How to do it

Author: (British) Nick Hornby / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Bestselling books from The Times (UK) and The New York Times (USA). When the London version of "Desperate Housewives" meets the standard "new good man," author Nick Hornby, who is deeply versed in London's popular culture and immersed in the urban secular life, excels at depicting the intricate British humor with a blend of sweetness, bitterness, and sorrow. His writing is witty yet tinged with melancholy, earning him the title of a master of the "comedy of depression." "How to Be Good" is Nick Hornby's masterpiece, published in 2000, which satirizes the work of the British literary genius Alain de Botton, "On Being Certain." Kate is a doctor, a good person, with one son and one daughter, living a happy middle-class life. However, after years of marriage, life has become somewhat dull and tasteless, especially with her husband, David, who, due to writing a newspaper column supposedly titled "Harrow's Angry Men," seems to have become more eccentric, sharp-tongued, and selfish. Without warning, and even to Kate's own surprise, she calls David at a parking lot in a foreign city, casually asking about the family, and blurts out that she wants a divorce. From then on, the scales of life tilt, and Kate finds herself, while David also becomes extremely anxious. However, ironically, during his search for psychological help, David meets a spiritual master named "Good News," who suddenly transforms into a "standard new good man" who "reports early and reports late," making things more complicated.
After work, when I met Stephen again, I felt a bit anxious because I had the impression that I was entering the second stage of something, which seemed more intense than the stage. Of course, I knew very well that the stage encompassed all sorts of messy things—infidelity, deception, just to name a couple of examples—but it was over, and I was quite satisfied with this resolution. I thought I could handle Stephen's situation, like brushing off breadcrumbs, leaving no trace behind. But if it really were just breadcrumbs and I had already shaken them off, he wouldn't be walking into the clinic this morning in stockings. It was becoming less and less like breadcrumbs and more like a stain of red wine, a spot of butter, a dirty and very noticeable Indian takeout sauce. Whatever it was, the problem was that I was anxious. I was anxious because I had gone to meet Stephen but had no resolution to tell him that I would never see him again. I didn't want to take the bus with him at work because people are always so nosy, so we agreed to meet on a nearby residential street. We had planned to meet outside a house to avoid missing each other. As I walked toward the spot, I tried to imagine him as a boil because it was so vile, so vile, shameless, and deceitful. And when you look at a boil that grows on the rectum, you can only be a good person (unless you're really bad, really bad. I mean, sick, evil, decadent). So when I found Stephen's car, I was still not sure where I was, what I was doing, or how to deal with him. I got into the car, and we drove off, heading toward Cliftonville. Stephen knew a quiet bar inside a trendy new hotel, and I never suspected why a man working for a pressure group headquartered in Camden would know a trendy new hotel in Cliftonville. But this place was very suitable for the two of us—unassuming, dull, filled with Germans and Americans, who would give you a bowl of nuts with your drink. We sat there for a while in silence, and for the time, I thought, really, I almost knew nothing about this man. P029