High Fidelity

written on October 18, 2026, read September 2001

I can’t say exactly when I bought this book. My edition came out in 1999, and the price on the back is still in Deutschmarks. I think it was 2001. I do remember where I bought it: in a bookshop in Oldenburg. It was a weekend. I’d been out for breakfast in town with someone beforehand. At the time I was still living in Oldenburg, but already working in Hamburg.

You always hope you’ll find yourself in one of the heroes of the books you read. The naked, unvarnished truth, however, is that the broken guys you read about are often much closer to you.

It’s simply the truth that pretty much every member of the male half (okay, roughly half) of the world’s population is closer to Rob Fleming from “High Fidelity” than to Harry Tasker. Or, if you like, closer to Simon from the same film, the used-car salesman who passes himself off as a secret agent. If the question of who you see yourself in were limited to these two fictional characters, I’d definitely see myself closer to Rob than to Harry. At some point, realism does set in.

And that, as I see it, is pretty much exactly what this book traces. The protagonist isn’t grown up, apparently doesn’t want to be, mourns the past and doesn’t know where he’s heading.

You shouldn’t kid yourself that it’s any different. And before you start feeling too bad about it: I’m sure there’s a book for the other half of humanity that does a similar job and is just as right in many places. I suspect Bridget Jones takes on that role. Admittedly, I’ve only seen the first film.

But seriously. I share something with this book: a love of music. The significance of the mixtape you put together for someone. I’ve written about this before and referred to both the book and the film back then. In the passages about music, I find this book genuinely beautifully written.

At the end of the book, the narrator says: “Tonight, for the first time in my life, I can see how it’s done.”[^1] He means he now knows how to put together a compilation of music that Laura actually wants to hear. But as a reader, what you really think is: he has finally learned to grow up. He has understood that life isn’t just about trying to impress Laura, but about being there for her. And he says it in the only language he has truly mastered: music.

At the end of the film, John Cusack sits in an armchair in front of his records and his stereo, headphones on, and says that line almost word for word. When I took the book off the shelf to write this, I found myself in a similar situation.

I wrote that you hope to find yourself in one of a book’s heroes. Even so, I don’t think that’s Rob for me. There is one character I really did recognise myself in, even though he isn’t the hero of this book: Dick, the quiet, shy guy who works in Rob’s record shop.

PS: Nick Hornby wrote a really lovely book that focuses on music: “31 Songs”. In it, he writes about what he associates with particular songs. When I really think about it, my reading list is the spiritual in-law of “31 Songs” – the one who lives in a caravan on the edge of town.

Compilation

1. Junip – Line of Fire
2. Novo Amor – Opaline
3. IAMX – Insomnia
4. SYML – Where’s My Love
5. Iron & Wine – Such Great Heights
6. Sleeping at Last – Chasing Cars
7. Tove Lo – Dancing on My Own
8. Rosie Carney – Thousand (feat. Lisa Hannigan)
9. Novo Amor – No Plans
10. May The Muse & Robot Koch – Bad Kingdom
11. Ane Brun & Linnéa Olsson – Halo
12. Peter Gabriel – Sky Blue (Martyn Bennett Remix)
13. Apparat – Hum of Maybe
14. Tom Rosenthal – Go Solo
15. The Irrepressibles – In This Shirt (Røyksopp Remix)

[^1] I don’t have the book in English. This is my own translation.