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I didn't finish this book. Seems that I am not enough of a soccer addict or an englishman to find this book interesting or funny. The fun is anyway rather the kind of fun that critics see as funny (very "intellectual").
It wasn't until I delved within the pages of Fever Pitch that I realised everything I felt had been felt before - and this was a great comfort to me. "I found the film more enjoyable, I find Nick Hornby quite hard to follow. This is one such book. Finally, I agree with the other reviewers that anyone can read this book. Hornby's conversational style meant I never lost the meaning of the book even though some of the words were a little out of my vocabulary league at the time. Don't you just love books that make sense as soon as you are able to read, but make more sense when you pick them up again ten years later, and are therefore full of surprises. So, I was 13 and assuming that the Arsenal fixation that had just taken over my life was just another one of my obsessions, which have come and gone all my life. If you like reflective writing which affirms and strengthens you - and is unbelievably funny in places, and puts an involuntary stupid smile on your face in others - then read it.
I think some people whose dads took them to football when they were three don't really get it, because it's telling them what they already know. I think I'm looking for a plot." So if you like novels that have a clear beginning, middle and end, it might not be for you. I'll shut up now. What was it she didn't like about it again. It's also one of the best written books I've ever encountered. However, I do think it works best if you're a new football fan.
Have lost count of how many times I've read it, and everyone I lent it to has enjoyed it except my mum. Oh, here she is, I'll ask her. Hornby himself came to the game late-ish, at eleven, and was surprised by the passions it inspired. Read the book.
Yes, of course there were specific statistical references that went over my head, but the important concepts in the book come through (to be specific: loneliness, and the efforts to fill that void through either family or fanship). Before the Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore/Boston Red Sox romantic comedy of 2005, Colin Firth starred in a soccer (football) film from 1997. That itself was of course based on this novel by Nick Hornby.You don't have to be an Arsenal fan to enjoy the book, and thankfully you don't even have to be British. So do the many nuggets of truth, especially about youth.My favorite passage:"Sport doesn't allow you to dream in the way that writing or acting or painting or middle-management does: I knew when I was eleven that I would never play for Arsenal. Eleven is too young to know something as awful as that." p.244Some more of my favorites:"The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score." p.20"Of course I feel nostalgic, even if I am longing for a time which never really belonged to us." p.31"After my initial alarm I grew to love the movement, the way I was thrown toward the pitch and suck back again." p.75"You stand there in the shadowed dark looking down into the light, on to the brilliant lush green and it's as if you are in a cinema watching a film about another and more exotic country." p.185
You will treasure it. I dont know why.
So, this book is not for football fans, it is for everyone. You dont need to know who played for Arsenal in 1972, but you can glimpse a real life experiencing those football matches.that is really what this book is about.
but I am astounded by what Nick Hornby has achieved here.I am a football fan every 4 years since 1982 when I read about the world cup for the first time.I naturally became a Brazil fan but I was not obsessed with football in any sense of the term except during those 4 to 7 matches Brazil would play every four years. I laugh out loud and feel sad simultaneously when I am reading this.
It is about growing up and about life. Secondly, it is hilariously funny and beautiful.
Read it.
If you are a football supporter, you will be able to relate to Hornby's book. Even though it captures key moments from his coming-of-age and experiences supporting Arsenal, the story could be about any supporter supporting any club. Hornby's novel has a timeless feel to it. If you know of someone who loves his/her football and lives for it, you will be able to see bits of your friend/relative through Hornby. There is something about the novel that makes the reader feel that this novel will probably be relevant for years to come as football supporters in the future will likely experience the same emotions that Hornby describes. Further, the novel is able to describe the life and mentality of a football supporter, a passion and dedication that is universal regardless of place and time (since the invention and mass marketing of the game, at least). Even if you do not know of football or care for it, Hornby's novel is a good read that will encapsulate you. Just don't let it make an Arsenal supporter of you.
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