'A Long Way Down By Matthew Simpson Song Analysis\r'

'Nick Hornby is a youthful British classic author, having won some(prenominal) awards, most of his books harbor climbed to the top of the bestsellers chart. Most of his books ar fictional and tend to be written to the highest degree unemployed credits or characters who be instantaneously kinda far d bear the social ladder, for whatever reason. His books confine d matchless(prenominal) well enough for three films to be made out of them.\r\n‘A Long office Down is approximately four characters who want to move over suicide, exclusively meet and decide not to, instead opting to wait on each former(a). It was very successful because of its tale and the characters which we standardized to read about in order to s a desirel ourselves feel better. large number would too buy it because of his prior success.\r\nThere argon many reasons for its success, including the feature that it is about suicide. We are intrigued by this narrative because it is something we do not really know about. The theme of social wealth is too very important because it is something we are problematic with on a day to day basis.\r\n voice introductions are very important because it sets the standard for the succour of the unfermented and also needs to hook the commentator. ‘Emma By Jane Austin is a good example as it hooks us by singing equivalent a shot about social wealth, â€Å"with very little to suffering or vex her”, this intrigues us because we want to observe about her luxurious heartstyle.\r\nAs I contrive previously discussed, Hornby is a bestselling author who has become a forward-looking classic author. This re trustation must bind helped ‘A Long commission Down to sell well, as it did become a bestseller.\r\nExploration of character introductions\r\n totally four characters start the narrative and the variety in social wealth of the characters adds to interest. By having these four contradicting characters, we are guaran teed conflict. Jess is a young, party-going loudmouth, save is without many friends, â€Å"and not cook anywhere to go on New Years Eve.” We as readers wonder what her life is like, that once we discovery out that she has a political father, and a soothing home, we feel little sym course of instructiony for her.\r\nJess likes to argue with and commove the early(a) characters, which can excite us, because we like to underwrite characters fall out in order to plant us feel better about ourselves. Maureen is the former(a) female, who is extremely introverted with a disabled son. Her geological fault from this character into a more than relaxed, open and genial character after hitting Jess ex, shows us that blush the most reclusive tidy sum can variety show and be laughing(prenominal), fashioning us as readers happy as well.\r\nBy adding a supposed ascending American rock star, who has unfortunately fallen on hard times, we feel sorry that he was not able to ach ieve his am routineions. JJs constant use of curse words livens up the story, â€Å"Oh OK, your band was fucked up…the unperturbed reason you were in this fuckin country”, as we dont secure it as being pretentious, or something that we cant read. The icing on the cake has to be the law-breaking child molester, â€Å" sleep to exciteher a fifteen-year-old”, who rocketed into the public eye for things which he would rather have not been being bombarded by the squash with headlines much(prenominal) as â€Å"SLEAZEBAG!” We want to know how on earth he could possibly live with himself, and whitethornhap understand that hes not the murderous villain that we capability typically stereotype him as. Although, for sure, we are not meant to like him all that some(prenominal). Having these four different suicidal characters also means that we can conform to that suicidal hoi polloi arent necessarily as egotistical as we dexterity opine they are, and that they are just normal people like you and me, except grossly stereotyped and with purportedly bigger problems.\r\nEach character interests us in a different way, and obviously one of the novels superior pulls is its modern style, with frequent use of colloquialism and so on, as I have explained below. However, some some other evoke factors are the fact that Jess doesnt use quarrel marks because she apparently doesnt understand how to use them. By varying the syntax like this, it makes the sentence social structure less common and so more interesting to read, and maybe a bit more of a challenge to read. Another report factor is how one character thinks of the other characters, for example Martin thinks that he is too cool to â€Å"hang around” with the other three, when he clearly isnt. This difference in attitudes towards each other that they dont all necessarily know about, has the effect of making the reader think they have an advantaged view on things and so want t o image out how things change.\r\nHornby releases cultivation slowly in order to add intrigue. This is limpid in the first chapter which Maureen â€Å"writes”, where she talks about a â€Å"He” and â€Å"His” without telling us who this is. We wonder if she is in a dysfunctional relationship, until we find out a few lines later that it is actually her son, and later still a sick child, which possibly makes her reckon selfish when she says, â€Å"but you can trance that nothing goes in.”\r\nIt is immensely important that Hornby uses a split narrative so hat we can see the central game told or portrayed from several different angles, and see what effects it has on Martins family or what he has left over(p) of it as a result, for example, â€Å"You know Martin left us? We didnt leave him?” It also gives us, as readers, variety so that if we quiver bored of one characters way of compose, we are safe in the knowledge that another character wil l be along in a minute that has a different outlook on things, and a different style of composing, inspiring us to keep interpreting. Moreover, if we had just one narrative past we wouldnt learn anything about suicide that would give us a â€Å"well-rounded” opinion if you like, it would also get terribly boring unless that character had split personalities, for example.\r\n look Hornbys writing style\r\nI think that Hornbys writing style is fabulous. The way we get the impression that he has written nothing, and that it was the work of these completely believable characters is astounding. As above, he frequently uses colloquialism, presumably to bring the novel down to earth and to make people see that these could be real people. He uses very baneful language techniques such as brackets to make Maureen seem un-confident and Jess lack of speech marks to indicate stupidity. very more than the whole book is written like a conversation and flows like one as well. sensibl y much the whole book could be put on a stage without too much re-writing, and this, I suppose, helps to lift it out of the weighting of â€Å"a book” where complicated language and dull paragraphs are used into something that you could believe to be happening in you street.\r\nExploration of themes and narratives\r\nWe are interested in a group of people who want to kill themselves because it is not something we would normally think of doing, and neither is it something that we know about. The fact that suicide is so taboo in modern society makes the narrative of this book even more narrative, because it is somewhere where we can find out a little more about suicide, without all the opinions of other people etc. We are ultimately intrigued by this.\r\nSocial wealth is extremely important in the novel, because if the characters had been successful people with big moneys of money, and lots of friends because we as reads would not be interested. When we pick up a book, most o f us like to light to another world, and find out about that world. Furthermore, we like to feel good about ourselves at the equivalent time, so the characters have to be the complete turnaround to the above so that we can compare it to our own lives and be happy that we are doing fairly well.\r\nA lot of people are obsessed with distinction in todays society, so the fact that this is a key component for Martin in the novel is a big pull. Celebrity magazines usually focus on relationships, and seldom do we see celebrities with such vivid problems as Martin. We as readers want to see what this fame-torn star does with his life and also to observe his downfall. They want to know how person with such a reputable job could get into such a bad state, which is something a lot of people like finding out about. We peradventure also feel sympathy for him because of the way he is treated by the media, which draws parallels with how real-life celebrities are treated and how we now think of them as a result of reading the novel.\r\nFor those people who read ‘A Long Way Down and are apparitional, a big part of the narrative for them must be Maureens struggle with her religions stance on what she so desperately wants to do and the pain she is suffering. People may wonder how on earth a Catholic could possible consider one of the biggest sins, as the obvious thing to say is that it is not an excerption for her, but she clearly thinks it is. Readers will want to find out, specifically in these days of high phantasmal tension, how and if she manages to turn her cover on her religions beliefs. Suicide and religious guilt tie in very tightly with each other here.\r\nSome people may argue that the ending of the novel was a bit of an anti-climax, because they were expecting at least one of the four to commit suicide. However, I would argue that it wasnt, because we neer really solution for any of the characters to kill themselves, instead we want to see them resol ve their problems. The fact that we get an ending where they talk about helping someone else who is in their shoes, shows that they have learnt something and moved on, and this makes us happy.\r\nIn Martins last chapter, he seems to write a bit like an offender doing community service, as he tries to gain back his â€Å"self-respect.” This shows us that his arrogance from the start of the novel had perhaps started to die, until we read that he didnt like the child and demonic him for not getting his self-respect back quickly, â€Å"I blamed him, partly.”\r\nAnd again, perhaps the â€Å"partly” shows that he is jump to see the error of his ways. He also uses a circular narrative; the story beings with him stating, â€Å"Suicide was my Sydney”, and ends by saying, â€Å"self-respect is in, say, Sydney.” This shows us that he has moved on, but more so that he was back at the start, as were the others, and all the guilt and problems they had were ve ry much still there.\r\nThroughout the book I never really cared for any of the characters and perhaps this is because I power saw hope for them, there was always an alternate path; Maureen could have sent Matty to a care home, so I didnt think they needed caring for. I think that they were designed to intrigue and interest the reader, but were too vulgar or out of the run-of-the-mine to care for. I think that a reader would be more likely to care for a character if they were in a similar situation and so could empathize with them.\r\nIn conclusion, I think that the social relevance of the novel outweighs that of the character introductions, because it is such a big issue in modern society, and this is where the initial spark of intrigue comes from, from us deficient to know so much about the issue of suicide.\r\nHowever, because the character introductions are so good, they are also responsible for hooking the reader and keeping them reading, perhaps more so than the social rel evance. Had this book been released in the 1920s then the social relevance in relation to partying and suicide etc, would have perhaps of been less than it is now, and the introductions would have been such a contrast to writing of that time that they would not hook many people. So after reflection, it must be a cabal of the two.\r\n'