Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

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Fans of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary will recall that at the end of that sly and funny version of Pride and Prejudice, singleton heroine Bridget landed her Mr. Darcy at last--Mark Darcy, that is. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason picks up four weeks later, and already the honeymoon is over. In addition to discovering that the man of her dreams votes conservative, left-leaning Bridget is also feeling just a mite uncomfortable with the realities of sharing bed and board with another person: V. complicated actually having man in house as cannot freely spend requisite amount of time in bathroom or turn into gas chamber as conscious of other person late for work, desperate for pee etc.; also disturbed by Mark folding up underpants at night, rendering it strangely embarrassing now simply to keep all own clothes in pile on floor. But all of these problems pale to insignificance with the arrival on the scene of Rebecca, a beautiful, man-hunting arch-nemesis with "thighs like a baby giraffe" and absolutely no girlfriend code of ethics when it comes to poaching another woman's man. Before long, Rebecca's manipulations, Bridget's own insecurities, and a string of misunderstandings (starting with a naked Filipino boy in Mark Darcy's bed and ending with a suggestive valentine from Bridget's dry cleaner) result in "128 lbs. (good), alcohol units 0 (excellent), cigarettes 5 (a pleasant, healthy number), no. times driven past Mark Darcy's house 2 (v.g.), no. of times looked up Mark Darcy's name in phone book to prove still exists 18 (v.g.), 1471 calls 12 (better), no. of phone calls from Mark 0 (tragic).

Fortunately, Bridget has plenty of other problems to distract her. Her mother has returned from a trip to Kenya with a young Masai in tow--to her father's consternation; her best friends Jude, Shazzer, and Tom are all trapped in dating hell themselves; her apartment is in shambles thanks to a dotty carpenter; an unreliable ex-boyfriend has just reentered her life; and now someone is sending Bridget death threats--could it be Mark Darcy? If Bridget Jones's Diary was a modern riff on Pride and Prejudice, its sequel borrows several themes and devices (not to mention a section heading) from another Austen novel, Persuasion. And as in Austen's fiction, here the journey is the destination. A happy ending for Bridget and her pals is a foregone conclusion; how they get there, however, will have you on the edge of your chair--if you haven't already fallen off of it laughing. --Alix Wilber


From Library Journal
In this continuation of her diary, Bridget again recounts the ups and downs of the single life. During this period she has a somewhat steady boyfriend; however, the joys of having a man in her life are tempered by his seeming indifference to her at times. To her consternation she discovers that he is spending time with another woman. Besides the trials and tribulations of this relationship, Bridget must contend with confrontations with an obstinate boss, dealings with a weird contractor, working on her apartment, and the unpleasant experiences during the worst vacation of her life. Through it all Bridget is supported by her married and unmarried friends. Her comments, often overstated, are both harsh and humorous. Reader Tracie Bennett does an outstanding job with the characterizations of the variety of personalities, from Bridget's rather reserved boyfriend to her outspoken female acquaintances. This is a lively and entertaining work suitable for popular fiction collections.ACatherine Swenson, Norwich Univ. Lib., Northfield, VT Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Beliefnet
Bridget is back, in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason," and the calorie-counting, thigh-hating, man-hunting hedonist, has found self-help spirituality.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Woman of a Certain Edge

Last century (OK, two years ago), Bridget Jones came to America. And she was welcomed with very open arms.

Bridget—if you somehow managed to escape Bridget-mania—is the heroine of former London Independent columnist Helen Fielding's cult column. By the time Bridget reached these shores, she was all wrapped up in Bridget Jones's Diary, a collection of the columns. Her self-obsessed daily diary entries began with lists: calories ingested, alcohol units imbibed, cigarettes (Silk Cuts, of course) smoked, lies told to "fitness assessors." The content of the entries, always entertaining, went downhill in importance from there. The cast of characters included best friends, awful bosses, men-of-the-moment, and crazy family members. Insipid, narcissistic, over 30, and single, Bridget touched a collective cultural nerve.

The media couldn't get enough of her. Women's magazines were chock-full o' Bridget. A Bridget Jones Internet search could turn up a zillion pages. Serious, well-respected book reviewers like Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times reviewed Fielding's book in Bridget's voice. "Average laughs out loud per page 2 (v.g.), identification with Bridget's character 100 percent (tragic), alcohol units consumed during study of book 6 (poor, but compulsive reading so mitigating factor)," wrote The Express (London). Time magazine used Bridget as an example of how feminism had gone wrong. Long after Fielding's book was released in America, the Bridget mentions in The New York Times's "Styles" section continued. As late as April 1999, New York magazine ran a cover story on Bridget and the girl books that were published in her mighty wake: Kate Christensen's In the Drink, Melissa Bank's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Suzanne Finnamore's Otherwise Engaged, and Amy Sohn's Run Catch Kiss. The piece, which included the now standard interview with Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, America's Helen Fielding, was full of hyperbolic statements: "Despite a few cultural discrepancies, many American women embraced the character with giddy self-recognition. She was a kind of resilient anti-heroine who veered between the pathetic and the courageous in her quest for love, sex, and an acceptable pair of opaque black stockings. In America, as in England, Bridget was embraced as an iconic thirtysomething Everywoman."

Over the top, yes; but with good reason. People were drawn to Bridget in a quasi-obsessive way, and media types felt compelled to offer explanations. Eventually each article came to the conclusion that the key to Bridget's success was clearly humor. Of course, reading Diary and laughing out loud could bring anyone to this conclusion. Bridget may have had an annoyingly unhealthy obsession with self-help books and written in her own "singleton" vocabulary, but she was hilarious. And that is why she worked. Fielding changed the Single Girl from someone who only worries about being single into someone who laughs at herself and who does essentially what she wants.

This, plus a healthy dose of campy antics, was and is widely appealing. Hence those four months Bridget Jones's Diary spent on the New York Times bestseller list. After a while, even diehard Bridget fans grew fed up with her massive overexposure. But the thrill wasn't gone when said fans picked up this February's Vogue and read the following headline on the lower right-hand corner of the cover: "She's Back! Bridget Jones, Part II." Not that it is a surprise: New York magazine et al. let the world know that the Bridget Jones sequel (and movie!) were in the works. Inside Vogue, nestled between pages of fashion and beauty, lies an excerpt of Bridget Jones:The Edge of Reason. Perhaps you read it. If you didn't, there is little about the book that you don't already know.

Thankfully, Bridget is as silly and amusing as ever. She still gains and loses pounds, eats, drinks, and smokes too much. She still works too little. This time around she has a wonderful boyfriend—for a while anyway. She suffers heartache, the African chap her parents bring back from Africa to live with them, a hole in her apartment wall, a death threat, a trip to Thailand, a stint in jail, a botched interview with Colin Firth, her favorite actor from the BBC's "Pride and Prejudice," embarrassing Christmas cards written in a drunken state, and a nasty blonde nemesis. She even—gasp!—sees one of her best singleton friends become a Smug Married. Of course, she witnesses the event in perfect Bridget fashion: hungover, with a nail-polish-induced hole in the front of her bridesmaid dress and a bra caught on her shoe. Delightful.

Let the media circus begin again.

—Alexandra Zissu

Alexandra Zissu is a freelance writer and writer-at-large at Fashion Wire Daily. She has written for The New York Observer, The New York Times's "Styles" section, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and Self.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Lurching from the cappuccino bars of Notting Hill to the blissed-out shores of Thailand, everyone's favorite Singleton Bridget Jones begins her search for The Truth in spite of pathetically unevolved men, insane dating theories, and Smug Married advice. She experiences a zeitgeist-esque Spiritual Epiphany somewhere between the pages of How to Find the Love You Want Without Seeking It (can self-help books really help self?), protective custody, and a lightly chilled Chardonnay.

FROM THE CRITICS

Boston Sunday Globe

These last, especially the latest, are tremendously funny and invested with a large, melancholy intelligence.

BUST Magazine

...a brilliant return to the quirky world of Bridget Jones.

Library Journal

This sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary actually has more of a plot than the original, though Bridget is still the dumb, ditzy journalist wannabe in search of a real relationship. If she seems dumber and ditzier here, it's not necessarily a drawback: she has some of the same charm as Anita Loo's Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The novel is not just diary format, though the breakdown here is not just daily but, annoyingly, often minute by minute; inexplicably, Fielding has decided to drop subjects and begin sentences with verbs (e.g., "Is relief..."). Nevertheless, the sidesplitting humor is still present, particularly in a hysterical interview with actor Colin Firth, who plays Mr. Darcy in the BBC-TV version of Pride and Prejudice. The interview is printed unedited in the Independent (and in the novel), when Briget fails to turn in her article in time. It begins with the incisive "What is your favorite color?" (blue) and "What is your favorite pudding?" (creme brulee). Fans will adore this. For popular fiction collections. [Literary Guild main selection.]-Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"

Mademoiselle

Bridget Jones is a joy and comfort, and Helen Fielding is bloody great.

San Francisco Chronicle