Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby

I'm pretty sure Nick Hornby doesn't need to write novels anymore. He's already given us all the top-five lists and fucked-up relationships we could ever need. And with all his newfound free time, he can keep commenting on everything he reads. Sound good?

As a follow-up to The Polysyllabic Spree, the newest collection of his Believer columns, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt doesn't really vary much from that format. Not that it needs to. The essays are as engaging as ever, and they mix informal practicality and substantive reviews in ways that the New York Review of Books will unfortunately never touch. It's more like a friend talking about the books, being candid about what's boring, what's lame, and what's fun. Actual literary merit rarely matters over drinks. 'Course, it's not like I'll ditch pretentious/serious/jargony book reviews any time soon, but it's much more fun to get openly biased, tangent-filled picks or pans.

This is not to say, though, that the tone means that the essays are devoid of review-y philosophical goodness. Hornby makes a lot of interesting points in between his stories about how and where he bought the books, and discussions of his poor treatment at the hands of the Polysyllabic Spree of Believer editors. (Okay, so he touches on a lot of random thoughts I've had over the years but never really explored. Same diff.) Like, which books are "one of those books we've all read, whether we've read it or not (c.f. Animal Farm, 1984, Gulliver's Travels, and Lord of the Flies." And whether In Cold Blood is something you have to read to fit in with the literati (short answer: yes).

He also produces some nifty language to describe the depth of some books, in a way that's self-conscious, but can't really hide the glee he must have felt when the metaphor first popped into his head: "I have always prized the accessible over the obscure, but after reading Housekeeping I can see that in some ways the easy, accessible novel is working at a disadvantage (not that Housekeeping is inaccessible, but it is deep and dark and rich): it's possible to whiz through it without allowing it even to touch the sides, and a bit of side-touching has to happen if a book is going to be properly transformative. If you are so gripped by a book that you want to read it in the mythical single sitting, what chance has it got of making it all the way through the long march to your soul?"

And as usual, Hornby gave me a bunch of books to add to my queue. He's even managed to get me somewhat excited about reading novels again, after a lengthy hiatus. Not just anybody could make me break my current streak of nonfiction essay collections, but somehow he manages. I could probably acknowledge this favor by subscribing to Believer instead of waiting for the collections to come out, but it's more likely that I'll send the thanks toward one of my other favorite book reviewers for giving the well-chosen holiday gift of Hornby.