Comparing Charles Dickens to Prince is not something I would have ever dreamed of doing, but then I'm not Nick Hornby. A book like Dickens and Prince is also something I would have been unlikely to have ever read if it were written by someone other than Nick Hornby.
"Were they happy? Probably not. Were they crazy? Probably...This book is about work, and nobody ever worked harder than these two, or at a higher standard, while connecting with so many people for so long." Page 159
Dickens and Prince is a 159-page essay in which Nick Hornby expresses his theory that Charles Dickens and Prince shared a particular type of artistic genius that turned each of them into one of the most prolific and hardest working artists ever seen. In order to make that case, Hornby compares certain characteristics in the men's personal make-up and the lives they lived, with a separate chapters devoted to each characteristic.
Hornby not only believes that there is more to the two than that they "literally had more than their fair share of talent." He wonders why, with that kind of talent, they were both driven to work so much harder at their crafts than all of their contemporaries. He goes on to speculate about how they may have been damaged both personally and professionally by their immense talent, and that their exceptional talent may have even killed both of them.
The mostly self-explanatory chapter headings of the book are:
- Childhood
- Their Twenties
- The Movies
- The Working Life
- The Business
- Women
- The End
I would never have dreamed of comparing Prince to Charles Dickens! I bet this was really interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteVery much so. If I were not such a big Nick Hornby fan, though, I never would have imagined it something I wanted to read. But since i never pass his books up without a look, I had to give it a try...and really liked it.
DeleteHi Sam, I too would never have put Prince and Dickens together but I have read Nick Hornby and he's a talented writer and insightful so if he sees something, it's worth exploring. I wonder though with regard to Prince and Dickens being different from their fellow artists because they were uniquely driven because the great artists are all driven. But Hornsby makes the case that Prince and Dickens had a bond in how they lived their lives and so it sounds like a book worth checking out.
ReplyDeleteHornby makes the point, Kathy, that the depth of their drive came largely from the fact that each of them remained very unsatisfied with what they accomplished and felt push to top themselves right up until the end of their lives. That partially explains, too, why they produced so much during their releatively short lifetimes. Then he throws in all the other traits and life events they had in common, too. It's a strong case I've poorly explained.
DeleteNot my first choice of subjects to read about, but I agree that Nick Hornby writes well whether he is writing fiction or nonfiction, so it would probably be a good read.
ReplyDeleteSame here, Tracy. Honestly, I was very surprised at how engaging this one turned out to be. At 159 pages, I figured it was worth a shot, and if it turned out to be a bust, I wouldn't have spent a lot of time on it. But right from the introduction, I was hooked by the premise.
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