Why is failure the first thing I think of when I find myself in this sort of situation? Why can't I just enjoy myself? But if you have to ask the question, then you know you're lost: self-consciousness is a man's worst enemy. Already I'm wondering whether she's aware of my erection as I am, and if she is, what she feels about it; but I can't even maintain that worry, let alone anything else, because so many other worries are crowding it out, and the next stage looks intimidatingly difficult, unfathomably terrifying, absolutely impossible.
Look at the things that can go wrong for men. There's the nothing-happening-at-all problem, the too-much-happening-too-soon problem, the dismal-droop-after-a-promising-beginning problem; there's the size-doesn't-matter-except-in-my-case problem... and what do women have to worry about? A handful of cellulite? Join the club. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank? Ditto.
--Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
First, I saw High Fidelity the movie. My boss had read it and recommended the film. I loved it - it's still one of my all time, top five movies, but I never read the book until now. I read About a Boy - it was the first book I ever read in under 24 hours - after borrowing it from my boss. From there, I read Speaking with the Angel, which he edited and contributed a short story to. Then, waiting for a week to pass and grad school to start, I read the brand new How to be Good. I've read The Polysyllabic Spree, and after High Fidelity, I'll be down to Fever Pitch and his latest, A Long Way Down.
But part of me is comforted in knowing there's books of his yet to be read, and I hesitate to finish them off and be left with nothing. Even as I read this novel, I try to savor it in small bites, rationing it as best I can.
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