The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (2015) - Plot & Excerpts
Mint olvasónapló írónak, akinek Nick Hornby az egyik kedvenc szerzője már egy ideje a perifériámon lebegett a The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, amelyben több, mint kétévnyi olvasmányélményéről ír. Addig kerülgettem, hogy angolul kelljen elolvasni (komolyabb művek angolul való emésztésétől néha még mindig megrettenek), hogy megtudtam, az Európa kiadó hamarosan megjelenteti. Aztán amikor könyvesboltokba került még egy kicsit nézegettem, bele-belelapozgattam, mert úgy szoktam, hogy megvárom míg valami kedvezménnyel meg tudom szerezni, mert néha előtör a sóher vénám.Majd legutóbb mikor belelapoztam pont ott nyílt ki, ahol Dennis Lehane regényéről ír, az Ima esőért pedig pont a múltkor olvasott krimi folytatása. Szóval tudtam én, hogy nem kerülhetem el a végzetemet, s már masíroztam is a pénztárhoz kosaramban a kötettel. Nick Hornby 2003 szeptemberétől vezetett olvasmányairól egy cikksorozatot az amerikai Believer magazinnál, s az ott megjelent beszámolóinak gyűjteménye a kötet, benne néhány részlettel pár számára emlékezetes kötetből. Ugyanúgy, mint a 31 dal esetében, ahol kb ha 3 számot ismertem az általa felsoroltak közül itt sem ez a lényeg, hanem az ő stílusa, véleménye, hozzáállása a könyvekhez, irodalomhoz. Ami alapvetően szimpatikus.A kötet elején leszögezi, hogy szerinte a fontos, hogy olvasson az ember. Ha vért izzadsz egy könyvvel, az nem neked való, hagyd a fenébe és keress valami mást (később persze megcáfolja ezt, mert neki is akad kezébe olyan kötet amit ezen elvén alapulva elhajított volna már régebben, de mivel éppen egy olyan helyzetben találta meg, amelyben rá volt hangolódva, elszánt volt, hát sikerült kifognia egy remek könyvélményt). Szóval megint csak biztosított róla, hogy nem feltétlenül gond, ha nem olvasom a kritikusok által ajnározott műveket, egészen addig, amíg olvasok. Egyébként megvan a véleménye a könyvkritikákról, főleg az angol kritikusokról. Függetlenül attól, hogy jómaga is ebben a körben mozog/mozgott. A Believer magazin egyetlen kitétele az, Hornby cikkeivel szemben, hogy „NE RÁNTSD LE SENKI EMBERTÁRSADAT!”, szóval itt nincsenek fanyalgások, utálkozások, csak néhány finoman gúnyos megjegyzés maximum. Mindenesetre élmény az is, mennyire élvezi azt Hornby, hogy csupa olyan könyvet olvas, ami nem különösebben akasztja ki. Minden hónap elején felsorolja a könyveket amiket megvett és amiket elolvasott. Ez utóbbiakról rövidebb-hosszabb bekezdésekben ír is.Jópofa benne, hogy lépten-nyomon összehasonlítja az angol és amerikai kultúrát: elvégre angol létére egy amerikai lapnak ír, olvasmányai főleg angolszászok és a kortársaktól, néhány klasszikustól valamint barátoktól és családtagoktól valók. Itthonról persze az a kritika érte, hogy más nemzetek könyveiből nem olvas, de ha jól megnézzük az angol meg amerikai könyvpiacot, a mennyiség mellett, ami ott megjelenik, egyszerűen nem is várható el tőle, mert még így se nagyon sikerül neki lépést tartania a kurrens irodalmi élettel. Ja és a fő poénok közé tartozik, hogy néha muszáj magyarázkodnia, mert vannak olyan olvasók akik egyszerűen nem veszik az ő humorát.Itt van mellettem a kötet és arra gondoltam, hogy idézgetek belőle, de majd minden oldalon találnék valamit, s akkor meg már perel majd az Európa Kiadó. Ja és hogy negatívumokat is említsek: kicsit nehezen megy magyarra átültetve az olvasók megszólítása (tegezés/magázás örök kérdése), a popkulturális utalásokat nem mindig sikerült lefordítani (rögtön az elején ott a zavaróan egy az egyben fordított sorozatcím, a The Sopranos- Szopránók, amit itthon ugye Maffiózók címmel nyomnak), plusz az egyik fejezet elején lemaradt az elolvasott könyvek listája. Ezen a ponton néztem meg a Believer magazin honlapját. Itt aztán kiderült, Hornby egész mostanáig folytatta ottani tevékenységét, 2008 szeptemberében hagyta csak abba. Szóval a Complete Polysyllabic Spree (hogy az eredeti címnél maradjunk) nem teljesen komplett. Ráadásul az utolsó cikkében pont írt megint egy olyan könyvről amit én is olvastam: Cary Grant: A class apart. Kíváncsi vagyok, mi volt erről a véleménye. (Az utolsó adag esszégyűjtemény a Shakespeare wrote for money címmel jelenik meg decemberben.)Egyébként nem sok olyan könyvről van szó Hornbynál amit ismerek. Pedig néhány még magyarul is megjelent, bár a legtöbb a kurrens angolszász irodalomból való, s nem csak regények, de novellagyűjtemények és nem kevés tényirodalom is ide tartozik. Mindenesetre ahogy várható volt, pár kötet felkerül majd az elolvasandó könyvek listájára.Lényeg a lényeg, hogy nem csalódtam a könyvben. Beletekinthettem abba, hogy egy profi mit és hogyan olvas, valamint ír erről zseniálisan. Abból is látszik, hogy mennyire nekem való volt ez a kötet, hogy ilyen hosszan képes voltam írni róla. Azt hiszem, máris megvan az év könyve nálam.eredetileg: http://olvasonaplo.net/olvasonaplo/20...
I imagined this book - a book about books - would be pretty good fun, and it was in places and not just when it referred to books I knew and hated or books I knew and enjoyed; but overall it boils down to a collection of book reviews and I didn't work out the circumstances under which it would be interesting to read them. So I ended up just belting through them and stopping to read the occasional paragraph. I also never worked out if the Believer and the Polysyllabic Spree were real, and, if they were, what they really were, and, if they weren't, what they might represent; so I found the constant references to them frustrating.I've not read any Nick Hornby apart from this, and I'm pleased to say it hasn't put me off wanting to give him a go. Clearly it would be unfair to judge a novelist simply by his reviews of other people's books. His style in The Polysyllabic Spree is engagingly colloquial and medium-dryly ironic: I enjoyed them. And I enjoyed also his words of wisdom - well, plain good sense, really - about not finishing a book if you didn't like it, so he will, perhaps, excuse me having skim-read quite a lot of this one. There were two gems in it for me, however. One was his having read A Man Without a Country. So have I, and I was under the illusion that no one else would have, so I was glad to see that the pleasure I derive from reading Vonnegut is one that is not so rare after all. Vonnegut does not always hit the nail on the head for me, in the same was as another of my favourite authors, George Mackay Brown, doesn't either: but I still find their ways of looking at the world ones that chime with me.The other gem was his quoting an Amazon review of The Diary of a Country Priest by a reader who had loathed it and whose life had been changed by it as it resulted in an A Level grade that was too low for him (?) to study French at university and forced him (?) to take a course in business studies 'thus changing the course of my life' (presumably in a way that has been deeply resented for years). I was given a copy of this revered novel by my best friend (along with a copy of The Sponger by Jules Renard). I eventually read the former last year and found it unutterably dull. If I wanted Catholic angst, I would have found someone suffering from agonising about suffering, I guess: I had no idea what the narrator was talking about as the theology was beyond me and consequently of no interest. For the same reason, I find Sartre's plays dull dull dull: if I watch a play, I want something at least to happen, I don't want to watch a philosophical discussion. (For the same reason, swathes of Troilus and Cressida are lost to me - fine if you are declaiming them to yourself as they sound terrific, but pretty dull to listen to unless you have a cracker of an actor and director.) So: I very warmly thank Nick Hornby for allowing me to think that, although I do have a deep interest in serious novels and what makes them classics and, more widely, what makes a novel recognizably 'good', it's okay to put the thing down if reading it 'come[s] to seem a little more like a duty, and Pop Idol starts to look a little more attractive.'So, though The Polysyllabic Spree may not have hit the mark for me, I look forward to picking up a copy of 'Fever Pitch' somewhere soon.As an afterthought, and as a homage to Mr H:Books Bought But Not Read - 12th February 2015Portrait in a Mirror - Charles MorganLove and War in the Apennines - Eric NewbyFamous Roads of the World - E.F. CarterThe Practical Criticism of Poetry: a textbook - C.B. Cox and A.E. DysonHeroic Adventure - Schweinfurth, Prejavalsky, Markham, Vambery, Serpa Pinto, J. Leslie
What do You think about The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (2015)?
There can be a certain melancholy to discovering writers whose work you love. Are they dead or in their prime? Sometimes dead is better, like when there's an accessible body of work. I love Tom Wolfe, but after I found him, he's produced a book about every 10 years it seems. Nowadays I wind my way through Michael Crichton's enjoyable novels with a twinge of sadness at his passing, but appreciative of his productiveness.I just found another in his prime, Nick Hornby. He's about my age and shares certain sensibilities and pathologies [sports], but not politics. To paraphrase Chekhov's letter to his brother, much can be forgiven to talent [as opposed to any Obama spokesperson whose epidermis I could watch being peeled with a certain level of detachment].Book: The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick HornbyMethod: Read hardcover bookWhat I got from the book: A rationale for abandoning books I can't finish. Like Will Hunting's psychologist, the message is, 'it's not your fault.' Hornby on one particularly difficult book: "We fought bitterly over a period of 3 weeks, on trains and aeroplanes [sic Brit] and by hotel swimming pools. Sometimes he could put me out cold with a single paragraph; every time I got through 20 or 30 pages, it felt to me as though I'd socked him good, but it took a lot out of me, and I had to retire to my corner and wipe the blood off my reading glasses." Hilarious idea - Cultural Fantasy Boxing League, where books square off with movies. Hornby: "The Last Supper vs. Crime and Punishment? Fydor on points. ... every now and then you'd get a shock, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I'm still backing literature 29 out of 30." Honest reflections. Hornby has an autistic son named Danny and wrote: "I don't often read books about autism. They tend to make me feel alienated, resentful, cynical or simply baffled." Hornby gives props to 2 of my favorite writers in one sentence: "Why isn't Richard Price incredibly famous, like Tom Wolfe?" His work is properly plotted, indisputably authentic and serious-minded, and it has soul and moral authority." Learned that during the Civil War, Robert Todd Lincoln's life was saved when he had fallen onto train tracks in Jersey City. The person who saved Robert Todd's life was the older brother of the guy who would kill the President. Wait, it gets better. So well-thought of a person was Edwin Booth, that nine months after the assassination, he returned to the stage to a standing ovation in New York City. There has long been a bronze statue of him in Gramercy Park [Cleveland's statue is still under consideration]. But wait there's more! On the very day Edwin Booth was buried ... no, no, not gonna do it ... I'm not going to tell you.Read The Complete Polysyllabic Spree and leave the cannolli.
—Jorge Costales
Another book that I found hard to categorise. This is a collection of columns Hornby wrote for a literary magazine about a decade ago now. It's not book reviews, however, it's something much more interesting: it is a diary of his book purchasing and reading habits. There are sort of bare-bones reviews occasionally, and some extracts of one or two of the more interesting books, but it's mostly his thoughts about the actual reading process, how and why he selected particular books, and how he felt about them.Hornby also helpfully provides a list of his book purchases and the ones he read, started to read or abandoned reading. Thanks for nothing, Nick, now my TBR pile is not just massive but nearly insurmountable.It's an interesting approach and I really liked it. Not least because the columns are witty and erudite, which isn't a surprise to anyone who has ever read anything of his or heard or read an interview with him.Why only three stars? I read the book like a book. Progressively from beginning to end. What I should have done is read one column, read another book, then gone back to read another and so on. Reading this in one big chunk, despite the quality of the writing, made it a tad groundhog day-ish.But give it a go, it is a really lovely read. Particularly suited I think as either something to read while commuting or as a bedtime book (which is what I did). Bearing in mind my caveat up there about reading it in one go.
—Sho
I had a breakthrough. You know, like you get after months, maybe years, of intensive therapy. The solution had been staring me in the face – it’s often the way, isn’t it. The thing was, the lowest shelf of my shelves of novels – it’s actually the space between the real lowest shelf and the floor - was just too short. It was 8 inches, which is fine for most of the novels on this shelf but Cold Snap (Jones), Ulysses (Joyce), Lake Wobegon Days (Keillor) and The Collected Works of TS Spivet (Larsen) are 8 and a half inches tall, just because they’re more important than all of Henry James (which are all 6 inches), so they won’t stand up, I have to lie them down on their bosoms with their backsides protruding into the public gaze – it’s just not right. I hate doing that to books more than I hate going to the dentist. But then I noticed the top shelf of the back wall, which was populated by plays and poetry and sundry unclassifiable items. I never read plays and poetry no more. I know – it’s a terrible thing. So I just don’t care if playwrights and poets are on their front or their backside, they probably couldn’t stand up straight if you paid them anyhow, what a bunch of drunks. So I switched the beloved novelists for the less well beloved poets and playwrights and voila! I switched them round! No more dentist!The above is the kind of thing that Nick Hornby might have but didn’t write in this book. Really, he’s quite similar to me – always playing the giddy goat – but of course he is a beloved million selling writer of novels so the resemblance shrivels and dies right there. This book is a collection of columns he wrote for The Believer, an American literary mag founded by Dave Eggars in 2003. So this is a chatty, witty record of what Nick bought and read in the years 2003 to 2006. I liked it. I’ve spent 20 years avoiding anything by Nick Hornby until this year when I stumbled on the movie version of High Fidelity and thought it was a real hoot (not a fake hoot). Why did I avoid him? Well, who wants to read about modern British suburban life? No one has any guns, there are few tornadoes, a little bit of doleful adultery, it’s all a bit meurgh. In true Hornby listlike fashion I will now presentBOOKS BOUGHT BECAUSE OF NICK’S ENTHUSIASTIC WIBBLINGRobert Lowell, a Biography : Ian HamiltonAnother Bullshit Night in Suck City : Nick FlynnBOOKS I HAD ALREADY READ & WAS PLEASED TO SEE NICK AGREED WITH MEClockers : Richard PriceHow Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World : Francis WheenHangover Square : Patrick HamiltonLike a Fiery Elephant : Jonathan CoeChronicles : Bob DylanIn Cold Blood : Truman CapoteStuart – A Life Backwards : Alexander MastersPersepolis : Marjane SatrapiBOOKS I HAD ALREADY READ & WAS HORRIFIED TO SEE NICK DISAGREED WITH MENo Name : Wilkie Collins (it did not fall apart in the last 200 pages!)The Long Firm : Jake Arnott (it was unreadable macho crap)Saturday : Ian McEwan (it was stupid)Housekeeping : Marilynne Robinson (it was like being buried alive in angel dust)There’s a much longer list of BOOKS NICK READ SO I DIDN’T HAVE TO such as Philip Larkin’s Letters (ugh) and Oh Play that Thing by Roddy Doyle (sounds grim) or Father and Son by Edmund Gosse (I'm asleep already). Reading about some guy reading is probably a complete waste of time which should be better employed filling in those terrible gaps in your own literary knowledge like BALZAC or HOUELLEBECQ or GOGOL but this was fun.Quote from page 67:Oh man, I hate Amazon reviewers. Even the nice ones, who say nice things. They’re bastards too.Lord knows what he’s said about Goodreads since then.
—Paul Bryant
