Why I Love It/Page and Screen: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: Why I Love it

I got NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST (the movie) from Netflix last weekend. I’m a fan of both Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, but this was a pretty lame movie, in my opinion. It did, however, help clarify for me why I liked the book by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan so much — which I did, very unexpectedly.

The book does not feel to me like an ode to NYC in all its glory — as Elizabeth mentioned, this was not my teenager-in-the-city experience. In fact I think part of what the book does well is capture the suburban teenager’s sense of adventure and freedom at a night out in the city, and the slight sense of smugness at “knowing” the city, which of course they don’t know or experience in the same way as a teenager who lives there like Elizabeth and I did.

Basically what I loved about the book is the consistent accurracy and immediacy of Nick and Norah’s thoughts — it just felt real to me as I was reading.  I especially like that both characters are pretty self-aware and self-analytical, but it still doesn’t stop them from being utterly confused about their crushes, or going in circles in their heads, or doing the things they’re perfectly well aware that they don’t really necessarily want to be doing, which is what I was like as a teenager.   And that aspect — the in-the-moment inner brain workings — doesn’t come across in movie.  So you’re left with just a story about two teenagers having a night out on the town, and they come across as very predictable, a little shallow, and a little annoying, all of which is true to the characters actions in the book, but in the book you’re not paying attention to their actions, you’re following their thoughts.  In the movie, you’re just following them, from one club to another. 

Plus, of course, the book has the ultimate bonus: not one but two MSCL references, which are not just thrown in but are used as a natural part of Norah’s thoughts, which is dead on — trust me, a teenager who loves MSCL will automatically use it as a reference point and will, without even trying to, relate aspects of their life back to scenes from the show. Plus, Norah thinks one of my favorite quotes:

Much as I want to learn more about Nick, I also want to take a time-out so I can tell Caroline all about him.  If Caroline were here, we could dissect Nick via My So-Called Life script/Jordan Catalano moments.

Rayanne:  I think part of him is partly interested in you.  Definitely.  I mean, he’s got other things on his mind.

Angela:  But that’s the part that’s so unfair.  I have nothing else on my mind.  How come I have to be the one sitting around analyzing him in like microscopic detail, and he gets to be the one with other things on his mind?

Rickie: That is deep.

Nick and Norah’s (vs. Elizabeth and Emily’s) New York

Emily and I often agree about books, but one where we didn’t was NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, the first Rachel Cohn – David Levithan collaboration, which became a movie with Michael Cera. Emily liked this a lot more than I did, and I’ll let her say why, but one reason I didn’t is that Rachel Cohn’s chapters in particular, especially early on, felt way too self-conscious.* I should have loved it — it’s all about my life! They even had a character from Emily’s and my high school (Hunter from Hunter)! — but it just felt like name-dropping to me.

And I think one reason is that even though it was supposed to be So Very New York, it didn’t really capture New York as I experience it. (Possibly this is because I was not really connected to the private school scene, but hey; there are reasons I’m grateful for that, and some of them I was reminded of reading this book.) What makes New York what it is, for me, is not the fact that you can apparently go see stripping nuns at 3 AM in midtown should you so desire. It’s littler stuff.

Like, Emily and I and everyone else we know from high school all had a problem when we got to college and realized that for normal people, interrupting them is not a sign of enthusiastic engagement with what they’re saying. It’s just… rude. And instead of riffing off our interruption to escalate the intensity of their storytelling, they would politely fall silent and wait for us. It was terrible! We started interacting with others and realized we were all That Guy.

Since I moved to Madison two and a half years ago, I recognize New York less by seeing its absence in other people than by seeing it lacking in myself. Like, when I was home for Christmas I found myself waiting for the light to change to cross the street in the second place, and doing so on the actual curb instead of a third of the way into the street in the first place. It’s like I don’t even know myself!

So how would you guys want a book set in New York to establish its world? Any you think do it particularly well?

Bonus question: How would you convey being in Madison? The only kids’ book I can think of set around here is Betty Ren Wright’s THE DOLLHOUSE MURDERS, which I like for a lot of reasons. Here’s how I would start setting a book in Wisconsin: with the observation that my entire state suffers from a bizarre conceptual difficulty. You’ll hear even the most intelligent and thoughtful of Madisonians say things like, “…a high of -12.” Am I the only one who sees that -12 degrees is, by definition, not high?!

* ReviewerX, whose reviews I generally quite enjoy, agreed with me on Cohn’s early chapters being particularly weak, and has a pretty funny review dramatizing one complaint I didn’t have — maybe because I, too, curse like a motherfucker.