Juliet Naked - Nick Hornby

I love reading about people who love obsessively. There is something about they way obsession fills a page that thrills me. In Juliet Naked, the obsession is music - double bonus.

In this case, the obsession is doubly impressive because the obsessive, Duncan, is a truly intolerably prig without it. He is the worst kind of academic. The kind that knows more than you do and assumes it's a mark of your character how much you care about the subject of his obsession - no matter how obscure. And we've all met this guy right? There's a reason the obsession has to be so obscure, they can't risk any real competition and if too many people know about their topic they're bound to get it. The fact that Duncan seems periodically aware of the ridiculousness of his obsession only made him seem more pathetic, and yet still somehow compelling.

Obsessive Duncan lives with bored Annie. She has shared lodgings and an uneventful life with him for 15 years; the good fifteen years. She's frustrated and tired and feeling like she's missed so much it's probably not worth chasing anything new. So, clearly, they're equally intolerable on their own. Annie is not obsessed, but she tolerates and enables Duncan's obsession, all the while laughing a little behind his back.

The subject of Duncan's obsession is a singer songwriter, Crow, who went to the bathroom 25 years ago while in a club watching another band. Afterwards, he went home and never wrote another note or sang in public again. The mystery of the event has taken him to cult status, (that and the internet) for a couple hundred people who call themselves "Crowologists". Duncan is their leader.

Hornby establishes the obsession with a brief trip to the states where Duncan is visiting all things related to Crow, including the toilet where he apparently had an epiphany that lead him to leave music forever. One afternoon soon after Annie opens Duncan's mail and finds a disc he's overlooked in his busy, academic, pretention. Turns out it's an early recording of Crow's best ever album, Juliet. It's the pared down version, the basics: it's Juliet Naked. Annie listens to it without Duncan (causing an even bigger fight) and for the first time forms her own opinion of Crow's work. It's not a good one. Duncan of course thinks it's fantastic and writes all about it on his Crow website from which he leads the Crowologists. Two days later he agrees to post Annie's review of the album, which is the polar opposite of his. Duncan warns her about the crazy responses she'll get and to be tough skinned. Instead, she gets a thank you note from Crow himself.

The rest of the novel is an entertaining look at the difference between the idols we worship and reality. Crow is, of course, not the kind of man many would look up to. He is laid bare on the page for everyone to see. He is however likable and this reader anyway was rooting for him a little. Annie of course now has the bestest secret ever (even better than the one Duncan confesses about 1/3 of the way through) and her relationship to that secret and Crow himself alter her in more profound ways than Duncan's obsession seems to have altered him.

Ultimately, it all unfolds with less drama and romance than one might expect. Hornby's style strips everything down, where we expect romance we get conversations about safety issues concerning sex after a heart attack. Where we expect bitter battles we get quiet acceptance of the mundane. Although we expected something different, somehow we knew what was coming all along, didn't we?