Familiarity is a wonderful thing. It’s why we watch sitcoms and reality TV (we do, you do, admit it). Once we know the cast of characters, it’s fun to hang out with them. Characters become friends. We identify with them (or aspects of them we’d prefer not to acknowledge in ourselves), we live vicariously through them. Maybe we even feel superior in our judgement of them. Just like real-life friends, then.
Still, is it possible to know too much about a fictional character? Especially one whose whole raison d’être is disclosure in diary form? Has Bridget Jones revealed so much that there’s nothing more to discover?
Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries is Helen Fielding's fourth Bridget book, set some years earlier than the third. Full disclosure, I haven't read Mad About the Boy, but due to the massive popularity of the franchise it's been impossible to avoid the knowledge that Mark Darcy has died, leaving Bridget a lone parent of two. So reading Baby, I couldn't help but feel deprived of some suspense.
Anyway here, for now, Mark is hale and hearty and we discover that he and Bridget called off their engagement five years earlier due to yet another Daniel Cleaver-related mishap. Still with me? Good, there's more: if you saw Bridget Jones's Baby the movie (the release of which, unusually, preceded this book) you'll be surprised to find Cleaver around at all. But here he is, once again sticking his oar – and so much more – into Bridget's and Darcy's lives.
Sexual sell-by
This woman-of-a-certain age Bridget worries she’s about to pass her sexual sell-by date while everyone around her becomes a Smug Mother. Though she says, “Actually, Mum, for once in my life, I’m very happy. I’m successful, I have a new car with satnav and I’m freeee”, we’re not sure we believe her.
She (ahem) bumps separately into Darcy and Cleaver over an eventful couple of days involving “dolphin-friendly” condoms, realises weeks later that she is pregnant, and the who’s your daddy? romp begins.
So far, so the Bridget we know and love; single, scatty and self-sabotaging, though there are minor updates. Bridget’s weight obsession is still part of her makeup, albeit now more clearly the character’s insecurity than any judgement on Fielding’s part. Ageing is added into the mix: she fears she looks 100 years old. She’s better at her job, but still not great.
And I’m going to say something that might be politically incorrect: I miss the drunk Bridget. That was when she revealed herself to us in ways other more stoic heroines never had before.
The cast is largely unchanged (friends, boss, lovely dad, snobby mum) bar Peri Campos, an archetypal new biatch in town who seems fun at first but appears set to remain mostly one-note. There’s an odd moment in which Bridget challenges Peri, risking her job; hard to imagine any single parents I know doing so, and this aspect isn’t really explored. This is a cosy, privileged world of brunches and buggies, but Fielding paints yummy mummy utopia well.
As ever, Fielding delivers great jokes, though some feel reached for. Characters pop in solely as set-ups and the double entendres come thick and fast (“Can I just ejaculate for a moment over the luncheon?”) There are some nice literary in-joking: the Archer Biro Prize “conceived broadly, but quintessentially, for the eradication of ‘chick lit’”, sees serious literati cameos propping up the bar.
Insulated from realities
Gentle pops at the publishing world aside, Bridget’s is a Brexit-free land of Royal Family values, garden parties and turkey curry buffets (will she go, or won’t she?), which I suppose is what we expect from her. But it’s hard to warm fully to one so blissfully insulated from the realities others might face in her situation.
For the most part (no spoilers), this looks to be a rose-tinted pregnancy, bar the odd bout of nausea played for comic effect. I'm not asking for Bridget Jones: The Gritty Realist Essay. But I am looking to believe in her.
Much like Bridget herself, the original Bridget Jones's Diary is charming and great to spend an afternoon with – a simple, character-driven premise. The subsequent books have tried hard to go somewhere, and the more plot-driven and laugh-chasing they become, the less engaging they are.
I feel guilty now, but when an old friend repeats unhealthy patterns, you’re supposed to say it, aren’t you?
It's hard to avoid the feeling that many of Bridget and Darcy's perennial (often Cleaver-related) woes could have been sorted with a solid chat over breakfast. Once you pass the Pride & Prejudice phase of early romance, shouldn't relationships be harder to rattle? Or, if they aren't, will we keep answering when the friend calls, yet again, at 3am?
Of course we will. We love her. But we might not be as keen to read about it.
Tara Flynn's latest work is Giving Out Yards: The Art of Complaint, Irish Style, published by Hachette Books Ireland .
