Or that what happens in a novel resembles what happened in the author’s own life. And it is never a given that an author believes what her protagonist believes. No one but Austen could tell us if a certain character espouses Austen’s own beliefs. No one but Austen can know what she meant, felt, believed, or experienced at any given moment in time. Because, after all, no matter how much we think we are experts on Austen, it is really all just speculation. I’ve often wondered what Jane Austen might say about the assertions, online and otherwise, about what she did or did not mean when she wrote a particular line or character because of what she did or did not experience or feel. Who periodically reads Duncan’s forum and chuckles at the inaccurate conclusions therein. Miraculously, she is rewarded with a correspondence from the real Tucker Crowe,

That the fans dub JULIET, NAKED, Annie decides she’s had about enough ofĭuncan’s prosings about Tucker’s genius. Review of a newly released album of JULIET demos-an unadorned set of tracks The album that Tucker was promoting when he dropped out of sight.Īnnie, Duncan’s girlfriend, puts up with Duncan’s obsession, but when Duncan posts a

Mysteriously dropped off the grid back in 1986, causing his small band ofĭevoted followers to speculate endlessly on why he left and what’s been going on Nuances in the songs of a rock singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe, who Good deal of his time online on a forum holding forth on the hidden meanings and In JULIET, NAKED, one of the characters, Duncan, spends a Bottom line is that it’s nothing more than speculation. A central premise of the book is that no matter how much the admirers of an artist’s work examine that work, study it, parse it for meaning, and become “experts,” they can never acquire irrefutable proof that the creator felt a certain way or had a particular type of experience at the time she created it. In my writing workshops I inevitably read passages from both Hornby and Smith.įor me, Hornby’s JULIET, NAKED brought to mind some of the online discussions that occur amongst Austen’s most devoted readers. Both authors make profound observations of human nature, give us romance without sentimentality, have a divine sense of humor, and are simply master storytellers. So is Zadie Smith, particularly her novel ON BEAUTY. Nick Hornby is my idea of a contemporary Jane Austen. On Twitter, someone asked for book recommendations for Austen fans, and what came to mind was not a continuation, a sequel, or an inspired-by.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby