Oh Bridget, you silly prat!
In the midst of my crazy Sherlock Holmes obsession (in which I began to slightly fantasize about a cocaine sniffing master of deduction several times throughout each day) I picked up a copy of Bridget Jones's Diary that I had laying around my room since I bought it for a dollar years ago passing by the Strand Bookstore. Then I watched the movie minutes after I finished. I don't know which is better but that is really not the debate at hand! What I want to know is, when did romcoms and their "And they lived happily ever after" endings cease to be enough for my romantic imagination?! I find myself filled with elation at the final getting-togethers of the main characters in question but then the story ends and the elation becomes muddled by toxic twangs of "and then!?" followed by a futile search for more pages knowing full well they don't exist. {sadness} the twangs become pangs and the wistful smile becomes bittersweet and then a pathetic shrug ensues. The End. Now, each romcom ends in a burst of happiness but eventually as a quiet tragedy in my mind. Goddamn it Mark Darcy! Why are you just so damn cute and why are Bridget's stupid misunderstandings and ridiculous assumptions so much like real life that it almost seems as if some form of real life Mark Darcy is going to pop up anytime soon now...? While not all that exceptional as a literary piece, the book definitely outlines the gist of a life that I think every woman who has ever felt like an idiot, felt completely embarrassed in front of everyone important in life, had too many units of alcohol, shared a group of ridiculously same-wave psychotic friends, felt like every day is some form of crisis, felt like every day some form of mind blowing happiness is coming, felt like they haven't had a fag or a shag in far too long, tried and failed at any form of dieting, or all of the above, can relate to on a deeply personal level. And as such, Helen Fielding has reintroduced every woman who has read this book to a more real and life sized version of Mr. Darcy, or better known later as Prince Charming, who is still, after all of the time since Jane Austen through early Disney to now, completely not real and completely unattainable. Fuckwittage, indeed.
