Bridget Jones, the 30-something single woman brought to life by author Helen Fielding through 365 days of entries in "Bridget Jones's Diary," lives and works in London where she smokes and drinks and pines for dates and watches her weight fluctuate from an ideal 119 pounds to a not-so-ideal 131.
"It is proved by surveys," Bridget notes, "that happiness does not come from love, wealth or power but the pursuit of attainable goals: and what is a diet if not that?" Bridget's diary is thus a humorous documentation of all of her smoking and drinking and pining and fluctuating, as it recounts with painful awareness a comical disgust with all of the above.
The character of Bridget Jones originally sprung to life as a weekly newspaper column at London's Independent, embodying the somewhat downtrodden, somewhat disgruntled, single working woman of the big city. With Bridget Jones, Fielding flings into circulation the viewpoint of a woman approaching middle-age. A woman for whom the feminist ideal of the independent, career-focused female is no longer sufficient as she finds herself alone, listening to the loud tick-tock of her own biological clock, and attending the terribly suffocating dinner parties of those friends who have found secure relationships and evolved into that terrifying and annoying demographic, the "Smug Marrieds."
As reflected in her New Year's Resolutions, Bridget Jones is torn by the impossible desire to be a perfect human being, and the necessary comfort of her vices. Her list includes such vows as, "I will be more confident," "I will be more assertive" and "I will eat more fiber."
On the occasions when she finds herself unable to achieve the life of the Mary-Tyler-Moore/Mother Theresa/Michelle Pfeiffer uber-woman she aims to lead, Bridget is forced to resort to doing precisely those things she vows to avoid. Food and alcohol and delightfully nasty gossip-sessions are necessary to sustain her in her quest for perfection, and this constant battle between desire and defeat and gluttony and guilt are what gives "Bridget Jones's Diary" its humor.
With the entire novel in the form of a personal journal, Fielding possesses a large amount of literary freedom. "Decided to have cappuccino and chocolate croissants on way to work to cheer self up," Bridget remarks. "Do not care about figure. Is no point as no one loves or cares about me." Fielding's writing as Bridget Jones moves from such terse shorthand to occasionally more prosaic descriptions. In the same entry, Bridget tells a detailed story of her commute to work, and the writing moves into the realm of more traditional fiction.
The descriptions fall short of fluidity, yet Fielding gets away with it since the reader has, after all, picked up a book that claims to be nothing more than Bridget Jones's diary. These fluctuations in style lend to the casual feeling of Fielding's book, and contribute to the ease and enjoyment of reading it.
The themes and stories of "Bridget Jones's Diary" are by no means ground-breaking or extremely thought-provoking. In fact, the somewhat trite material of Bridget's ravings is purposeful in its rehashing of old complaints; Fielding relies on a certain level of stereotyping and universality for her humor. While Bridget is undeniably British in her use of slang and references to London culture, her concerns are undeniably female.
A woman complaining about her waistline and her love-life is the subject of many a comic routine, yet Fielding manages to find fresh ways to discuss such "issues." Bridget's grouping of people into types, like the aforementioned "Smug Marrieds" and the ever-embraced "Singletons," is clever and creative, as is her habit of attaching adjectives to the names of people in the desire to describe them, as she does with "Vile Richard," and "Martin Crashing Bore."
Occasionally, Bridget's daily calorie-counting and tallying of her nicotine intake grow repetitive and tedious. There are, after all, only so many remarks one can make about gaining three pounds overnight after accidentally eating an entire box of chocolates.
By the first day of July, as Bridget can muster no more than a simple "Huh" to summarize her month, I began to echo her sentiment of boredom and dread. However, Fielding was able to again capture my interest, as by August Bridget's life abounds with new prospects and new disasters in her pursuit of a career and a stable relationship.
Bridget Jones is no great thinker, her diary coming closer to what might spring from the hand of Ally McBeal rather than that of Gloria Steinem. Yet she possesses a self-consciousness and desire for self-improvement which renders her sympathetic and lovable. From her indecipherable drunken entries, to her dangerous obsession with Smoothies, to her mishaps with easily misread e-mails, Bridget comments on the elements of modern life that confound us all.
Her diary is thus a quick read and an entertaining romp through someone else's suffering at the hands of that which is easily recognizable. And, as a friend of Bridget remarks, "It's always so nice when things go so badly for other people."
