Moral Blues
I know this blog was supposed to be a venue for to talk about books we like. But I have to talk about this book " How to be good " by Nick Hornby because I need to know if anyone has read it.
I have tried convincing my friends to read it so I could talk to them about it. But I have a feeling it may not work as well. The title does give an impression of a self-help book. In fact, its a lesson on what such a self-help book might do!
The book is perhaps about a dysfunctional family. Really it could be any normal couple. A couple who over the years have forgotten why they got married in the first place and are bound together by their children. A family where the woman is the bread earner and is supporting her husband's not so rewarding career as a writer.
What do you do if the man, you have slowly starting to resent, because of his rants on the world, this anger towards everything good and bad suddenly turns over a new leaf? What if he is suddenly the epitome of all the goodness in the world. Wants to set the whole world right.
What if all this goodness becomes so disgusting and irrational that you want your angry unhappy husband back? What if you are failing at every role you are playing at the same..the role of a doctor, the wife, the children and you are not winning any moral points?
What is morality really? Is being good natured moral? Can we even really stand people who are always good natured and happy and smiling. Who talk about giving awya their wealth to the poor? About making friends with all those people they have been bad to?
Are we moral only to please ourselves? To score some points to balance the "bad"things we do?
I have to tell you that this book was hard to read..because it was so plainly normal and realistic that it was put off :(
But it still did make me think and ponder. So isnt that what a good book is about? The one that makes you question? Of course with all the goodness in the book..you might start wondering about that question too!
PS: So if you have read it..lemme know what you thought of it!
I have tried convincing my friends to read it so I could talk to them about it. But I have a feeling it may not work as well. The title does give an impression of a self-help book. In fact, its a lesson on what such a self-help book might do!
The book is perhaps about a dysfunctional family. Really it could be any normal couple. A couple who over the years have forgotten why they got married in the first place and are bound together by their children. A family where the woman is the bread earner and is supporting her husband's not so rewarding career as a writer.
What do you do if the man, you have slowly starting to resent, because of his rants on the world, this anger towards everything good and bad suddenly turns over a new leaf? What if he is suddenly the epitome of all the goodness in the world. Wants to set the whole world right.
What if all this goodness becomes so disgusting and irrational that you want your angry unhappy husband back? What if you are failing at every role you are playing at the same..the role of a doctor, the wife, the children and you are not winning any moral points?
What is morality really? Is being good natured moral? Can we even really stand people who are always good natured and happy and smiling. Who talk about giving awya their wealth to the poor? About making friends with all those people they have been bad to?
Are we moral only to please ourselves? To score some points to balance the "bad"things we do?
I have to tell you that this book was hard to read..because it was so plainly normal and realistic that it was put off :(
But it still did make me think and ponder. So isnt that what a good book is about? The one that makes you question? Of course with all the goodness in the book..you might start wondering about that question too!
PS: So if you have read it..lemme know what you thought of it!
posted by ligne at 3:28 PM
2 Comments:
Very interesting. Your review has intrigued me enough that I'll look for this one the next time I'm in a bookshop.
well do let me know how you like it when you read it.:)
Post a Comment
<< Home