Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Mark your calendars, here's an occasion where the movie is better than the book.

Not a lot. Just enough to not be a tie.

But that's not to say that the book isn't good, because it is. Sometimes? I'm not sure how to organize my thoughts here.

...

Okay, I've got it.

Things I liked:

I liked the honesty of the relationships between Bridget and her friends, like how Bridget's friend Jude stays with her boyfriend Vile Richard despite his vile-ness and all of her friends saying she'd be better off without him. We all have that friend: miserable but just can't let go for whatever reason.

And I liked the honesty of the relationships between Bridget and her family, and family friends-- like the unending parade of parties, picnics, and celebrations you're forced to attend, plastering a smile to your face. And Bridget, like all single women, are hounded with the same question by them all: When are you going to get married? I was only 14 when Arthur and Janet got married and even then I was getting "When's it going to be your turn?" Bridget really is the voice of single women everywhere, it's not an exaggeration.

Bridget's relationships with men are spot-on, as well: waiting for the phone to ring, checking 100 times to see if maybe you missed a call when you weren't paying attention, and the flirty first stages of getting together and the constant nagging doubts, "Does he really like me? Really? No, I mean, but really?"

And Fielding summed up the amount of work that goes into womanhood better than anyone or anything else I've ever seen:

6 p.m. Completely exhausted by entire day of date preparation. Being a woman is worse than being a farmer- there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturized, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised. The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature- with a full beard and handlebar mustache on each shin, Dennis Healey eyebrows, face a graveyard of dead skin cells, spots erupting, long curly fingernails like Struwwelpeter, blind as a bat and stupid runt of species as no contact lenses, flabby body flobbering around. Ugh, ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence?

How right is that? She's inside my head.

Also inside my head, and also a little inside Mia's from The Princess Diaries head (the novels, not the movies), Bridget thinks it's hot when boys get authoritative-- and Lord, ain't it the truth. Whew.

Thing I mostly liked but really sort of didn't:

The deal with Bridget's weight. This is delicate because Bridget's obsession and confusion and struggle and up, down, up up up up, down, up, down, down, up up up up, down, up, down, down, down dance with the scale are all deeply realistic, the amount of weight being talked about (and sneered about) is paltry. Bridget spends the book at about 125 pounds and is fixated on losing 6.

And I know when you're slender and always have been that those few pounds really seem to make a difference but we need to collectively, as a world, start getting realistic about numbers. Nobody, no matter how cruel, will say about 123 pound woman that's over 5 feet tall, "I thought you said she was thin." This is the kind of thing that fuels eating disorders and shouldn't be portrayed as "normal", like everywoman Bridget Jones.

To rectify this situation with myself I mentally added 30 pounds to each of the weights Bridget claimed. Made me feel much better.

Things I didn't like:

Certain elements of the story bothered me. In fact, the worst subplot of them all was excluded from the movie and the movie was the better for it, it was just too, too unrealistic.

I also didn't like some of the style Fielding used for Bridget's writings, at times it felt far too slangy...but then, I was never the type to doodle or shorthand in my own diaries, and it grated me in The Princess Diaries, too. That's probably just a personal thing...

And I wasn't a fan of Mark Darcy's part in the book, I think his character was also handled better by the movie. While I liked how he loved Bridget all along, flaws and all, he was colder in the book, and when he comes through for her in the end it seems to almost come out of nowhere. Especially what he goes through for her before they're even properly dating! Not kidding, he goes to Portugal. I felt like a queen when Herbert once stopped at Wawa for me on his way to my house and he didn't have to go a foot out of his way to do it. AND we were dating at the time.

Another thing, that was a complete surprise, was the confrontation (read: fight) between Mark and Daniel doesn't happen in the book. That was surprising. Maybe it's in the following books, I don't know, I'm just saying that it doesn't happen in this book. And I was disappointed.

In the end, it's a good book-- a light, entertaining read with genuine heart and solid writing.

3 stars out of 5.

See Blauthor, Blauthor! for more of my reviews.

Hitler's Love Life

While I probably shouldn't keep comparing my boyfriendly-type-creature to Hitler, but I can't help that Eva Braun and Hitler's relationship is such a perfect representation of my dynamic with Herbert. 


Herbert and I dated in high school, but broke up over his emotional affair with my best friend. I didn't speak to him for about 3 years after that, then we started instant messaging for about a year...which lead to phone calls, and we talked almost nightly for another year or so, but I refused to see him. I was afraid to, really, I couldn't imagine what it'd be like to see him again. Finally, 2 years ago this August, I agreed to see him again. He came over my house when my parents were on vacation in another state, and it was funny, I still refused to look at him. He was in my house, literally inches away from me but I wouldn't look at him. 


Eventually I did and the day after the day after I saw him for the first time he came over again, and we kissed for the first time a second time. So we've been on the "together" side of the relationship spectrum ever since. 


Between then and now, of course there was the mistrust thing and how Herbert the whole big fight we'd had had changed his views on relationships and he's now...he hasn't used the word "poly-amorous" but that's essentially what it is. Eventually we had the discussion where I said I wasn't going to tolerate anything less than monogamy. When I told him of a crush I had on a guy at The Internship From Hell he had no reaction, which I discussed in the Swallowed in the Sea post, "Is love even possible without jealousy? He said it'd be hypocritical of him, and it would, but what good is love without possession? If my affection isn't worth getting jealous over, worth being afraid of losing, then what does it matter?" 


Eva Braun spent 13 years madly in love with Hitler while he ignored her. She wanted desperately to be married, he didn't. She wanted children, he didn't. She ended up, essentially, wasting her 20s and 30s because she was in love with a man who wouldn't commit. 


I can't decide if I admire her for sticking with him or if I think she was kind of stupid...or maybe weak. I've always thought, since Herbert explained this to me, that he and I wouldn't be able to last very long because I can't be a part of that lifestyle. I want to be married,  I want to have children and it's not something that I'm willing to give up. I want someone to be my partner and join my family, to celebrate holidays and birthdays and...just live as a unit. I want a partner. In order to have that the time's going to come where I'm going to have to make the choice to leave him. 


But the thought of that is horrifying. I do truly love Herbert, I very much want him to be a part of my family, life, and future...maybe if/when the time comes it'll be easier...now I can hardly imagine it. 


Hitler married Eva 36 hours before they committed suicide together. 


I can sort of understand her not leaving him...she certainly had the opportunity, and he even told her to go. She didn't even have to die with him, her friends and family and even Hitler himself all pleaded with her to run away before it was too late to avoid the advancing Russian army, but she didn't. That's serious dedication and love. 


I don't know...I don't know what I'm going to do or when I'm going to do it. I guess my best option is to just enjoy it while it lasts and make the hard decisions later, when my hand is forced...I finished the Eva Braun book and now that I've written about it I'll be able to not think about it so much. It's been purged, so to speak. At any rate, finishing the book now takes it out of my face. 


I think I'll write a non-Herbert related review tomorrow, as it's kind of an ignored aspect of the war and an interesting view of it. 


Until then, loves.