How to be good is a delightful comedy by Nick Hornby.
Katie Carr believes she’s a good person. She's always wanted to help people. The story revolves around Katie, a 40-something doctor in England’s NHS, and her husband David, a newspaper columnist known as “The Angriest Man in Holloway" (-can’t imagine being married to someone who’s known as “the angriest man in Athens”).
The story begins with her telling David she's been having an affair and suggests a divorce. She feels forgotten. David leaves and leaves her with the burden of telling the kids. Three days later, the angriest man of Holloway returns and apologizes for not loving her enough. It seems he has begun receiving “treatments” from a guy named DJ GoodNews (what a name), who is some sort of healer and persuades David to embrace the love in the world.
Now that David has changed, the divorce is called off. DJ moves in with the Carr family, and he and David begin tackling the problem of homeless children in Holloway by persuading neighbors to take individual kids for a year or so. Setting an example, the Carrs take in a homeless boy named Monkey, and soon David is giving away his children’s toys.
Thus begins a series of remarkable schemes mixed with entertaining humor and delicately suggestive questioning. Hasn’t Katie, a doctor who helps the afflicted, always been the good one after all?
This book tackles one question: what does it mean to be “good”?
Is Katie vain for believing she’s good, and when her time comes to help homeless kids she refuses because of the status of her neighborhood? But she's a doctor who helps the ones in need, which makes her good automatically. Does it, though?
It’s brilliant. It made me question my own motives when doing a good deed.
Do you do good because it makes you feel you’re a good person, or do you do good because it helps other people? These questions don’t have the same meaning and therefore are not interchangeable. For instance, donating to a cause because it feels good, without having done the research first, might actually only help our ego. Not knowing exactly where our money goes (used clothing or silverware, old toys), what would happen to it, where it will end up and what it will be used for, is like throwing it all in a pretty trash can that says “you’re a good person” every time you throw something in it.
It goes the same with volunteering. If you don’t do your research who you are really helping? It's all for your esteem. Feeling good does not mean doing good. And this is brilliantly demonstrated in How To Be Good. I loved this book and I definitely recommend it.
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