About a writer

Nick Hornby talks about soccer, writing and a highly faithful adaptation of "High Fidelity."

By Steffan Chirazi

Mar 31, 2000 |

"I have read books written by people who obviously love football, but that's a different thing entirely; and I have read books written, for want of a better word, about hooligans, but 95 percent of the millions who watch games every year have never hit anyone in their lives. So this is for the rest of us, and for anyone who has wondered what it might be like to be this way ..."

-- Introduction to "Fever Pitch" by Nick Hornby

It was with some expectation that I headed out of Arsenal tube station and toward an Italian restaurant on Northolme Road last fall to meet Nick Hornby. I'd been a fan since his first book, "Fever Pitch," a loving account of the way his home team, Arsenal FC, had been symbolically linked to every significant event in his life, was published in 1992.

"Fever Pitch" spoke to all British men obsessed with football (soccer in America), but for me there had been a special twist: I support the team Tottenham Hotspur. Located barely two miles from each other, Tottenham and Arsenal have been fierce rivals for more than 100 years.

Hornby's second book, "High Fidelity," explored the weird adolescent hangover that seems to strike men in their 30s. It was a sweet and moody meditation on lost loves, fluctuating friendships and a passion for music. By the time "About a Boy" (a novel about fatherhood, responsibility and the struggle to grow up) came out in 1998, it seemed to me that Hornby had produced one novel for each of the most important areas of my life: football, fatherhood and music.

"Some of the players come in here to eat," said Hornby shortly after we arrived. "Arshne Wenger [Arsenal's coach and manager] comes in here after every home game ... It's quite sweet really, because he always gets a round of applause."

Reading Hornby for six years had me feeling like we were old mates, which probably explains why it took me all of a capresi salad and some fusilli with pesto to remember I should probably stop arguing the merits of Tottenham Hotspur's David Ginola over Arsenal's Dennis Bergkamp and record something.

Considering that, at the time we met, Hornby was working on a new novel, selling the screen rights to "About a Boy" to Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions and previewing "High Fidelity," then still in post-production, it was extremely gracious of him to agree to meet me. And considering that not four days earlier Tottenham had beaten Arsenal 2-1 in a typically raucous North London match, he was surprisingly friendly.

Is it easy watching your work reinterpreted on the screen?

There's two answers to that. One, once you take the money then that's that. It's like selling a coat. You can't then say, "I don't want that fat bloke wearing my coat because he doesn't look good in it." You'd just think, Well you sold it, you burke, you took the money. I got paid really well for it and I wanted the money and fine, I don't think I should whinge. The other thing is that I think the books are so unfilmic in a certain way that the only people who want to make films of them do so because they love them, and not because they've seen this "thing" they can pull out of it. I mean what's the big idea of "High Fidelity" where you'd take something and throw the rest away? You'd be left with nothing, a story where a bloke splits up from his girlfriend? Couldn't you have thought of that yourself?

Weren't some basic elements of the book changed in the film, though?

Actually the film of "High Fidelity" is incredibly faithful to the book despite the fact it's been reset in Chicago. John Cusack's in it, he's Rob, and it doesn't make an awful lot of difference to anything. The only thing that's changed is the music.

I would've thought that was integral to the story.

Yeah, except again I take it as part of the personal connection with it. The guys who are doing it see it as a story about themselves, therefore they've transposed their music into it and I appreciate the spirit of that. I think the only thing that's holding it up right now is they're arguing with each other about the soundtrack. Part of their thing with the whole project was getting their favorite obscure bands into the soundtrack, which seems in keeping with the spirit of it all anyway.

Were you able to remain involved in the project?

They've been incredibly solicitous all the way through. I've been invited to see a couple of cuts, I'm going to see another one tomorrow and they've tried to keep me as involved as I want to be. But, frankly, I quite enjoy the distance. I also think with those things you're either completely in or completely out, and if you're in that takes up a lot of time and I want to do other stuff. It's been directed by Stephen Frears, who's English anyway, so there's an English sensibility looking after it.

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