First: \u00a0Yes, I’m still Malazan-blogging (Malazanning?), but the world decided to pick this week (with Bryant off on a business trip, of course) to have everything in my apartment building break at once. \u00a0So I’ve had to hang out waiting for an array of my landlady’s relatives to come in and prod at things. \u00a0It’s been a rotten week.<\/p>\n
So I hunkered down on the couch this morning to read the new Bridget Jones novel, not expecting much. \u00a0At all. \u00a0I loved Bridget Jones<\/i> the first. \u00a0I really did. \u00a0She was hilarious and blowzy and foolish and made me feel better about just being fat and depressed. \u00a0I loved that book. \u00a0The second was was all sorts of stupid. \u00a0I didn’t even know Helen Fielding had written a third book until I was casting about on iTunes for something to read, and then whoa!<\/p>\n
But here’s the thing. \u00a0The third book is called\u00a0Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy<\/em>. \u00a0My mind reeled. \u00a0What boy? \u00a0She spent the last two books finally getting together with a man who Colin Firth<\/em> played in the movie. \u00a0I mean, seriously. \u00a0She won already. \u00a0Mad about what<\/em> boy?<\/p>\n SPOILER SPOIIIIIILER<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Actually, this isn’t much of a spoiler, since it’s mentioned everywhere, but the book begins with Bridget’s beloved, calm, chivalrous Mark Darcy five years dead, and Bridget fat and ridiculous and wishing so badly that she had help with her two children and someone in her bed. \u00a0The four-month, forty-pound weight loss that took up the first bit of the book pissed me off, of course, but the rest of it…the thing is, all the\u00a0Bridget Jones<\/em> books are fairy tales. \u00a0Girly, foolish fairy tales about how awesome, strong, disciplined, amazing men are going to fall for our goofy, unorganized, over-indulging, not-stunning lady selves. \u00a0Because we’re quirky. \u00a0Oh jeez, I just invented “Manic Pixie Dream Self.”<\/p>\n But that said, Bridget really is an endearing sort of character. \u00a0Foolish and ridiculous, yes. \u00a0But oh my gosh did Fielding get the grief right. \u00a0People tell her to move on. \u00a0People keep encouraging her to paper over the cracks, to have meaningless sex, to float on the surface of her life until it’s suddenly fun again. \u00a0And Bridget isn’t a floater. \u00a0She’s a diver, straight into the stickiest emotional morass available. \u00a0I would hate to be her. \u00a0She’s appalling. \u00a0But I adore the sense of risk and emotion that the character embodies for me. \u00a0She just tries and tries and messes up and tries.<\/p>\n Of course she ends up with a man at the end, one of the teachers where her children go to school. \u00a0He’s a lot like her Mark, in that he’s a little bruised, a little vulnerable, but a take-charge guy who can whip Bridget’s crazy life into shape and at the same time benefit from her joie de vivre. \u00a0The denouement made me swoon a little, as the best romance novels do.<\/p>\n I don’t want Fielding to write a fourth book. \u00a0I hope Bridget gets this ending; it’s a good one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First: \u00a0Yes, I’m still Malazan-blogging (Malazanning?), but the world decided to pick this week (with Bryant off on a business trip, of course) to have everything in my apartment building break at once. \u00a0So I’ve had to hang out waiting for an array of my landlady’s relatives to come in and prod at things. \u00a0It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}