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June 29, 2007 4:29 PM
Me and Bridget Jones: Then and Now
AKA: Why I'm feeling nostalgic now cult classic week is drawing to a close, by Diane...
I remember hearing the buzz about Bridget Jones's Diary almost a decade ago.
In the autumn of 1997, I was a fledgling student of English Language and Bridget Jones, the paperback, had landed in the bestseller charts (not for the last time). "Hmm," I thought, "I might like to read that..." so, cheapo student that I was, I asked for it for Christmas. I loved that it started at Christmas/New Year, with Bridget bemoaning the exact post-Xmas anticlimax I was experiencing. I may never have tasted a sip of Chardonnay (still don't like it), been to Cafe Rouge (I finally made it last year!) or had the pleasure of Una Alconbury's turkey curry buffet (!), but I identified with Bridget, even as I knew she was exaggerated: a satirical version of all women's insecurities.
Most of all, BJ made me feel better about myself. Like her, I'd often woken up fuzzy-headed from a hangover with all my clean tights in my washing basket and the good looking but smarmy men never took ME seriously either... (but good riddance!)
Re-reading BJD recently, I was full of trepidation: would I enjoy it as much a decade on?
Thank goodness, I did. I'd forgotten how funny Helen Fielding really is (Olivia Joules put me off her for a while!) and what a charmingly confused character Bridget is. And I hated Daniel and loved Mark's Darcy-ness all over again. I read it whilst in the grip of a horrible virus, and it was the perfect pick-me-up. It was also a big nostalgia-fest: full of pop culture references from the late '90s, a time I remember very fondly. Remember when the lottery was shown during Blind date? In fact, remember Blind Date?! And Gladiators (ugh - Bridget didn't like it either).
It didn't seem like it then, but it really was a more innocent time, and we were all full of optimism abut the new government and the future of Britain.
I wonder when we'll recapture that again - and what Bridget would think of Gordon Brown...
WIN! Your copy of the book here.
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Posted by DIANE SHIPLEY on June 29, 2007 in Book related, British Authors, Cult classic week, Modern Fiction | Permalink
Comments
Great post, Diane. I was *obsessed* with Bridget from reading the column. I actually kept them all for a while and read the book thinking it was about me me me! (What was that about chick lit readers being narcissists...?)
I haven't reread the first book, but I did reread Edge of Reason a couple of years ago and was a bit disappointed.
Posted by: Keris | June 29, 2007 4:46 PM
Thanks Keris! Oh, I wish you still had the early columns! x
Posted by: DIANE SHIPLEY | June 29, 2007 5:00 PM
I first heard about Bridget Jones from my former editor. That was when I was writing category romance, and really struggling to do so, as that wasn't the best place for my kind of writing. When my editor sent back my latest proposal with a rejection saying they just didn't really have a place for this kind of book, she enclosed a newspaper clipping about Bridget Jones's Diary, what a huge hit it was in England and how it would soon be coming to the US, and she added a note on the clipping that said she thought I could write that kind of book.
It was only out in the US in hardcover at the time, so I put it on hold at the library, and it was a big lightbulb moment of "Yes! This is what I've been looking for!" I think I like it more each time I read it.
Posted by: Shanna Swendson | June 30, 2007 10:35 PM
My best friend who was living in Paris and terribly lonely and depressed being away from her friends and family had told me that Bridget Jones's Diary was the one bright thing in her life. She read it over and over again, devouring the pages like they were made of pain au chocolat. So, of course I had to check out Miss Jones, too. I was as hungry for this heroine as my friend was starved for companionship. For us, it wasn't necessarily the romance of the story that we fell in love with, it was the relationships she had with her friends - something that was disappointingly absent from the film. For my friend and I, both worlds away from our families (I had just moved to Los Angeles from Atlanta), our girlfriends were our loved ones. So, finding a book in which the heroine was not only our age, living a similar not-quite-there-yet kind of life, struggling to find love, and always finding solace in her friends, it was like reading about your own life. To this day, I still adore Bridget. I even named my car after her in homage.
Posted by: Lucie Simone | July 1, 2007 4:39 PM
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