I read How To Be Good in September/October 2019 and wrote this review the following month:
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Having quite enjoyed About a Boy I had reasonable expectations for this novel. These expectations were not fulfilled.
The first few chapters were a struggle. The constant bickering and unpleasantness between the two main characters made for quite stressful reading. Kate was very relatable but rather unlikeable at the same time. I suspect this was intentional and may have been the crux of the whole book.
Hornby makes some good points about charity – what it is and why we engage in it – but I felt his arguments and ideas never quite reached maturity. I was forced to think, which is always good, but I was also led down quite a few dead ends. Some of them weren’t even that scenic.
The cover of my copy was adorned with glowing reviews. I wonder if something has shifted in the eighteen years since its first publication. Would I have felt differently if I had read it in 2001? Other possibilities are that the quotes were very carefully selected or it just wasn’t for me.
Not a terrible read – if you are at a loose end then I wouldn’t dissuade you from giving it a go – but who really has time to settle for “not terrible”?
I started reading Man and Boy towards the end of November 2019 but abandoned it part way through. I picked it up again in April of this year and finished it in May. I didn’t get round to writing my review of it until this week. Admittedly, I had left it a little late, but this was all I could muster:
I had a few problems when trying to form my critique. Firstly, I didn’t like the book but I didn’t hate it either. Most of the thoughts I had were personal annoyances. They held limited value in the context of a review and to include them would have been petty and unkind. Secondly, my feelings towards Man and Boy were significantly similar to my feelings for How To Be Good; I would have been repeating myself. Thirdly, and most importantly, Goodreads already has some well-considered reviews for Man and Boy that capture my feelings and explain them back to me better than I ever could. There was nothing I could really add.
While putting personal annoyances onto a third-party review site may be bad form, you can do what you like in your own blog post. If you want to hear me whining like the protagonist of a turn of the millennium novel, read on. (Be warned - there are some spoilers.)
Having not enjoyed How To Be Good’s “I had an affair but it wasn’t my fault poor me blah blah blah” narrative, I was most disappointed to find it replicated in Man and Boy. Unlucky, or what? There was never any real resolution to this theme, making it hard for me to engage with the central character, the plot and the overall style of the book. However, I stuck with it, because that’s what I do. On finishing, I jotted down some notes. I described it as “quite readable if not exactly memorable” with an ending that was “a bit rushed and implausible”. I got the impression that I was supposed to find it a lot more poignant than I did. A quote on the front cover said, “I cried five times and laughed out loud four”(James Brown, Observer). I’m not sure I did either of those things once, let alone multiple times. There is, of course, the chance that I’m completely dead inside but let’s say it’s the quality of the writing, yeah? Another explanation is that this book worked twenty years ago and now it simply doesn’t. It’s out of time. Its audience has moved on.
Minimal pettiness from me so far. That’s because I’ve been saving the thing that annoyed me most; the one aspect of the novel I found truly unforgivable:
The Anachronistic Headstone.
That’s right. Man and Boy contains premature stonemasonry of the worst kind. It’s quite a niche thing to get worked up about, I’ll give you that, but I’m a details girl and I make no apologies for it. Here’s how the awful scenario plays out:
Someone dies (you don’t say?).
There is a funeral (naturally).
It’s a burial.
There’s a headstone.
Already.
I repeat. There is a headstone. Already. Complete with engraved tribute. It’s there before the coffin has even been lowered into the ground.
If you’re not sure what the big deal is, to my limited but not insignificant knowledge, headstones cannot be laid on fresh graves. The ground needs time to settle.
Have I overlooked the fact that it might be an existing grave? I don’t think so. The most likely candidate for the bottom of the plot is still very much an active part of the novel so we must assume it’s a new grave. Even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure how an existing headstone could have stayed upright while its foundations were being excavated.
Parsons isn’t the only person to make this kind of mistake - I’ve seen it numerous times in print and on screen, though never this badly - but that doesn’t make it okay. Authenticity is everything.
Well, I was right. This wasn’t appropriate content for a Goodreads review. Hope you enjoyed it anyway.