About the Book:
Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top five films (Reservoir Dogs...); top five Elvis Costello songs ("Alison"...); top five episodes of Cheers (the one where Woody sang his stupid song to Kelly...). Rob tries dating a singer whose rendition of "Baby, I Love Your Way" makes him cry. But maybe it's just that he's always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he sees Laura again. And Rob begins to think (awful as it sounds) that life as an episode of thirtysomething, with all the kids and marriages and barbecues and k.d. lang CD's that this implies, might not be so bad.
***
My Thoughts:
I liked this book, it was actually a nice and enlightening experience reading about a breakup from a guy's perspective. They pretty much go through the same stuff that girls do, except they don't show it on the outside, and bury it deep deep down, unless the break-up unhinges them off-course. They they're worse than girls. Or not. Anyway, that's what I took away from this book.
***
Only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at twenty-six.
You can see this everywhere you go: young, middle-class people whose lives are beginning to disappoint them making too much noise in restaurants and clubs and wine bars. 'Look at me! I'm not as boring as you think I am! I know how to have fun!' Tragic. I'm glad I learned to stay home and sulk.
You run the risk of losing anyone who is worth spending time with, unless you are so paranoid about loss that you choose someone unlosable, somebody who could not possibly appeal to anybody else at all.
You spend Christmas at somebody's house, you worry about their operations, you give them hugs and kisses and flowers, you see them in their dressing gown . . . and then, bang, that's it. Gone forever.
It's difficult to explain why or how you can find yourself pulled in two different directions at once, and obviously a certain amount of dreamy irrationality is a prerequisite. But there's a logic to it, too.
Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time.
It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.
In other words, I'm unhappy because she doesn't want me; if I can convince myself that she does want me a bit, then I'll be OK again, because then I won't want her, and I can get on with looking for someone else.
There are men who call, and men who don't call, and I'd much, much rather be one of the latter. They are proper men, the sort of men that women have in mind when they moan about us. It's a safe, solid, meaningless stereotype: the man who appears not to give a shit, who gets ditched and maybe sits in the pub on his own for a couple of evenings, and then gets on with things; and though next time around he trusts even less than he did, he hasn't made a fool of himself, or frightened anybody, and this week I've done both of those things.
Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.
If you stick with a relationship, and your life becomes dependent on that person's life, and then they die, as they are bound to do, unless there are exceptional circumstances, e.g., they are a character from a science fiction novel . . . well, you're up the creek without a paddle, aren't you? It's OK if I die first, I guess, but having to die before someone else dies isn't a necessity that cheers me up much: how do I know when she's going to die? Could be run over by a bus tomorrow, as the saying goes, which means I have to throw myself under a bus today. 'You're going to die, so there's not much point in us carrying on, is there?'
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