In my post today I'd like to share my favorite chapter with you, what questions I'd like to ask the author of the novel Nick Hornby and if there's anything I truly enjoy or that I even feel annoyed of.
Let's start with my favorite chapter:
I've decided to choose chapter n°18 as my favorite chapter. The chapter starts with Sam reading a little book full of facts written by the british Prime Minister.
"And I learned that after fifteen years or so, eighty per cent of teenager fathers lose touch with their kids completely. Eighty per cent! (...) That meant that in fifteen years' time, the chances were that I wouldn't have anything to do with Roof. I wasn't having that." (p.233, ll.8-13)Sam gets angry and he directly goes to Alicia's. He wants to see his kid in the future too, he doesn't want to lose touch with his son Roof. After a missunderstanding he confronts Alicia with his opinion and Alicia's mom helps them to interact.
This chapter is pretty short but that's my favorite because in this chapter you can see that Sam really takes care of his son. He could lose touch like the statistics say but he decides that he wants to be responsible for Roof.
"We'd have no problem getting through the fifteen years if we could just say here, saying nothing, watching a kid grow up." (p.235, ll.25-28)This last sentence in the chapter is very emotional and it's a great ending of chapter n°18.
There are many questions you could ask an author about his book like why did he had chosen this location etc. Here I'd like to ask more specific questions and maybe Nick Hornby reads someday a blog post from a german girl about his novel SLAM. So if you're Nick Hornby, feel free to answer my questions in the comments ;)
First I'd like to ask him why he decided to write about this topic. I can imagine that that's a pretty difficult topic and it's hard to write all of the emotions on paper. Did he experienced this topic by himself?
Many authors say of their characters that some of their characteristics they've got from the author. So if the author is very emotional, he makes his character very emotional too. Is it here the same? Does Sam or Alicia or any other character has the same characteristics like Nick Hornby?
Is Nick Hornby such a big fan of Tony Hawk, the famous skateboarder, that TH has so a big role in his novel?
Where does the idea of whizzing Sam into the future come from? That's a pretty interesting part and I really would like to know why Nick Hornby wrote that parts.
The end of the novel gets closer and closer and soon it's over ...
Greetings!
Elena
Hey Ele,
AntwortenLöschenI really enjoyed reading your post about your favourite chapter and the questions you would like to ask Nick Hornby!
You justified very well why chapter 18 is your favourite one. I also think that it's probably the first time that Sam really cares about his son and that he is willing to take the responsibility. For me it even seems like he's kind of "fighting" for not loosing touch with his son.
What I also really like about your post is one of the questions you asked Nick Hornby. I didn't know that sometimes the characters have got the same characteristics as their author does. I did also think about Nick Hornby writing about things he experienced himself, but not about the thing with the characteristics. It would be really cool to know if this is the case in our novel!
Love, Maike