Hornby includes a sufficient amount of ideas in chapter two and each of them represents something that is related to him and most of the ideas have a moral with it. One example would be “And, of course – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – if you have dreams of becoming a writer, then there are murky, mucky visions of fame attached to these dreams too.” (13) Here, Hornby is saying that if someone has a dream of doing something, then they have a chance to become famous with it because it is something that they enjoy doing and therefore they must be good at it. So don’t give up on the dream because sooner or later the dream is going to come true and they are going to have a shot at fame. Also he is referring to himself because he once had a dream of becoming a writer and that dream one day came true after many doubts from friends and family. Another example of an idea that Hornby included would be “… ‘Thunder Road’ knows how I feel and who I am, and that, in the end, is one of the consolations of art.” (15) This idea means that the song ‘Thunder Road’ represents him because he was once a man whom was hopeless in life and he had a chance to redeem himself just like in the song where also a man and a woman were fooling around and got a chance to make something out of their lives. So there is a distinct connection between Hornby and ‘Thunder Road’ which is the “consolations of art” (15).
The use of rhetorical question can be found a couple of time in chapter two of Nick Hornby’s 31 Songs. In the opening paragraph of chapter two, it says, “So I’ve loved this song for a quarter of a century now, and I’ve heard it more than anything else, with the possible exception of… who am I kidding? There are no other contenders.” (9) This rhetorical question is used to exaggerate the fact that according to Nick Hornby there aren’t any songs that can be better than ‘Thunder Road’ by Bruce Springsteen. The second use of rhetorical question is when Hornby is talking about how Springsteen’s songs became famous. “… he has won, simply by virtue of playing the night after night after night, to an ever-increasing crowd of people?” (12) This rhetorical question is used to simply prove that Springsteen is becoming famous due to the “ever-increasing crowd or people” (12). The last but not least rhetorical question is also related to Springsteen and his career. “’Cos, the record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance’, other than that the record company has just given him a big advance?” (12) This rhetorical question emphasizes the fact that he got a great deal with a record company simply because he sang a song named ‘Rosalita’ referring to the record company. All of these rhetorical questions have one purpose in this writing which is to emphasize the key points that the readers might miss while reading.
In chapter two, Nick Hornby uses quite a lot of figurative language such as similes and metaphors. He uses figurative language to bring something out of the ordinary and makes it extraordinary and so when people read it, it just won’t be some boring writing and also it enlightens the mood. One of the many similes in the chapter is, “the word ‘redemption’ is to be avoided like the plague when you’re writing songs about redemption.” (10) This simile exaggerates the fact that you can’t include the word of the topic in which you are writing about (in the work itself) by using the word plague because the plague is disastrous and your work can also be so. Another great example of a simile is, “It’s a process something like falling in love.” (11) Here, the process of choosing to be a writer is compared to falling in love and writing novels is just as great as finding love. Near the end of the chapter, Hornby uses two metaphors to describe a song. “… on wheezy harmonica and achingly pretty piano” (14) The wheezing harmonica means the harmonica is played very well and it just glides in the air as if it was breathing and not because the harmonica was horribly played. The achingly pretty piano could mean the sound of piano which is played very beautifully and not an agony to hear.
Throughout chapter two, the point of view has been steady, the moods shifts just a little bit and the structure varies. The point of view is from a first person since he uses I to tell us his about his life and the songs that he enjoys very much. The mood in the beginning of the chapter was very light and enthusiastic as Hornby was talking about how much he liked the song ‘Thunder Road’. Then there was a shift in the mood as it became a bit more informative and instructive because he started to talk about Bruce Springsteen and his song ‘Thunder Road’ and following your dreams. At this point of the chapter, it seemed pretty dull and boring compared to the beginning where it had the use of figurative language. The sentence length in this chapter varies from very short to very long. The first sentence of the chapter is very long and because of this it gives the reader a sense of rush. It gives the reader a sense of being ‘fed up’ because it seems that he has said those lines many times and he is tired of saying it over and over again so he rushes the sentence.
This essay written by Nick Hornby which is about the song called ‘Thunder Road’ by Bruce Springsteen doesn’t require the reader to know or even like the song in other to appreciate his work. This is because his work is very self explanatory and the reader can get his feeling towards the song by reading what he wrote about it and in fact maybe some readers can like the song without even hearing the song and just by reading the essay. With this said, some may think that Hornby is very successful overcoming the problems of “Dancing about architecture”. If he is able to make someone like the song by telling the reader, the song’s story and how the music sounds like and without the reader even hearing the song then, he has certainly gone past the problems of “dancing about architecture”. But if he wasn’t able to do so, than he still has overcome the problems of “dancing about architecture” simply because he has explained the song very well to the reader by relating it to real life examples.
