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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

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Meeting the muse: Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

8/11/2014

18 Comments

 
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I was a latecomer to Nick Hornby’s writing. He was well into bestsellerdom when I condescended to pluck About a Boy from the library shelves, not expecting to find much connection with a writer whose first book was a memoir about his dedication to Arsenal football team. How wrong I was! Although I still haven’t read his memoir, I’ve discovered in his fiction sophisticated characterisation and psychological depth beneath deceptively simple prose. Nick Hornby excels at portraying the obsessions and eccentricities of ordinary people, and their psychological and social implications, with great humour and warmth. His last novel, Juliet, Naked, concerning the triangular relationship between a reclusive rock star, Tucker Crowe, Duncan, his most dedicated fan and Annie, Duncan’s long-suffering partner, was a beautiful study of creativity, intimacy and their absence.

A mismatched couple is at the centre of his latest novel: set in mid-1960s London, Barbara is a buxom blonde from Blackpool with conservative sentiments; Jim a left-leaning Home Counties fellow with a job (under the then Labour government) at Number Ten. But as Barbara and Jim are the central characters of a highly successful TV sitcom, the reader gets to know them at one step removed: via the actors, Sophie (previously Barbara, the five-minute Miss Blackpool and the eponymous funny girl) and Clive (licking his narcissistic wounds at being relegated to the supporting role); writers, Tony and Bill, who meet in a police holding cell during their national service, kindred spirits who gradually drift apart; and the Oxbridge-educated director, Dennis, constantly challenged to defend his devotion to comedy within the still somewhat snobbish BBC.

In its celebration of popular culture, Funny Girl is classic Hornby territory, but I missed the psychological depth I’d found in Juliet, Naked. While each of the main characters is skilfully loaded with the necessary baggage, even when shown the lack that drives her ambition, Sophie/Barbara failed to get under my skin. I much preferred the poignant portrayal of the various accommodations made by single men, husbands and wives prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and would have loved to know more about the patient and dignified June. But if I were in any doubt whether this were the novel Nick Hornby wanted to write, my answer is in the thoughts of one of the scriptwriters (p230):

it was a job he enjoyed, loved even, and a job he could do, and a job he was well paid for. All of this seemed like a miracle to him. […] So, yes, he wanted to fill up the pages, with jokes and observations and situations […] the audience wanted. If he did that, then he’d be allowed to do it over and over again. […] He didn’t think about what else he had to say, or whether he was frustrated by the confines of their chosen medium. [… It was] like a mechanic wanted to fix a car, like a doctor wanted to make people better. He couldn’t imagine mechanics getting frustrated because engines were too simple. Presumably every engine presented a different problem, just as every episode offered a new challenge. And if you were up to it, then why not keep going?

This is a novel about fame, class, creativity, ambition and teamwork in the swinging 60s, perhaps the golden age of television. Thanks to Viking Penguin for my review copy.

I’d reached the home stretch when Charli Mills posed her latest flash-fiction challenge to write a 99-word story inspired by a muse. Nick Hornby seems to be the kind of writer who finds his muse in other art forms, particularly contemporary music and, I’ll grudgingly admit, sport. In Funny Girl, the actor Sophie/Barbara is the creative spark that pushes Tony and Bill to discard their original script and come up with something startlingly new. While the novel challenges the notion that only men can be funny, the woman is still given the traditional role of muse to the men.

The Pre-Raphaelite painters often used the same women over and over as the model for their artwork. Wandering around art galleries, I’ve wondered about the women assigned the role of Pre-Raphaelite muse. How would it affect the sense of self to be the springboard for another’s creativity? Would one feel valued or abused?

Apologies for the abrupt change of tone, I think I might have turned Pre-Raphaelite myself:

At first, I laughed at what he claimed to see, in me, a girl like any other. Why flee my playmates in the park to stand just so for hours? I did not care if dukes and lords might hang my likeness in their galleries.
I hungered for his ardent gaze, his all-encompassing concentration. What lover would regard me so intently? What mirror reflect such light? I did not tire to stand just so while he found my essence in his canvas.
So when he chose another muse I thought I’d drown, Ophelia-like, singing in a stream of flowers.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
18 Comments
Irene Waters link
8/11/2014 02:04:04 pm

I loved your flash Anne. I have often wondered about the thoughts of the sitters that seemed to move between artists. Ophelia in the stream is one in particular that haunts you, particularly knowing that Elizabeth Siddal almost died as a result of lying in the bath water for such a long period. You couldn't have chosen a better choice for your flash as she was also well recognised as Rosetti's muse.

Reply
Sarah link
8/11/2014 02:13:52 pm

Unbelievable. (We crossed in cyber space. I saw your comment and had to look this lady up.) I don't know how to leave a link so I hope this works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Siddal

Fascinating.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 09:51:57 am

Hey, great that you crossed and thanks for posting the link, Sarah.
I do love that painting, Irene, glad you got the reference in the flash.
But, given that he left her to almost freeze in that cold bath, I think my narrator is a tad deluded – not sure he was looking at her at all but more at his own vision of her (which is probably how we look at celebrities, anyway).
I'd better stop rambling and get onto the other comments where my response is long overdue.

Sarah link
8/11/2014 02:04:10 pm

Haha! Even if you "grudgingly admit" it, at least you admit it: Sports can be a muse. To some. I've never read any of Nick Hornby's work, I'm ashamed to say. I have so little time to read. But I love the excerpt you used from his own book to describe how you thought he might feel about writing the it. Brilliant. Anne, you always make me want to run out and buy these books! I need more time for my TBR list.

So, now I can't stop thinking about the models. Did they feel special because they were chosen or did they feel resentful because they weren't creating but helping someone else create. Were they muses or stepping stones?

Reply
Sarah link
8/11/2014 02:05:20 pm

Oh my gosh, I absolutely love your flash! Sorry, got so caught up in the post I missed it the first time 'round. Wow, that is gorgeous.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 09:55:25 am

Of course, I did think afterwards that the author doesn't necessarily share the beliefs that he puts in his character's mouth – he might actually feel the opposite. Although he does now write screenplays as well as fiction, I do see him as an author who writes what he likes.
Thanks for your enthusiasm for my flash. That is a downside of a lot of my posts that people get lost in the links. Glad you made it back.

Reply
Charli Mills
8/11/2014 03:25:41 pm

Well you caught the psychological depth in just 99 words! Before Hollywood, I suppose one of these models would come to crave the spotlight, hunger for the attention and even feel suicidal being cast aside. So many comparisons we can make to the gaze of fame. Great writing, sponsored by a muse of your own! And another great review!

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 09:57:19 am

Thank you, Charli. I was interested in how easily I got into the flash as I didn't think I was particularly interested in showing off or celebrity – need to explore those unconscious processes a bit more.

Reply
geoff link
8/11/2014 04:11:38 pm

Now here's the thing. I read Fever Pitch because as a sports nut I had to and it is quite the best book ever getting under the skin of fandom and what drives people, mostly men, actually blokes that subset of men with flat personalities and monosyllabic minds to be a fan. A real fan who actually hates his team as often as he loves it and, like with family is entitled to slag it off but if anyone else who isn't also a fan does so they will suffer. There's a section when as a fifteen year old he joins in a rampage and knows its wrong, wants to get free, to deny what's happening but he can't and the next day he hates himself mostly because he loved it. I've never rampaged but I understand that sick emotion. Hornby had me to a T; then I read High Fidelity. Ok. Then About a Boy. And I lost interest. I didn't believe in his people because he'd written about a younger me and I couldn't move with him. Maybe it's time I forgave him.
As your flash, capturing the essence of the muse is terrific. I read an interview with one of Lucien Freud's models who clearly had problems being so studied and then ignored. He does sound life an arsehole, though.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 10:00:01 am

Such an important reminder, Geoff, that people can rave about the same book/author but for very different reasons. I wonder if Funny Girl would be the book to bring you back to Hornby? After all, you are the man for comedy!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
9/11/2014 02:47:57 am

Anne, your flash is stand-alone brilliant. I think you have perfectly captured the fluctuating emotions and vulnerability of the muse; with an ending so sad linking as it does to that real-life Ophelia as mentioned by Sarah.
Like Sarah I've never read any of Hornsby's books, though thought I had, his name is so familiar. Couldn't recognise a title in the list though. Your review is great as usual, but your flash wins (can I use that word?) hands down!

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 10:01:03 am

Thank you, Norah, delighted it worked for you.

Reply
Gargi link
11/11/2014 05:57:17 am

Loved the flash, Anne! My favourite Nick Hornby novel is A Long Way Down. It must be a sin to write such a funny novel that has suicide as its central theme!

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 10:02:38 am

Thanks, Gargi. I do admire a writer who can explore tragedy through humour, although that isn't the one of his novels that stands out for me (though you've got me wondering about is again).

Reply
Luccia Gray link
11/11/2014 09:51:10 am

Great flash, Anne, and interesting post. Rossetti's Lady Lilith, is on my blog header. He appears as an 'absent' character in my novel, and one of the characters, Jenny, is based on Rossetti's long poem 'Jenny'. Fanny Cornforth, his mistress, muse, and housekeeper, before, during, and after his marriage to Siddal was the model. I thought of her when I read your flash. A fascinating topic.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 10:41:26 am

I'm encouraged to learn that it worked for you, Lucy, as you've clearly got a lot more knowledge about these ladies than I have. I can clearly see your blog header in my mind's eye and I'm wondering now if I'd been over to visit when I wrote this and, without realising, you were my muse!! Given the way we all feed off each other's ideas, I wouldn't be surprised if that's influenced me at some level.

Reply
Lisa Reiter link
11/11/2014 10:40:38 am

Wonderful flash Anne! Reads beautifully and I'm grateful to Irene for filling me in on the even greater depths surrounding Elizabeth Siddal for I am far from an art aficionado! Lx

Reply
Annecdotist
11/11/2014 10:42:50 am

Thanks, Lisa, looks as if our comments have just crossed like Sarah's and Irene's. Glad you liked the flash.

Reply



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