Reading High Fidelity as a Bildungsroman Anonymous College

High Fidelity is a well-written and varicoloured novel by Nick Hornby based on the experiences of Rob Fleming, who shows the positive and negative sides of his life to the reader, not to mention his relationships and ways of thinking. The reader can easily imagine how Rob’s life looks like; we can identify our lives with his during the reading process. Therefore, the reader may consider the protagonist as a mean, non-gentle, self-absorbed, introverted and childish man, who is not capable of development, but Rob refutes this and demonstrates us that he has values and he can exceed himself and grow up, therefore, through examining Rob’s personal development, I am going to read High Fidelity as belonging to the long tradition of Bildungsromans.

At the very beginning we meet with Rob while he is making a list and talking about his five worst split-ups. Within these stories Rob childish side is in the foreground, although he tries to make sense with his explanations about love, life and the effects of the society. He has good insights about the functioning of the world, about genders, about money, about himself, as well. He clearly starts thinking about growing up and the changing of things within the first few pages: “...but still...