Sometimes life is all about timing.

Last week I finished Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity,” which at another point in my life I think I would have really enjoyed. But for some reason I had a really hard time connecting with it in a positive way. It doesn’t have anything to do with Hornby since I’ve read and enjoyed several of his other books, but rather with how some of the elements relate to things that are going on right now.

One of the major issues is the attitude of the main character, who runs a record shop and uses the story of several past loves as a lens to explain his latest relationship issues. His attitude is awful — brooding, negative, excessively sarcastic — and one that mirrors the kind of thing I’ve been working very hard lately to eliminate from the main character in my own writing project. (Yes, I’m still writing. Maybe I’ll update soon, but it’s been rather challenging in the past month or two.)

Given that he owns a record store, it’s not surprising that music plays a big role in the story. There are musicians, endless top-5 lists of artists, albums and songs, and lots of talk about how certain songs can be closely tied to something in your memory:

“Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forwards, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time.”

We all have those. If you’ve listened to a piece of music at any point in your life, it’s impossible to not have a few notes or a chorus bring someone or something rushing back to your mind no matter how far your brain has to reach. Sometimes that sentimentality is a good thing that elicits strong, positive emotions, but just as easily those songs can leave you shaking your head.

Books can do that too. Another thing that I think skewed my experience with this book was the name of one of the recurring characters. Seeing it over and over again rang notes that brought me back to a situation I once had such fond memories of, but which has since been tainted by a flood of negativity. It’s hard to change those associations.

This was also one of those books that somehow ended up with a lot of dog-eared pages by the time I finished, but looking back at those pages I have no idea why I marked them. I should really start taking notes as I read. I’ll end with one that doesn’t really need any explanation:

“I can see everything once it’s already happened — I’m very good at the past. It’s the present I can’t understand.”