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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Clever and funny. I like the way this episode uses Adrian to show how people can so easily get into so much debt.
Adrian Mole is 34 and on blundering his way into middle-age-dom. Divorced, and an absent parent to his two children who are as far-flung as Nigeria and Kuwait (where his teenage son Glenn is on military duty), he deals anew with the responsibilities of owning a new loft apartment he can't afford, and his daily troubles involve battling a group of swans from the canal his apartment faces, led by the most aggressive of the pack, whom he christens Gielgud. Sounds like Adrian's teenage dilemmas and insecurities when he was 13¾ are way way way behind him, right?
He is still smitten with his childhood sweetheart, the unattainable Pandora, who is now a politician and Labour MP. He flirts with Marigold Flowers, a customer at the small independent bookshop he is working at, and soon finds her to be a clingy and manipulative hypochondriac and tries unsuccessfully to ditch her, while falling for her older sister, the enigmatic Daisy. Meanwhile, he writes letters to celebrities like tabloid queen Jordan (in 2003 where this novel is situated) and David Beckham, in an attempt to secure interviews with them (at his convenience, no less) for his book, working title "Celebrities and Madness".
Against this frivolity that forms Adrian Mole's year-and-a-half in this installment, he has to deal with grittier issues like suddenly homeless parents who decide to live out on the fields of pig stys in (where else) the Piggeries in a hasty investment venture, real fear for his son Glenn, who gets caught up in the Iraq war, while Mole declares his undying support for Tony Blair's government, and quite vocally in a series of embarrassing letters. He also tries to keep his flagging bookclub alive while compounding his debt by signing up for more and more bank credit.
Those who have followed the Adrian Mole through his pimply youth would also recognise his BFF Nigel. In this book, Nigel becomes clinically blind, and feels like a sobering reference to Townsend's own blindness, diagnosed round the time of writing of this novel. It is commendable that she does not colour the account of Nigel's blindness with tragic overtones, but blends it into Adrian's story with darkly comic strokes.
Though raucously funny, I felt a tinge of sadness when I was reading Adrian's diary entries, not just at Townsend's recent passing, but because Adrian Mole is all grown-up agewise, but yet so beguilingly and identifiably inadequate as an adult. You worry that Adrian will never ever get his act together, and realise that even though he's a fictional charactor, you identify with him because he is the sum of all your worst fears about your adult self. At least you get to laugh about it, so maybe it won't be so bad.
He is still smitten with his childhood sweetheart, the unattainable Pandora, who is now a politician and Labour MP. He flirts with Marigold Flowers, a customer at the small independent bookshop he is working at, and soon finds her to be a clingy and manipulative hypochondriac and tries unsuccessfully to ditch her, while falling for her older sister, the enigmatic Daisy. Meanwhile, he writes letters to celebrities like tabloid queen Jordan (in 2003 where this novel is situated) and David Beckham, in an attempt to secure interviews with them (at his convenience, no less) for his book, working title "Celebrities and Madness".
Against this frivolity that forms Adrian Mole's year-and-a-half in this installment, he has to deal with grittier issues like suddenly homeless parents who decide to live out on the fields of pig stys in (where else) the Piggeries in a hasty investment venture, real fear for his son Glenn, who gets caught up in the Iraq war, while Mole declares his undying support for Tony Blair's government, and quite vocally in a series of embarrassing letters. He also tries to keep his flagging bookclub alive while compounding his debt by signing up for more and more bank credit.
Those who have followed the Adrian Mole through his pimply youth would also recognise his BFF Nigel. In this book, Nigel becomes clinically blind, and feels like a sobering reference to Townsend's own blindness, diagnosed round the time of writing of this novel. It is commendable that she does not colour the account of Nigel's blindness with tragic overtones, but blends it into Adrian's story with darkly comic strokes.
Though raucously funny, I felt a tinge of sadness when I was reading Adrian's diary entries, not just at Townsend's recent passing, but because Adrian Mole is all grown-up agewise, but yet so beguilingly and identifiably inadequate as an adult. You worry that Adrian will never ever get his act together, and realise that even though he's a fictional charactor, you identify with him because he is the sum of all your worst fears about your adult self. At least you get to laugh about it, so maybe it won't be so bad.
Adrian Mole and I go back to 1985. He was a little older than I was when my family was living in London, and despite his complete detachment from reality, he helped me to "get" England. Now we're in our mid-30s, and our problems are different, but he's still hysterically funny.
funny! i need to go back and read some of the prior ones. i read the first two years ago and loved them.
I enjoyed Weapons of Mass Destruction more than the next volume, The Prostrate Years. It featured Adrian at his obtuse best, from writing to Tony Blair for proof of WMDs so he can get his holiday deposit back from his travel agent, to buying and completely outfitting a new condo with a succession of store credit cards, to falling haplessly into a romance with no idea how to extricate himself, this is the Adrian Mole I've always enjoyed reading.
It may come from a smug sense of superiority that I'm a little uncomfortable with, but these books have always been about how hilarious it is every time he completely misses the point. (The next book, as I already wrote in a review, has him much more put-upon and a victim - and most of all, it's just not as funny.)
Credit woes, fear about the state of the world, wondering if your girlfriend's family is completely mad - Weapons of Mass Destruction hits it out of the park. Again. If there is to be another volume, I hope it gets back to this level of insanity.
It may come from a smug sense of superiority that I'm a little uncomfortable with, but these books have always been about how hilarious it is every time he completely misses the point. (The next book, as I already wrote in a review, has him much more put-upon and a victim - and most of all, it's just not as funny.)
Credit woes, fear about the state of the world, wondering if your girlfriend's family is completely mad - Weapons of Mass Destruction hits it out of the park. Again. If there is to be another volume, I hope it gets back to this level of insanity.