Seeking advice on a dilemma

How cool is Will Freeman?

Will has nothing else on his mind but himself. A childless single man aged thirty-six, who spends his life avoiding any emotional or rather any problems at all. 

Doing nothing all day gives Will the endless opportunities to do whatever he likes, including inventing new personalities to impress the womankind. Only the "coolness-score" he achieves in the questionnaire of “Men’s Health”, women and music are of any interest to him.

To put it concisely, Will is “the star of the Will Show!”

On New Year’s Eve he falls in love with Rachel, a beautiful, ambitious and intelligent single woman. Intimidated by Rachel’s charisma Will feels like a dull idiot, ruggedly pulled out of his self-indulgence.

Suddenly he realises that he neither has achieved anything reasonable on his own nor had actually cared for anyone else than himself.
Pressured by getting Rachel’s attention, Will starts to search for something that he could use to pique her interest. Unfortunately the only thing that comes to his mind is Marcus. So he mentions him coincidently in the conversation.

Rachel assumes that Will is the biological father of Marcus and Will, who is too afraid of telling the truth (again), does not correct her.  

Will's request for advice 

  

To begin with, be assured that I am not doing that very often, telling my personal problems to a random columnist. Actually, thinking about it, I hadn’t had any problems until this boy Marcus decided to mock things about by showing up at my flat randomly, forcing his companionship on me!

However, he is not my problem right now.

I’ve met this woman on a New Year’s Eve party and I have to admit that I’ve fallen in love immediately. I actually never wanted to fall in love. For me it means nothing else than the destruction of your personal freedom!

Well, at least I thought that until I met Rachel. She is beautiful, intelligent and her charm got me right from the start.

But as I talked to her, I felt like a blank twit, like I had never done anything reasonable in my life. There was just nothing to be proud of. 

I don’t have to work for the money I earn, you know, what leaves me with tons of time to do whatever I like. And I loved it! But how could I catch her interest without having anything essentially to show?

Marcus came to my mind. Inventing Ned for the SPAT-meetings gave me this little extra bonus back then. Being a single dad means that you can’t be a complete idiot.

So I mentioned him and she just assumed that he is my son. She even smilingly told me she has a twelve-year-old herself. We connected. Thus I did not correct the misunderstanding.

What am I supposed to do now? If she finds out that I lied to her about Marcus on our very first meeting, isn’t she going to dump me in a blink of an eye?

Will Freeman

The columnist's advice

 

Mr Freeman,

Without wanting to offend you, I have to advice you to grow up and deal with your problems like an adult.

Firstly I have to say that not having a job does not mean that you are a “blank twit”. You still have things that interest you, haven’t you? 

However, maybe it is time for a change.

Regarding the problem with Rachel, there is just one simple solution:
You have to face the facts and tell her the truth.

Be as honest as you can, tell her the reasons why you lied and how you feel about her.

If you are lucky, she is sensitive enough and understands. 

Wishing you all the best,

The columnist

Why Will is going to heed the columnist’s advice

Certainly Will is already aware of the fact that his life is nothing more than an empty shell. Because he is too afraid of being hurt, he shuts real life out by dealing superficially with things. It is pure self-protection.  

Rachel represents the turning point. Will realises that if he wants to impress Rachel, he has to change his attitude to be worthy by starting to tell her the truth.

A diary entry of Marcus referring to the "Dead-Ducks-Day"

Saturday, „The dead-ducks-day“

I knew that this day would be awful, because I knew that every day I would have to spend with that SPAT lot would be awful. I am ten years older than most of the kids of them. The last time just looking at them convinced me of getting a vasectomy. My mum thought that was a joke and started laughing as I told her, but I was actually being serious. 

I never want to have children. 

But Mum wanted me to go. Now she is even crying in the mornings. She said that she needs a rest and that “We’re not doing each other any good”. 

This was the first time I actually wanted to cry, too. What did she mean by that? What had I done to her? She is the one who’s always crying and upsetting me, so what did I do wrong?!

But I went to do her a favour. 

Suzie, the friend of mum that was supposed to take care of me, collected me with her daughter. At the Regent's park we met up with such a trendy bloke called Will, who was supposed to bring his son, too, but didn’t.

I did not like him at first.

I had the impression that he just tried to be cool to impress Suzie. He started to ask me stupid questions which sounded as if he had gotten them out of a book. As he asked why Suzie has to take care of me, she answered that my mum is a bit “under the weather” currently. 

I think that’s wrong. I think, mum is nuts. 

Anyways, Will and Suzie bored me. It was pretty obvious that Will tried to get off with her. So I went down to the pond and started feeding the ducks. Suddenly I had this really big piece of sandwich in my hand and I was so angry about Suzie and my mum that I tried to hit the ducks head with it.

I tried to do all sorts of things in my life: to achieve the highest score on the Stargazer magazine, to read Nicky’s thoughts by staring at the back of his head in the maths lessons – both things did not work out. And now the one thing I actually hadn’t even really wanted to do worked out – the sandwich hit the ducks head and the stupid animal keeled over. 

I could not believe it!

Maybe it was just about to die anyways, but who would have believed me that? 

I ran back to get Suzie and Will and we all stared at the dead ducks body bobbing up and down in the pond. 

I hated this silly Will-bloke even more as he started to make stupid comments about what I had done, but suddenly the park keeper appeared and I just thought: That was it. I will be imprisoned for a crime I probably haven't even committed.

But Will somehow got me out of the trouble. He convinced the park keeper that I just wanted to sink the duck, which has already been dead, by throwing bread at it, because the dead body was upsetting Suzie’s Baby Megan. It worked.

Maybe I didn’t hate Will after all. 

Apparently I did not know how nuts my mum was until we got back from our trip. 

Suzie gave me a lift home. I don’t know why she had insisted to come with me to the flat of my mum. And I don’t know why I was nervous as we walked up the stairs. Maybe I just imagined that afterwards. Will followed us, of course. 

As I opened the door, I saw my mum lying half on half off the sofa, with sick everywhere around her. It stank horribly.

I did not understand what I was seeing. 

At first, I was just confused why Suzie started screaming and slapping my mum. 

I did not see the empty bottle of pills until the ambulance came. Will had called them.

I could neither speak nor cry. There was just nothing to say.

But Suzie started to cry and then her Baby cried, too, and it was very noisy. 

I was just standing there, watching my mum making terrible moaning noises, which I knew I would never ever want to hear again in my life. 

“How could you do this? You’ve got a kid. How could you do this?” Suzie jelled at my mum.

Only then I started realising what was happening in front of me. 

This was not one of these horror movies, which never gave me nightmares before, because I know that they’re not real. I always thought that it does not make a difference whether you see something horrible or disgusting on TV or in reality. Shock is shock, isn’t it? 

But it makes a difference. 

This was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, even if it was just some puke and some shouting. My mum wasn’t even dead. 

But I knew that I would have to think about it forever.

 Marcus 

Here is a picture of us - Suzie, Will, Megan and me - staring at the dead duck. 

As I told Will that I had only tried to feed the duck, he took a look at the bread bobbing up and down next to the duck, and said: "That is not a sandwhich Markus, that's a bloody french loaf. No wonder it keeled over. That would have killed me!" 

Who did this Will think  he was?

A Letter to Nick Hornby referring to his novel "About a Boy"

                                      

                                                 

 

                                                

                                               A Fan

                                               Lovely Street 3
                                               12453 Berlin

                                               Germany 

Nick Horby

Example-Street 67
South-East London
England

                                                                                                                                      29th January 2012

 

Dear Mr Hornby,

I am a student from a secondary school in Berlin, Germany. For a project work I had to read your novel “About a Boy”. I have to admit that I was in possession of your book for almost two years before I finally read it out of necessity. Not even the enthusiastic editorial comments on the back of the book could change my mind that “About a Boy” would be just one of these typical "school-novels" you are supposed to read in 9th grade.
So I grabbed the book, hoping that my concerns would turn out to have been wrong and my work would not be a result of deadly dullness. 
But I honestly was amazed by this novel. It got me right from the first page and I just got stuck in it. It is just too good to put it down, the story is incredibly gripping and I finished it in two days, giggling like mad on every page, sometimes even laughing out loud.
I just love the way you describe the characters. Every single one of them is depicted so well, so lovingly detailed and with such a great humour that it is an absolute pleasure to follow the story. You almost get the impression of knowing the characters in person. 

But the thing I liked the most was that the reader was able to follow the development of the two main characters throughout the story by noticing tiny differences in their behaviour. Will, a modern version of Peter Pan and Marcus, a boy who is acting like an adult – I adored them both. 

Will is just hilarious in his way of trying to avoid any kind of trouble and describing things with cynicism and sarcasm while Marcus is completely unable to understand any sort of humour. But ironically he is just the funniest person of the world, because the serious way he comments on things makes it sound as if Marcus has got a very dry sense of humour.
I don’t really have a favourite part in your novel, because every scene is extraordinary. The dialogues are especially noteworthy! You can’t read through them without a smile on your lips. Needless to say that I liked the happy ending, especially as it is not kitschy.
But Marcus being so peculiar just really got me. It almost seemed like he is repelled by the people surrounding him. He is too different from everybody else, he is too unique. Now, can you be too unique? I would never have considered the fact that being too unique could be a bad thing. But apparently it is! So I wondered, do you think that we live in a world where you can only be accepted by adapting to the conditions surrounding you?

Yours Sincerely,

A Fan

Book Review of "About a Boy"

Book Review

The novel “About a Boy”, written by Nick Hornby and published in 1998, really got me right from the start.
Nick Hornby has got this great talent to tell you such important things about life by showing you how it sometimes can hit you in the head with a brick without ever getting flat. He rather creates a mixture of cynicism and seriousness throughout the story, providing an impression of lightness. So even though the novel deals with such touching themes, it never gets melodramatic. It is written in such a detailed, amusing kind of way – the characters are so well described and unbelievably hilarious - that you just honestly enjoy reading it.
In fact, the two main characters are just the each opposite, ironically perfect for helping each other out of the situations they are stuck in.
Will is a 36 year old version of Peter Pan. A kid in an adult’s body, having a life which is all about music, shopping, drugs, and women, and that is too scared to take responsibilities or to care for anyone else than himself. His philosophy is staying out of trouble.
Marcus is a nerdy twelve-year-old, who is much older in his way of thinking affected by the experiences he has made, for instance his mother trying to kill herself or to be bullied in school. Marcus is peculiar. He does not understand any sort of irony or sarcasm, but the serious way he is saying things is often perceived as hilarious by others, because it sounds like deadpan humour.
Will never had to work in his life, because of his dad being a “one-hit-wonder”. Therefore he never had anything to be proud of. So he started to invent new versions of himself to catch the people’s interest. He discovers that single mothers are an easy prey, because they are searching for a “nice single dad” who understands their feelings. Thus Will, pretending to be a single dad, starts going to single-parents-meetings. He gets introduces to Marcus by Suzie, a friend of his mum Fiona, who is a bit eccentric and besides depressive.
On the “Dead-ducks-day” (Marcus killed a dug by shying a bread at it) Suzie, Marcus and Will find Fiona on the couch after she had tried to commit suicide. This changes the lives of Will and Marcus completely.
By and by Will teaches Marcus how to be a child again, how to be cool and to be accepted from the people around him – and Marcus, with his persistence to show up at Will’s flat, ignoring Will’s attempts to push him and any emotionality away, forces Will to deal with feelings, to care and to act like a grown up. Marcus manages to get Will out of his egocentric life to give it a meaning.
The novel is variantly written from Will’s and Marcus’ perspectives. Along with great dialogs and extraordinary characters Nick Hornby creates a phenomenally good novel!
I personally have mixed feelings about Marcus. I actually love him, because he is just so – individual. He does not fit into anywhere. He is too honest, too weird, too smart, too thoughtful, too emotionless, and too different. But he is great just the way he is, too, even just because the fact that he is so different. And I think that is the most important message the novel provides us. That, no matter how different and weird human beings can be, we all have our quirks and nobody is perfect, that it is just that what makes life interesting and worth living.    

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