Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Picador, 2000 (first published: 1996)

Summary:

Bridget Jones is in her thirties and ‘still’ single. She is obsessed with her weight and her drinking habits. She is looking for the perfect man and a good job.

She works at a publishing house and flirts with her boss Daniel Cleaver. They get into a relationship, but then Mark Darcy comes around. Mark and Daniel are enemies, and once Daniel ditches Bridget, she quits her job and begins working for a television channel.

Meanwhile, her mother is going on holiday with a friend of hers and Bridget suspects her mother is cheating on her father, but she doesn’t know for sure. Bridget asks her friends for help on that subject. But also about the dilemma she’s faced with: she has to choose between Mark and Daniel. It’s not an easy decision because they both act strange. At the end, Bridget chooses to be with Mark Darcy, who incidentally also helps her mum and dad, and they fall in love.

Characters:

Bridget Jones:

Of course is Bridget the protagonist in this book.

Bridget works at a publishing house. She is very neurotic and doesn't really think well of herself. She’s very impulsive too. She is always counting the calories of what she eats, in order to diet, but it doesn’t really work. She smokes too much, especially when she is nervous. She also drinks a lot and owing to this she often has a hangover.

Her main problem is that she’s is in her thirties and 'still' doesn't have a boyfriend, or husband. For Bridget herself it already was a problem that she didn't have a boyfriend. And everyone keeps asking her, why she doesn’t have a boyfriend.

Daniel Cleaver:

Daniel is Bridget’s boss at the publishing house. I think he is in his thirties too but I’m not sure. Daniel is very slippery. He thinks very cool about things that keep Bridget busy for one night. Daniel has no developments during this book. His character at the end is just the same as his character in the beginning of the book.

Mark Darcy:

Mark is the son of friends of Bridget’s mother. He’s a very rich and known lawyer. And he acts like that too, that’s why Bridget doesn’t fall for him at the beginning of the book. I don’t exactly know his age, but that must be mid-thirties. When Bridget finally finds out he’s quite nice, is he in love with her too. And at the end of the book, they have a relationship. Mark hasn’t very many developments, although, he acts more friendly to the people around him.

Jude and Sharon:

Jude and Sharon, two feminists, are her best friends, with whom she discusses the subject “men”.

Tom:

Tom, a homosexual, is her other best friend. She can always call him, even in the middle of the night.

Time:

The story could take place now. There is no date mentioned, but Bridget talks about e-mails, voicemails and more of modern communications, which are all typical for the world, we live in today.

I don’t think the time is really important to the story.

Place:

The story is set in London, Great Britain. It takes place in Bridget’s house mainly because that’s where she writes in her diary. It also takes place at friends’ places and at her work. The place isn’t really important for the story.

I don’t think there’s a symbolic space.

Construction:

The story is written in diary form, so it is all chronological told. There are no flashbacks or flash-forwards.

The story is told from the beginning to the end. There is a closed end. Something like: And they lived happily ever after.

Tell position:

It’s a diary, so Bridget Jones is the speaker.

I think that it definitely made a difference if another person told the story. Now you see the story through the eyes of Bridget Jones. You see what she thinks about everything. That is the main thing in this story. If you saw it through the eyes of another person, I think it would be way more boring.

Theme and motives:

I think the theme is: A single woman looking for love.

The motives are:

1. Drinking, smoking, weight. (I consider this one theme.) Almost every day she writes down her weight, amount of alcohol units, amount of cigarettes and the amount of calories she had that day in her Diary. I think that's a bit obsessive.

2. Boyfriend. Having a boyfriend is very important to Bridget, though she only had two that year. One of them (the first one) wasn't a 'good' boyfriend and he cheated on her. She started dating the second boyfriend 6 days before the end of the year.

3. Family and 'Friends'. 'Friends' has a double meaning here. With 'friends' I mean her real friends but also the friends of her family. Her own friends are a few women and a man. They often discuss together (in a bar) how terrible men can be (according to one of the women they're always awful) The guy often has good advice about men, he is one, and he is gay so he can also talk along about stupid boyfriends. Her family and their friends don't seem very nice, they are just always complaining about Bridget still not having a boyfriend. They try to connect her to Mark Darcy who she didn't like at all in the beginning but in the end she is dating him!

Title:

This isn’t very hard to explain. This book is Bridget Jones’s diary, and that’s also the title.

My own opinion:

I really enjoyed reading the book. It is one of the funniest books I have ever read. The parts where you read what Bridget thinks and what she would like to say to people she doesn’t like, are really hilarious.

Other diaries often become annoying if the main character is complaining about his or her life and there doesn’t really happen anything. But Bridget has a busy life, so although it is a diary, it is never boring.

I really liked the subject of this book. I think it’s really lifelike. The events and thoughts of Bridget were credible. Some situations are very recognisable. I’ve read some more books with the same theme. But this book was definitely the funniest. You can really identify with the protagonist, because you read all her thoughts and feelings.

It’s also easily readable and there weren’t many difficult words in. Because it was written in diary form, the construction wasn’t hard.

There is not much tension in the book, but it remains fascinating. I was very curious about the final outcome. The end wasn’t very special, it was easy to predict. At the end everything was well again.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. It’s a great book! I love it! If I would have to give this book a number I would give it a 9.5 because it’s a story that can happen to anyone so it’s not unreasonable. And it’s also a very fun book because the main person is not so clever and sometimes she does some very stupid things. But she is never a shamed of something! You are very sympathise with her in this book because you see all the thing happening through her eyes. So you read what she thinks. That’s also very funny; what she thinks sometimes! So you must read this book if you want some fun!