, who people the Internet, parsing his lyrics and analyzing his life and music for other influences. Chief among these is blogger Duncan, considered a Crowe expert. Duncan also teaches at a small community college in Gooleness, a dilapidated English seaside town, where he lives with his girlfriend, Annie. Annie finds their life together every bit as shabby and tired as their town.

The novel opens as Duncan receives a soon to be released acoustic CD, Juliet, Naked. Atwitter over this first news and music from Crowe in decades, show more Duncan immediately posts a glowing and rhapsodic review on the main Crowe website. Annie, hardly a cultist, puts up her first post on the site, taking an opposite but thoughtful view. Amazingly, Tucker Crowe himself emails her, starting a relationship that moves from 'pen pals' to ...

Hornby's tale resonates on many levels, touching on parenthood, relationships, redemption and fulfillment (or lack of it.) For me, more thought provoking was his riffs on the role of music and art for the artists and the audience. Readers of High Fidelity and About a Boy will know that this is not unfamiliar ground for Hornby. The references to Bruce Springsteen I found particularly telling - related to a Boss fanatic, and having read the fanblog, Backstreets, I know firsthand the extremes to which his followers go in wringing every last ounce of meaning from his every utterance and lyric. Tucker Crowe's album, Juliet, has been misinterpreted completely beyond it's orginal intent.

I'm sure that this isn't just a musical phenomenon. In college English Lit courses, as professors droned about hidden meaning and imputed tenuous influences, I often wondered if Shakespeare or Keats actually considered any of this. More importantly, though, does it matter? Does art need an audience to be art? Once art is bequeathed to the audience, what role does it play in adding to it's meaning and import? Heady stuff to ponder. Thanks Mr. Hornby for the thought provoking and entertaining book. show less

I avoided reading the synopsis for this book until I was nearly closed to finishing it; I'm not sure why. But there's something to be said for not knowing what to expect. I started out with the expectation of a book that would pick apart the end of a relationship, but ended up with something a bit more nuanced - and a lot more enjoyable - than I would have expected.

There are the little details about relationships, life, and music that I enjoy about Hornby's work. For example, he talks about the elitism about one's musical tastes that would cause someone to be disappointed when his track listings are automatically pre-populated by his musical software, and the desire to discover something obscure and different. He also talks about the show more obsessions of fandom and the gray area it shares with some elements of academia. He also thankfully spends a lot of time in the heads of these three main characters, and the results are witty and endearing.

Those of you who have read this book know that there is some impertinence (some 'cheek' if you will) to writing a review about a book that in part makes fun of people who go online to share their often wretched opinions about things to a community of people with shared interests. But here it is.

Just as one of the protagonists, Tucker, is quick to point out he is no Shakespeare or Leonard Cohen, and that he should just be taken as what he is, I would argue the same for this book. It is engrossing and light and enjoyable, and I would probably read it again. Parts of it made me literally laugh out loud, with the kind of recognition of the human condition that I like to flip over and over in my head because it's fun to do. As it stands, though, the parts of the human condition that Hornby graces us with here are not earth-shattering: They are nothing more (or less) trivial than the arrogant jerks who frequent many a website comment section, the observations children can make that are so profound simply because they are so innocent and tactless, and the trials of growing older, falling in and out of love, and why Morrissey fans can be really monomaniacal. Overall, a lovely and entertaining ride. show less

Delightful. My new favorite of Hornby's books. He consistently manages to find that sweet spot between geekery and somewhat-more-normal. He clearly loves his characters for their quirks, not in spite of them.
And he's aging well, his leads get older and have the problems of late middle age along with their obsessive interests from youth. Well, the male characters do. The women are generally better centered and better-rounded.
There's a lot of wish fulfillment: no one has ever posted anything on the internet without at least a passing thought of how cool it would be if someone special noticed. There's a lot of the messiness of modern blended families that was so charming in About a Boy.
A warm, snuggly blanket of a book.

Special shout-out of show more gratitude to the libraries and their electronic access. Instant gratification.

Library copy show less

Annie and Duncan have been together for 15 years. While their relationship has been basically happy (or at least not too bad), Annie has recently begun questioning her life choices. Does she really love Duncan, or has she just been wasting her time? Duncan himself is no help; he’s entirely focused on an obscure ‘80s singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe, with whom he and maybe 100 other people are obsessed. Tucker’s last album, Juliet, was widely acknowledged as one of the best breakup albums of all time, but it was followed by 20 years of silence. That is, until Tucker releases an acoustic version of his greatest album called Juliet, Naked. Annie’s and Duncan’s different responses to the album prompt Annie to voice her show more thoughts on one of Tucker’s fan sites. When Tucker astonishingly responds, all three of their lives change in unexpected ways.

I really like Nick Hornby’s novels, and he’s at his best when he writes about music. High Fidelity remains my favorite of his books, but this one is a close second. It’s hard for me to realize that Tucker Crowe is not a real person, because the story of his life and career is so believable, and it mirrors stories of a lot of real-life musicians. I found myself wishing that Juliet were a real album; if it existed, I’d buy it! Annie and Duncan are also realistic characters, and I sympathized with all three protagonists (even Duncan, who’s kind of a loser). I loved the novel’s take on musicians and their fans, especially in the age of the internet, but the novel’s biggest strength is its depiction of the three main characters as they search for meaning in their lives. I’d definitely recommend this book, especially to music lovers. show less

By far the best Hornby novel I have read. It's wryly funny, as you'd expect, but it also is more mature. These are not the young, selfish people of so many of his other books, making mistakes, acting like children and being selfish -- and worst of all, knowing they are doing these things and not caring enough to change their behavior. The characters of Juliet, Naked already have made the major mistakes of life. This book is about people straightening out, making amends, smoothing the road, and hoping for something better than they have, and perhaps what they deserve, from past behavior. The characters shared some of my anxieties and sadness about life, and therefore, I also related to them more than past books. This book has real heart show more and tenderness, and the characters earn both the positive and negatives that they get. -cg show less