Diary By Bridget Jones Essay, Research Paper
On a good day, Bridget Jones weighs no more than 120 pounds, smokes no more than
five cigarettes, imbibes no more than three alcohol units, comes up with one or
two clever ideas at the office meeting, and checks her voice mail maybe two or
three times to see if her boyfriend has phoned. On a bad day – of which there
are many – the statistics are less satisfying. Still, the obsessive Jones
dutifully records them all in her hilarious but poignant diary: "Saturday
12 August: 129 pounds, alcohol units 3 (v.g.), cigarettes 32 (v.v. bad,
particularly since first day of giving up) . . . voice mail calls 22, minutes
spent having cross imaginary conversations with Daniel 120, minutes spent
imagining Daniel begging me to come back 90.” This thirtysomething Londoner is,
in short, the exemplar of a contemporary type: the angst-ridden, ever-dieting,
I-wonder-if-this-skirt-is-too-short-for-the- office junior executive who hears
her mother nagging and her biological clock ticking but can’t seem to find a man
who is not already married or interested merely in casual sex – or both. There’s
a lot of truth among the laughs here. That’s why the charming novel
"Bridget Jones’s Diary” has turned out to be a publishing sensation in
Britain: 50 weeks on the best-seller lists and a million copies sold. That’s why
"Bridget Jones” and her self-described marital status – "singleton”
- have entered the language here as standard parlance among her thirtyish peers
of both sexes. And that’s why "Bridget Jones’s Diary” is likely to make a
large literary splash in the United States when Viking Press publishes the book
this month. The U.S. edition has already been named a main selection of the
Book-ofthe-Month Club. Bridget’s creator, the author Helen Fielding, is set for
a busy round-robin of the major U.S. talk shows. Fielding, a former BBC producer
and freelance writer, has admitted that many of Bridget’s misadventures were
based on her own life as a
of, by and for London. When Bridget complains that she had to walk past Whistles
and buy her new outfit at Miss Selfridge instead, London readers know precisely
the state of her bank balance. The gamble, then, for Viking – and for the
publishers bringing out the diary in 16 other countries – is that there is
enough that is universal about Bridget Jones to outweigh the intensely local
parts of her story. It’s probably a good bet, at least for U.S. audiences. A
society that has made cultural icons out of Ally McBeal and Cathy Guisewite
should have no trouble accepting Bridget Jones as a soul sister. There is no
doubt that Bridget and her various obsessions are alive and thriving in the
midpriced one-bedroom apartments of Washington, Denver, Seattle and probably
every other U.S. city. There are certainly plenty of Americans who will bond
with Bridget when they read of her emotional ups and downs on the weekend (the
sadly typical weekend) of Jan. 6-8. First, we see Bridget’s reaction Friday
afternoon at the office when a handsome executive at her publishing company
sends a computer message asking for her home telephone number. "Yesssss!
Yesssss!” Bridget records in her diary. "Daniel Cleaver wants my phone no.
Am marvelous. Am irresistible Sex Goddess. Hurrah!” The next entry, on Sunday,
Jan. 8, tells what happened next. "Oh God, why am I so unattractive?
Hideous, wasted two days glaring psychopathically at the phone and eating
things. Why hasn’t he rung? Why? What’s wrong with me?” The editors at Viking
have decided that moments like that require no translation. Still, they have
made a few changes to accommodate American readers. While Bridget measures her
weight in "stone” (a unit equaling 14 pounds), the U.S. edition will
convert the figure to "pounds.” A London production company called Working
Title, which made "Four Weddings and a Funeral,” is gearing up to turn
"Bridget Jones’s Diary” into a movie.