Probably the first thing you’ll notice about Nick Hornby’s novel is the strange narrative structure. Closely related to the structure is the role of the narrator(s), so here is a short and very preliminary analysis of what’s going on in the book.

Chapter one starts with

(…) "People often thought Marcus was being funny when he wasn’t. He didn’t understand it. Asking his mum whether she’d split up with Roger was a perfectly sensible question, he thought: they’d had a big row, then they’d gone off into the kitchen to talk quietly, and after a little while they’d come out looking serious, and Roger had come over to him, shaken his hand and wished him luck at his new school, and then he’d gone."

This opening paragraph is told from Marcus’s point of view. The narrator is omniscient because he knows Marcus’s thoughts, but at the same time limited as other people’s thoughts (and actions) are only seen, described and often interpreted through Marcus’s eyes.

Chapter two, however, starts like this:

"How cool was Will Freeman? This cool: he had slept with a woman he didn’t know very well in the last three months (five points).He had spent more than three hundred pounds on a jacket (five points) (…) he had both grown a goatee (five points and shaved it off again (five points). (…) He was, according to the questionnaire, sub-zero! He was dry ice! He was Frosty the Snowman! He would die of hypothermia!"

Will’s point of view is used by a limited omniscient narrator, quite similar to the narrator’s role in chapter one. From now on, chapters with uneven numbers are told from Marcus’s point of view, chapters with even numbers from Will’s point of view. Consequently, the structure is determined by this: At the beginning of the book, two parallel worlds (Marcus’s and Will’s) are described. Almost inevitably, the two characters (and their worlds) meet in chapter eight. The clash of the worlds forces the reader to see the same events and characters from two points of view. Both points of view play an important part in the book: Will is confused by Marcus’s apparent lack of irony and his literal-mindedness, while Marcus develops a more relaxed and worldly view of the world, learning from Will.

There are other books employing this technique (Julian Barnes "Talking it over" springs to mind), but they are usually more obvious about the role of the narrator. In About a Boy, the structure of the novel and the two points of view are an – albeit necessary – side-aspect of the story and make for an interesting read, as the opinions do or don’t show.

by JanTobiassen

back to "About a Boy"

back to main page