NOTE: I started this series of posts back in the Spring. It had a promising start (seriously, read this post about Ludwig Bemelmans and you will be entertained and informed to the max!), but then life and stuff happened and I forgot about it. Yesterday, I decided that the time has come to resurrect this series. There’s something special about dark nights and curling up with a good book. I hope you enjoy it.
My beloved and battered copy of Bridget Jones's Diary - note the coffee cup stains and sellotaped spine
Friday 5 November
Weight: 9st 6 (but my skinny jeans still fasten so I frankly don’t give a fig), alcohol units: 0 (yet, though that bottle of Leffe in the fridge is getting more and more tempting), calories: approx. 700 – digestive biscuits are a source of wholegrain goodness, right? Number of minutes spent performing useful activities: significantly less than number spent vacantly staring out of window drinking tea.
3p.m My Flat
Writing about Helen Fielding is not easy for me. I don’t really know much about the woman other than what I can glean from ‘About the Author’ paragraphs and Wikipedia. She’s clearly very clever and an astute social commentator. I’m also in complete awe of her comic talent. That said, I have only ever read two of her books. After much deliberation, I have established the problem – Helen Fielding is not my literary hero, a character she created is.
The character is, of course, Bridget Jones. So far, so cliché. In recent years, Bridget has become a lazy stereotype of womanhood. She is pop culture shorthand for many things I can’t abide – the woman as a weight obsessed, squeaky voiced ditz; sobbing into her Haagen Daaz one minute and manically screeching along to Gloria Gaynor the next. But that is not MY Bridget Jones.
My Bridget Jones has been a constant friend since I was first handed a copy of ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by mother back when I was busy being the world’s lamest 13 year-old.
I met Bridget at a complicated time in my life. A premature and confused reading of the ‘Bell Jar’ had left me terrified about impending womanhood. I was taking everything far too seriously and, obviously, no one understood me. I hated the fact that I was from a comfortable background, spoke nicely and that my Mom wouldn’t let me have the latest Adidas ‘popper’ jogging bottoms*. I secretly longed to still be able to play with dolls and wear sweet little dresses without fear of being called a ‘virgin’ by the streetwise girls at school (surely, not really much of an insult for a 13-year-old?). Add to that a truly awful haircut and you will get a pretty woeful picture of me circa 1997.
Then, along came Bridget. She was a grown-up, but one that wasn’t tormented or scary. She was warm, funny and from a world that I recognised and living a life that I could picture for myself one day.
It is tricky to determine whether Bridget has shaped aspects of my life or if Fielding was just reflecting realities that young women all encounter at some stage. There’s the heart ache of rejection, the confusion over careers, the complexities of juggling friends and the constant nagging self-doubt that no amount of self-help can shake.
There are moments in my life that could be lifted straight from the books: the tale of how me and my sister played in a hotel pool with the children of a now disgraced Labour MP, the shopping trips with Mom that revolve around department store cafés, the family parties with people I call ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’ regardless of the fact that they aren’t evenly remotely related to me. Though, I’m pleased to say, my mother has never ran off with a Portuguese bloke called Julio.
Bridget Jones’s Diary’ began as a column in the Independent and Telegraph and evolved to be published as a novel in 1996. The sequel ‘Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason’ followed in 1999. The first book is a clever retelling of Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’**, the second is a perhaps slightly more far-fetched farce involving Thai prisons, homicidal builders and magic mushrooms.
Much has been said to intellectualise Bridget and her life, this is when I like to imagine Helen Fielding rolling her eyes and laughing knowingly to herself. Yes, Bridget is a clever and, at times, satirical creation but I seriously doubt that she was created to make any grand statements about society. She is meant to make us laugh.
The blurb to the fist edition of the diary reads as follows:
“A dazzling urban satire of modern human relations? An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family? Or the confused ramblings of a pissed thirty-something?”
Regardless of what she stands for, Bridget has had a huge influence on me. She’s often there in the things I say and write – ‘legs of a baby giraffe’ is a personal favourite Bridget-ism, along with abbreviating ‘very’ to ‘v.’. I share her utter horror when I meet a Tory and really can’t be doing with pomposity. Before attending scary networking events and meetings I will often remind myself of Kathleen Tynan’s ‘inner poise’ and Tina Brown’s tips for successful networking.
In the novels, Bridget is on a constant mission for self-improvement – she wants to be thinner, stop smoking and drink less. She’s also searching for some form of enlightenment. All of her attempts ultimately fail. Yet by the end, she is happy. She has found love and you are left with a sense that this love is as much for herself as it is for Mark Darcy.
The most valuable thing Bridget has taught me is:
“Don’t say “what”, say “pardon”, darling and do as your mother tells you.”
It is very simple advice, simple but v. good. Although, no Mom. I don’t want to get my hair bobbed short again.
BBxx
*Seriously Mom. Thank you. Stuff like this was the making of me.
**Weird that my favourite book and my favourite film (Clueless) are both adaptations of Jane Austen novels. Doubly weird as I’m not a huge Austen fan.
I always really wanted some of those adidas joggers. By the time my mom decided that I could have some, they were no longer cool