Bibliofreakblog

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

Whoever was the the casting directing for the movie of Bridget Jones’s Diary was fucking brilliant.  And I mean fucking brilliant, in the American sense (i.e., like an extremely shining star or genius) rather than bloody brilliant in the British sense (i.e., very good).  I can only imagine fans talking to eachother when they heard who’d be starring.  Something like:

“You’ll never guess who they got to play in the movie of Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
“Who?”
“Hugh Grant is going to play Daniel Cleaver and Colin Firth is going to play Mark Darcy.”
“No way!”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe they actually got them…It’s brilliant.”

I had only watched a little bit of the beginning of the movie version, but I’ve seen all of the sequal, so I more or less knew the ending.  As sometimes happens when you have seen the movie version of a book before reading it, I pictured Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver and Colin Firth as Mark Darcy, while Renee Zellweger’s faux-British voice narrated the saga.

Which made me seriously laugh out loud when I got to this part:

“‘I’m thinking Hugh Grant.  I’m thinking Elizabeth Hurley.  I’m thinking how come two months on they’re still together.  I’m thinking how come he gets away with it…How does a man with a girlfriend with looks like Elizabeth Hurley havea blow job from a prostitute on a public highway and get away with it?  What happened to Hell hath no fury?’
      I couldn’t believe this.  What abou the Shadow Cabinet?  What about the Peace Process?  He was obviously trying to work out how he could get away with sleeping with a prostitute himself.  Suddenly, he was looking straight at me.
     ‘Do you know?’  The entire table of grunge youths stared.  ‘You.  You must be Bridget!’ he shouted impatiently.  ‘How does a man with a beautiful girlfriend manage to sleep with a prostitute, get found out and get away with it?’
     I panicked.  My mind went blank.
     ‘Well?’ he said.  ‘Well?  Come on, say something!’
    ‘Well, maybe,’ I said, because it was the only thing I could think of, ‘it was because somebody swallowed the evidence.’”

Less shocking is the casting of Colin Firth as Mark Darcy, but it’s still stunning.  They talk about the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice, in which Colin Firth played Mr. Darcy.  The allusion of the character’s last name is no mistake.  But still, some of the characters deride the production, saying that it devalues literature and young people today (today being 1996) only have a precursory knowledge of classics because of film productions. 

Bridget takes a stand on this issue, saying she quite liked it.  Though she does tell the reader how much she hated seeing the characters in magazines wearing their street clothes, kissing, and that she hate’s Firth’s mustache.

I don’t know if either of these passages made it into the movie, but I doubt it.  There’s actually a whole different subplot, which throw Mark and Bridget together, so if you have only seen the movie, you’ll be in for a treat in the book version.

I read this for my Summer Reading Challenge, and I am really glad I did.  I’ll be reading Pride & Prejudice for the Take a Chance challenge, and can’t wait to discern all the similarities Fielding wrote into her book.

Though I’m sure that Austen didn’t use the term “fuckwittage.”  At least not quite so much.

Maybe the Zombie version does though.
Buy Bridget Jones’s Diary on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

Bridget Jones; The edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones’s Guide to Life by Helen Fielding
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
White Teeth  by Zadie Smith
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea
Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society  by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler 

Other works by Helen Fielding:

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination
Cause Celeb
Bridget Jones; The edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones’s Guide to Life by Helen Fielding