Novel by Nick Hornsby “How to be Good”

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Outline

How to be good is a novel that explores the morality of human beings which can be between extreme goodness and extreme selfishness. It advocates a middle ground towards goodness. It also depicts the marriage troubles of the primary characters. It also adds humor by the actions of David who attempts to do good in order to please his wife. Good News and Katie add another flavor to the novel by their conservative and liberal views about contemporary problems of society.

Introduction

Nick Hornsby has written a novel How to be Good in 2001 which centered on the characters Katie Carr, a doctor, and her husband, David Grant (Hornby, 2001). The novel rotates about marital relationships, leading a good life and the benefits of being good. David starts to feel good with the help of his spiritual healer, DJ Good News. They try to convince people about giving their extra bedrooms to homeless people. However their scheme of being nice to people who had not been good backfires with David giving up eventually. He also stops his plans to write a book about “How to be Good”.

The novel rotates around the relationship between Katie and David. Both David and Katie are married with two children but are living a life full of irony, depression and cynicism. They have a negative attitude about leading a good life. David soon emerges from an angry and cynical person to a new person whose spirit has been revived after meeting a spiritual healer whose name is Good News. David wants to be morally good. In the process he becomes more righteous. Katie becomes more cynical of his attempts to become good. They have an ambitious plan to spread goodness in society. They try to convince their neighbors to take homeless children inside their homes. However what happens is that the homeless kids steal consumer goods one by one. David and Good News are not deterred as they plan to write a book that will give the message of spreading goodness in society.

Katie Carr

Katie has a cynical view of the self-righteous concepts of Good News and David. She knows that her soul has a yearning for spiritual growth. She cannot abide by the concept of goodness which is prevalent in David and Good News. She has a moral vacuum in her life. She says “I don’t wish to be melodramatic: I know I have not lived a bad life. But nor do I think that this crime sheet amounts to nothing: believe me it amounts to something” (Hornby, 2001).

She says at adultery, causal exploitation of friends, disrespect for parents and other moral problems which are prevalent in contemporary society. Her concept is a middle way between selfishness and sainthood. She believes in a middle ground that can be capable of generosity and kindness towards other people. She also criticizes the lack of people looking beyond themselves and their needs. Katie is however cynical as she visits the church to fill the spiritual gap presents inside her heart. She wanted to listen to the preacher in order to confirm her cynicism (Hornby, 2001).

Katie also embarks upon adultery which she regrets as becoming the major reason for the marital breakdown. Katie makes a journey through frustration, anger, grief, rebellion and resignation. She loves to read for leisure as she reads the biography of Vanessa Bell, the sister of Virginia Woolf. She says “It is the act of reading itself that I miss, the opportunity to retreat further and further from the world until I have found some space, some air that isn’t stable, that hasn’t been breached by my family a thousand times already” (Hornby, 2001).

According to Katie all doctors are by default good people. According to her morality, she has earned her affair. She asks David for a divorce but David reexamines his life and agrees with everything she says and becomes good. Katie cares about third-world debt, homeless people and struggles to raise her children in good ethics. She is a doctor which implies her goodness in the novel. However she encounters difficulties in holding herself and her family together to make any real commitment to change the world. Katie does not think of herself as lacking any goodness. She thinks that doctors are good by nature. She says” One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was because I thought it would be a good – as in Good, rather than exciting or well-paid or glamorous – thing to do?” (Hornby, 2001). However the portrayal of Katie being good is diminished as she says about lying in a hotel bed with a man called Stephen. A good person would not cheat on her partner and not ask for a divorce. This leads to the assumption that Katie loves David only because of the benefits of marriage.

Such friendships do not last because the parties do not remain like themselves. One party is no longer pleasant or useful to the other, which can easily dissolve marriages. This is what happens because David tended to be fat and annoying. He was also boring and grumpy. Katie took the initiative to cease the relationship by asking for a divorce. Stephen the person with whom Katie had an affair was more self-absorbed than her husband. Katie believes that she has become impotent and a ghost. She feels a vacuum when she feels that Stephen has good thoughts. She thinks that Stephen will view her as someone good. Katie however is falling into confusion as perception of good changes after meeting with Stephen.

Katie’s relationship with Stephen is that of partners who love for the sake of pleasure because they find themselves pleasant. Katie’s concept of a good person is someone who has concern about the problems of the world. She believes that good people must think about the numerous problems of the world like crime, adultery, and disrespect for parents, poverty, drugs and many other social problems. She however believes that people cannot do much about changing the world without first looking at their own needs. She feels that a person can be good if he or she assumes to be good. Katie is haunted by the failure of being a bad mother for her two children. Katie believes that morally educating her children is necessary. She has educated her children about Nelson Mandela, homeless people, racism, sexism, poverty and fairness. Her relationship with her children proves that she is a good person despite her several quarrels with her husband, David. Katie thinks that most people want to help others by going on sponsored walks or filling in standing orders (Hornby, 2001).

David/Good News

David responds to the divorce offer by Katie by beginning a spiritual journey. He completely transforms himself from Hollywood’s angriest man to a good person. He visits a fellow name Good News who is a spiritual healer. David becomes extremely good which is displayed for instance during a visit to the theatre where he gives eighty pounds to a homeless person (Hornby, 2001). This exaggerated charity surprises Katie that she snatches the money back. David and Good News have good intentions but their morality is based on exaggerations. They do not take into account the complexities of modern society. The social problems of modern society cannot be solved by simple goodness and charity. It is important to love more than to be loved.

David however exaggerates the concept of goodness by trying to be the perfect husband, giving large money to beggars and attempting to help his children with homework. He tries to do things that a perfect dad and husband would do. But his goodness goes too far as he gives away Tom’s computer a women’s shelter. His line of reasoning is that he does not need two computers. His extreme charity would not look bad if it was a temporary thing, but David starts to give all the things which he owns in his household. David is a conservative who opposes liberal line of thinking by Katie. He even insists on bringing Good News into his home. Good News brings his own concept of goodness as he is strongly against materialism and consumerism. He is a spiritual healer who believes that material possessions have destroyed contemporary society by placing value on material objects. He is strongly against computers and DVD players. He even has arguments as to why people do not have problems with dishwashers. He condemns such justifications because possession of these objects does not make the views of people right (Hornby, 2001).

He gives an example of slavery that was considered justified by some people but that did not make slavery a good thing. His definition of goodness is clear as he might not be a religious person but his views are the same as any religious person. David and Good News want to do well with their words. They come up with a plan to allow their neighborhood people to take homeless children. Again this extreme form of goodness backfires as most of the homeless children begin to steal the consumer goods present in the houses which they have lived. These views of goodness are well-intentioned but are destructive and ignorant of the complex causes of contemporary society. Extreme goodness is the theme of this novel in the form of David and Good News. Their goodness results in creating hatred for Katie and her two children. They cross the line of freedom and intrude in the privacy of other people. Their goodness did not please others or make friends. Their actions were a solution to their own problems. They did goodness to please their own intellectual ambitions. Self satisfaction cannot be achieved by pleasing others or becoming a hero, it can be achieved by loving someone. Goodness and David are conservatives who have an extreme version of morality and goodness (Hornby, 2001).

Their extreme goodness is translated into actions which are not useful. These actions become counterproductive as they create more problems. They cannot solve the social problems of modern and contemporary society.

Conclusion

The novel is a great explanation of marriage problems, morality, goodness and religion. It acts as a critique of extreme ideas of religion that want people to become saints. It also attempts to criticize the selfishness of people who do not want to solve the social problems of the world. It advocates a middle way that can solve the contemporary problems of modern society. Human beings cannot become extremists because they lack the capacity to do this. Moderation in life is the best way as the world does not need saints or selfish people. It needs normal people who can think, act and use goodness in a moderate way to help solve the problems of this world. Social evils like racism, drugs, crime, poverty, homelessness, etc have many complex roots. They need to be tackled by using a moderate approach. Katie the protagonist of the novel is basically a good person since she is a doctor and is concerned about the education of her children. She however feels that people can become good only if they think that they are good.

She commits a serious offense by cheating on her husband and asking for divorce. She thinks that she has transformed into a ghost. She has concerns about the social problems of the world like racism and homelessness. She adopts a cynical attitude towards the intentions of David and Good News. Both David and Good News have sincere intentions but their methods are destructive and counterproductive. David engages in a spree of goodness by giving out every consumer good inside his house. This only creates hatred for him. This does not create any friends for him. Good News is an anti-materialist who has a hatred of every material possession. His views are the typical views of any religious or spiritual leader. In the end, David forgets his attempts to do good as he believes his actions have not helped anything but caused only more destruction and problems. Nick Hornsby provides an excellent critique of religion and its simplistic notions of goodness which do not understand the root causes of current social problems.

References

Hornby, Nick. How To Be Good. London: Penguin Books, 2001.

Nick Hornby : How To Be Good : Gender Trouble. Spikemagazine.com.

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