Character+Analysi

Characters Analysis  **The main character in “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby is Rob Fleming. However, you can also find many other interesting personalities in the novel. You meet the two people who work with Rob in the music store: Barry and Dick. Trough the story you will also be introduced to all the women on Rob’s most memorable split-ups list: Alison Ashworth, Penny Hardwick, Jackie Allen and Charlie Nicholson. In addition to these you also get to know the woman that he recently broke up with: Laura. In the following you can read about all these characters.**

Rob Fleming is the main character in the novel, and it is his thoughts and voice we can hear throughout the whole novel. He for example stops the story and address to the reader when he has something to add. When you read the book, you can’t help thinking that Rob is very much alike the author Hornby himself. The story begins when he is 35 years old and his girlfriend Laura leave s him for another man, which results in Rob starting to thing about why all the women that he has dated seem to abandon him sooner or later. He also owns a music store that is called “Championship Vinyl”. He tries his best to make the store afloat, but doesn’t seem to care as much about music as he used to. All things considered, he is not happy about how his life has developed and starts wondering about the time that passes quickly. Since it is Rob that tells this story, you don’t get to know much about his appearance. Laura is in despair over his style. He dresses the same as he has the last 10 years: denims, t-shirt and a leather jacket. His hair is half-long and dark. Ergo: as most musician. He is comfortable with his appearance and doesn’t care much about his look. An example of this is his apartment: it is shabby and surrounded by his record collection, which seems to be the only thing he has in order. After all, Rob doesn’t find him self more than average looking, and has come to a point where he has much more important problems to cope with than his own style.
 * __ Rob Fleming: __**

The main character in High Fidelity is neurotic. Throughout the book he obsesses in his romantic history. Rob is not one of the most social persons and likes to stand in the background. He does not for example intervene in Dick and Barry’s disagreements as long as it is not absolutely necessary. Therefore, he becomes very surprised when a musician is interested in him: “ // She LIKED me. She liked ME. SHE likes me... At least I think she did // ”. He considers himself a looser, which is stuck in his present. ** What make him tick? I don’t understand the question. **  It is Rob’s thoughts and view we hear through the novel. He tells us the s tory of his very early mid-life crises. His girlfriend leaves him and he starts to re-life every one of his “top 5 all-time break-ups”. In this time he has a short, un-serious relationship to a musician, which surprises a man who considers himself a looser. He hopes that this will result in an explanation on why he is doomed to be left alone. // Rob // // “I can't fire them. I hired these guys for three days a week and they just started showing up every day. That was four years ago.” – Rob // // Dick, Rob and Barry in the music store. // Dick works in the music store everyday and has a poison for old labels. He is a very shy person, and avoids discussions in any case. Barry, the more loader person that works at the same place, loves to start arguments with him. Barry’s present result in Dick getting uncomfortable and try to stick out as little as possible. In the end, Dick gets a girl called Anna, which he finds very attractive.
 * __ Rob’s collages and only mates: __**
 * Dick: **

// Barry: What's her name? // // Dick: Anna. // // Barry:Anna? Anaconda? // // Dick: Anna Moss. // // Barry: (laughing) Anna Moss?!? Is she all green and fuzzy and mossy? And you met this bruiser where? At the Home for the Mentally Challenged or the Blind or the bus station? // // Dick: No, she came in and asked about the new Green Day... // // Barry: Oh, finally! Anna! Dick! That's great. Really smoke that ass! // Barry is the second person that works in Rob’s shop. Rock n Roll is his life, and no one can come and take it away from him. As a person, he is very belligerent and he is not afraid of telling costumers that they listen to bad music. Here is an example: “ // Do we look like the kind of store that sells "I Just Called to Say I Love You"? Go to the mall.” // Ron can get very annoyed sometimes when Barry scares the few people that visit the shop from coming.
 * Barry: **

// Rob: Marvin Gaye. Laura: I know. Rob: Let's get it on. That's our song. Marvin Gaye is responsible for our entire relationship. Laura: Oh, is that so? I'd like a word with him then. // Laura is basically the reason why this book is written. This because it was first when she left Rob for this guy Ian, that he started to think about all the women he has been with before. Laura is an active character throughout the whole book, as a person or in Rob’s thoughts. In the book she is just one of a bunch of the girls that Rob has dated. Laura is average pretty, funny and sweet. It was just barely that she made it on the top most memorable split-ups list. Nevertheless, Rob can’t get her of her mind. When you read the book you don’t care much about either Rob gets back to Laura or not, the only thing that is obvious is that Rob really needs someone. In the end Laura turns out to be Rob’s savior.
 * __ The women in Rob’s life: __**
 * Laura **

They met on a club where Rob was DJ, she already then a layer. Rob offered her making a tape, and he made a lot of effort into it. After a while they moved in. Rob describes her this way: “//She didn’t make me miserable, or anxious. It sounds boring, but it wasn’t.”// The relationship wasn’t spectacular, but it was good. It ended because he slept with someone else while Laura was pregnant; this resulted pretty much in her abortion. After this, he borrowed a large sum of money, that he never repayed her. When Rob first doesn’t have Laura in his life, he figures out how much he really needs her in her life.

// “Top five things I miss about Laura. One; sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she's got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs, she laughs with her entire body. Two; she's got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character.“// He defend himself with that he never had any money, and therefore could’t afford to give her the money back. The fact that he slept with another girl, he says, is because she tricked him into it by saying that they were pretty unhappy in the relationship. After a while, it ends up with Laura being the only woman that Rob has ever fought for getting back.



// Laura and Rob // She was the first girl in Rob’s life, when he was around twelve years old. As Rob said: “//… and we wanted them. Actually, we didn’t know we wanted them, but it was something interesting.”// They met in a park three minutes away from his home. The relationship lasted for six hours; the two hours after school, for three days in a row. A boy called Kevin ruled the relationship with kissing Alison on the fourth day. Rob thinks that every romantic story he has had ever since is a scrambled version of this first one. When she called her house later, the mother answered and said: //“She married Kevin. He was her first and last boyfriend”// This was something that Rob liked very much. He called it faith and beyond his control.
 * Alison Ashworth: **

She was one of the nice girls. Penny had nice manners, was nice looking and had great grades. He didn’t care about all the great qualities that Penny had, except that she had breasts. The thing that bothered Ron was that she was so nice that she didn’t let him put his hand on the top of her bra. This was all they fought about, so it ended. Not many days later, he heard that she had slept with another guy. It was not before he pays her a visit in his mid thirties that he discovered that the only reason why Penny slept with the other guy was because she was devastated after he had let her down.
 * Penny Hardwick: **

They met each other the sophomore year on collage. Rob was fascinated by her from the very beginning, because she was different, exotic and talked a lot. This is why he was surprised by the fact that she liked him too. They went out for two years, but Rob never got comfortable. She left him for another man in her design apartment. He never got really over her: “ // Some people never got over Vietnam or the night their band opened for Nirvana. I guess I never got over Charlie.” // Rob resulted in that she was too good for him. Jackie and Ron matched; both of them had just been dumped and were afraid of being left alone. One day, she told him that she had met someone else. When he met him again later, she says: “//I can’t believe I left you for him”//. He finds out that he has no bad feelings and that he is glad she ditched him, and not the other way around.
 * Charlie Nicholson: **
 * Jackie Allen: **

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