Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding

I've read Bridget Jones' Diary several times before, but that was many years ago, so when I found the French translation in a bookshop in Brittany I had to pick it up. It made for much more relaxing holiday reading than the rather heavier L'Allée du Roi I'd brought with me, and I can actually claim it was vaguely educational, teaching me words for everyday things like types of modern clothing, cigarettes (ok, that one's the same) and minor swearwords, all things not often featured in more classic novels.

The translation felt pretty spot-on, keeping the tone of the original novel very well in spite of its cultural Zeitgeists, although it did have resort to footnotes to explain things such as Eastenders or Michael Howard.

One of the things I love most about this novel (as well as the plot, which as everyone knows is based on Pride and Prejudice, so not totally original to Fielding), is the down-to-earth narrator. Published nearly 10 years ago (and how old does that make me feel!), I have yet to come across another novel that feels quite as real. Nothing about Bridget is romanticised – she's no more glamorous, successful, strong or determined that your average woman, but Fielding doesn't use Stephanie Meyer's irritating wish-fulfilment trick of having the whole world fall in love with her supposedly 'average' heroine. Instead Bridget struggles vaguely through life without things falling into her lap, and not only do we as readers see the external parts of her experience - her conversations with others, dramatic scenes and so on - but we are also privy to the general grime and disorder of everyday life. For me this makes it so much more personal and relatable than reading about protagonists who never have to go to the bathroom or wash their clothes.

Of course Bridget Jones' Diary is, at heart, a romantic story, but the focus is very much on a humorous retelling of the problems and anxieties of romance rather than being swept off your feet by a prince charming. The film is a little different from the book, having switched events round and cut a few characters out to streamline the story, and I do have a friend who said this put her off reading the book afterwards, but I really recommend it personally if you're a fan of the film but haven't yet read the book.

Next up: Thank You, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

Enmity

This week's Booking Through Thursday is:

Any books or authors you hate? Why? Is it the writing? The stories? The author’s personality? And—would you read their work anyway?

There are a few, I have to admit. The first and most obvious would have to be Stephenie Meyer, and the total vapidity and vanity of her heroines and her frustrating lack of any respect for her readers' common sense (or hopes for healthy, non-abusive relationships) annoys me very much. However, I read the entire Twilight series because it was so bad it was funny at times, and I read The Host because it actually sounded like an interesting concept. It did turn out to be an interesting concept, but so mangled into an abusive teen romance that it frustrated me more than Twilight had.

Another pet hate of mine is D H Lawrence. I've read a few of his, most notably Lady Chatterley's Lover, as well as Women in Love and Sons and Lovers. Quite apart from his habit of putting the word 'love' into almost every title, I found his view of women insulting and irritating. This is made worse by the fact that he was praised highly by many after his death for his portrayal of 'strong, independent and complex' women - I found his women indecisive, sentimental and in need of a man to fulfill them, which for me is the very opposite of the above description.

I had to read a lot of Virginia Woolf during my undergraduate degree, and I hated every one of her novels. I understand that she was the forerunner of the modernist movement, cutting edge techniques, etc etc, and that's great. However, my idea of a good story definitely does not consist of following a middle-aged housewife around for a day, or observing a family repeatedly failing to row out to a lighthouse near their holiday home. I appreciate that the techniques she used were groundbreaking, innovative, and so on, but her style really isn't my thing.

Phew. I'm actually a little bit angry now. Are there any authors that you can't stand? Leave a comment and tell me why!

The Host - Stephenie Meyer

I don’t normally like to post mean reviews, but at this point I think Stephenie Meyer is rather too rich to

care, and is probably quite used to receiving hate mail as well as the locks of hair and used underpants belonging to overexcited and slightly confused young women who think she keeps Edward Cullen somewhere on her person.

Admittedly, The Host is better than Twilight. Significantly better, in fact. The plot actually sounds promising: an alien invasion by parasitic creatures that attach to the spines of their hosts and continue to live their lives as normal until virtually the whole planet is taken over, leaving only tiny pockets of still-human resistance. The narrative is told by one of the alien consciousnesses themselves, which is also an interesting concept.

However, it’s at this point that promising sci-fi originality goes out of the window and Meyer’s compulsion to turn everything into a vapid teen romance steps in. Instead of choosing one of the many interesting potential avenues, Meyer focuses on our alien protagonist Wanda and her human host Mel’s inner girlish arguments, and on the fact that Wanda appears to have inherited Mel’s love interest in her boyfriend Jared.

Wanda decides to search for Jared and her brother Jamie, who are sheltering in a cave in the desert. She’s taken prisoner by the community Jared and Jamie have joined, and, now that Mel’s been taken over by the enemy, Jared is full of hatred for her and immediately proclaims that she should be killed. Although Wanda and Mel manage to gradually win over the trust of most of the community, Jared is staunch in his opinion, and even hits her several times, giving her noticeable injuries and facial scarring. She continues to try and gain his trust by putting herself last in everything and generally acting like a doormat, refusing to stand up for herself even to save her own life. Just as women should do in the face of domestic violence, apparently. Thanks for that, Meyer.

Despite the advances of attractive nice guy Ian, who has come to like Wanda for who she is now rather than Mel as she was previously and acts as protector and comforter to her, both Wanda and Mel cling to their desperate love for the man who quite literally wants to murder them for the majority of the novel. I was worried, given the fact that virtually the same situation happens in Twilight (ie. Edward literally wanting to kill Bella most of the time, and I’m-your-totally-platonic-friend Jacob doing everything for her and being off-handedly rejected for not being her true love), that the Wanda-Mel composite would end up somehow living happily ever after with the violent unpleasant Jared.

However, after telling her that, “You are the noblest, purest creature I've ever met. The universe will be a darker place without you,” (a compliment she was clearly fishing for from the very beginning of the novel), her friends collude to transplant her consciousness into a vacant body (another young, attractive female, obviously), conveniently saving her the trouble of going through with her difficult decision to leave Mel her own body back at Wanda’s expense. Wanda and Ian can live happily ever after, and Mel is lucky enough to have her boyfriend back – the one who weeks ago beat her repeatedly and wanted to kill her. Lucky, lucky Mel. But apparently he’s hot, so that’s what matters.

So, um, yes. Always submit meekly to your one true love, even if he beats you and threatens to kill you, and everything will be ok, until you… get transplanted into someone else and can have the nice guy? I’m still quite confused about the message I’m getting from this one.

Next up: Heartstone, by C J Sansom

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde

I have to admit that I initially started reading this novel because I thought it was in some way connected to Mister Monday, by Garth Nix. I don’t know, I thought one or the other was a pseudonym or something… To be fair, with the main character of The Eyre Affair called Thursday Next and with the same ideas of breaking down barriers between literature and reality, they are kind of similar. Vaguely. Sort of. Anyway, I’m very glad I did choose this book, even if it was on false pretences.

It’s set in an alternative reality in which there are no computers, but where time travel is simply part of an annoying job for certain types of police. Literature forms the major part of popular culture, and we follow the heroine, Thursday, as she tries to foil the machinations of the literary terrorist, Hades Acheron.

For someone like me, a world in which literature is paramount and receives the celebrity status of our real-life bands or film stars is a bizarre but fantastic idea. Once you’re far enough into the novel to have got used to the alternative history aspects (for instance an ongoing English-Russian Crimean War or the Welsh Republic border skirmishes) it’s very engaging, although I’m on the fence about some of Fforde’s more tongue-in-cheek moments. While he is genuinely very funny – a corporation leader named Jack Schitt actually made me laugh quite loudly in public – aspects that are obviously throw-away jokes do break the fourth wall a bit.

While I personally found the romantic aspect of the ending unsatisfying, the parallels between Jane Eyre’s and Thursday Next’s love lives were drawn pretty deftly and kept subtle until the end. In general, I really enjoyed this novel – fast-paced action, witty dialogue and an amusing narrative voice kept me gripped throughout. I was happy to find out that it’s only the first of a seven-part series, and look forward to reading the rest!


Next up: The Host, by Stephenie Meyer