Bridget Jones’s Diary

Now, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that these books have been on my reading list for a long old while. That would be a barefaced lie. However, having recently watched the BBC documentary on all things Bridget Jones, I couldn’t help finding myself desperate to get hold of the books.

When I first watched the films, I can’t say that I was completely sold on them. I’m not a huge fan of chick flicks (being more of an action movie girl), so when I watched them my immediate thought wasn’t ‘I’m going to buy the books and power through them’. However, when it comes to reading, I’m a sucker for chick-lit. They’re easy to read with uncomplicated language and plot lines that make it difficult to put them down.

Bridget Jones’s Diary did not disappoint in this department! Throw in the wit that Helen Fielding manages to so easily achieve with minimal effort, and this book is one of my favourite reads in a long time, and not in a guilty pleasure kind of way.

The main reason for my enjoyment is that Bridget herself is so much more relatable in the book than she is in the film. Don’t get me wrong, that opening scene where she’s in her flannel pyjamas, drinking on the sofa belting out ‘All By Myself’ spoke to me. But for the rest of the film the situations that she managed to get herself into just seemed far too outlandish to be reality (obviously for the benefit of Hollywood). In the book, however, I found it so easy to see myself in Bridget. She’s intolerable in a way that makes you love her. At the end of a bad day, she finds solace in a large glass of wine, a copious amount of food and a good bitch session with her friends about whatever ‘fuckwittage’ is going on with whichever guys she’s involved with at the time. Most of all though, it’s being a thirty-something woman having no idea what she’s doing with her life.

Despite many people saying that this book hasn’t aged well, the one thing we all hate to admit, which is transcendent of any generation, is women’s obsession with their weight and looks. Yes, we have the body positivity movement of the 2020’s, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still us gals out there who aren’t happy with the way our clothes fit and obsessively count calories. The fact that this is written in such a comedic way makes you realise how silly it is worrying but also gives you a sense of relief that it’s not just you: ‘calories 3100 (but mainly potatoes. Oh my god)’, ‘calories 1456 (pre new job healthy eating)’.

I do, however, agree that the sexism of Daniel’s character has not aged well in any way shape or form. Isn’t it ironic though to know that, unfortunately, there are still characters like this in people’s realities? The bosses of either gender who make inappropriate comments. The men that tell women what they want to hear (‘I love you, Jonesh. I made tebble mishtake’), to get into their knickers. There are moments where you’re rooting for Bridget, for example, when she’s telling him where to stick it because he’s not treating her the way she deserves, but then there are moments you want to scream at her because she’s fallen for his ‘fuckwittage’ all over again! Then again, is that not the internal turmoil a lot of us go through: when we like someone enough, we accept their flaws regardless of how toxic they may be?

A lot of people nit pick at the language that’s used in the book and say that it’s poorly written. On the contrary, that’s the whole point. The book is called Bridget Jones’s Diary, it makes sense for it to be written as such. ‘Wish was dead. Am never going to drink again for the rest of life’, when you’re writing in a diary, if you’re the only person that’s going to read it, that’s the way you probably would write. It gives the book authenticity.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this brilliantly well-written, comedic take on Pride and Prejudice (which might I add is one of my favourite books of all time, so is it really that surprising that I enjoyed this?). It’s the perfect lockdown pick-me-up read.