48 pages • 1 hour read
Nick HornbyHigh Fidelity
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Pop Music as a Coping Mechanism
Rob Fleming obsesses over pop music because he struggles to express himself emotionally. After a long string of difficult breakups, Rob is scared to expose his sincere feelings to the world in case he is hurt again. Whenever he talks about his feelings with girlfriends, he adopts a sarcastic, negative tone which is at odds with his actual thoughts. In the wake of his breakup with Charlie, Rob began working in a record store and escalated his lifelong obsession. Charlie’s departure made a big impact on Rob’s life, but the records at his disposal gave him a way to cope. Rob uses pop music as a coping mechanism to deal with the difficult parts of his life because he needs to build a wall around himself. He chooses to rely on other people’s words and ideas rather than his own sincere emotions because he fears that sincerity makes him vulnerable. His love of pop music is a defense against future pain, an attempt to prevent anyone else hurting him like Charlie hurt him.
Rob’s use of pop music as a coping mechanism reflects his desire for control. The departures of Charlie, Laura, and the other women in his life represent Rob’s inability to control the world around him. Rob does not necessarily want these women to leave him, but they do because they are independent beings with their own desires and agency. Rob cannot comprehend this, so he clings to pop music to help himself cope. His record collection and his record store allow him to exercise control. He is a music expert, devoting himself to learning everything he can about the medium to bring it under his control. The constant bickering with Dick and Barry illustrates that Rob is not alone. All three of the men lack control in their lives, so they use their love of pop music to exert control over something. By creating lists and discussing the subject constantly, they can exercise agency over a part of their lives. The men organize music into increasingly nebulous top five lists, performatively demonstrating the breadth of their knowledge and command over the subject at hand. Pop music becomes an emotional crutch, allowing the men to limp through their lives without having to address their deep personal failings. As a coping mechanism, pop music allows Rob to pretend that he is in control.
Active Versus Passive Lives
The men who work in the record store illustrate the theme of active versus passive lives. At the beginning of the story, they all lead passive forms of existence. They are critics of other people’s actions and passive observers of art made by other people. Rob speculates that Dick—and, by extension, all three men—prefer this approach, as passivity is a protection against any form of criticism. They do not want to be criticized as they criticize others, out of fear that they may not measure up. The men spend every day going over the same arguments, accomplishing nothing. Their lives pass them by as they struggle to assert control over anything other than the random lists they create each day. Rob is made miserable by this passive existence and cannot see any way to escape.
Dick and Barry explore the various ways in which people can deal with passive or active existences. Dick wants to remain passive. He is nervous and awkward, remaining on the sidelines and gently critiquing everything around him. Barry becomes sick of passively consuming music and decides to become a more active participant in the artistic world. He joins a band and, much to everyone’s surprise, shows that he has talent. Barry switches from a passive consumer of music to an active creator of music. The switch energizes his life, and he feels much happier and more alive when he is creating. While Dick is left behind in his comfortable, passive world, Barry shows a desire to break free and regain some agency in his life. However, the ultimate irony of Barry’s attempt to become more active is that his band only plays cover versions. Even if he is standing up on stage and exposing himself to criticism, he still expresses himself through other people’s words. Barry’s band plays classic hits to a middle-aged crowd, opting for a safe and easy way to earn the support of those around them. Barry becomes more active, but this action is still limited by a fear of criticism. While Laura helps Rob abandon his obsession with pop music and use his store to become a more active person, Dick and Barry still struggle to come to terms with the reality of breaking out of the loop of passive media consumption.
Manufactured Emotion
Rob slowly begins to realize that everything he has learned from pop songs is not real. The manufactured emotions in song lyrics have given him a skewed understanding of love which is nothing like reality. He dreams of a woman expressing the thoughts and feelings he has heard about in songs, but this has never occurred. Therefore, he jumps from relationship to relationship to find that semblance of burning passion which he has heard so much about but rarely experienced for himself. Over the course of the novel, he realizes that his entire conception of love is artificial, while the love he shares with Laura is very real. This quieter, more restrained version of love may not feature in many pop songs, but it comforts and satisfies Rob. Learning how manufactured emotions shape his conception of the world allows Rob to grow and develop as a person, achieving a greater degree of maturity once he stops pursuing a kind of love which does not really exist.
Rob’s first attempts to find a girlfriend end in disaster, so he turns to pop music lyrics to learn more about relationships. Even after a string of more disastrous breakups, he does not realize that his conception of love is entirely manufactured. The death of Laura’s father helps him realize the limitations of living through pop music. When the father dies, Rob’s first instinct is to listen to songs about death. However, he finds no solace as there are very few songs that appeal to him about death. While he can argue with Dick and Barry about songs about death, none of them help him navigate the emotional pain he and Laura experience. Rob realizes that songs cannot provide a nuanced, satisfying version of an emotion because they are only echoes of other people’s lived experiences. Death cannot be understood through music; Rob must experience it for himself. This realization spreads to other emotions, with Rob eventually realizing that he has been trying to experience love vicariously through other people’s songs. Ultimately, Rob learns about the reality of love by learning about the reality of death. While pop music might always present him with an appealing, fascinating interpretation of love, he realizes that his experiences with Laura are more authentic and meaningful than any lyrics. He abandons manufactured emotion and embraces the real thing.
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By Nick Hornby
