Bridget Jones ~ I like you very much. Just as you are …

The new Bridget Jones movie is due out on 16th September and shortly after on 11th October, Helen Fielding’s new book is released.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there cannot be a soul left in Western civilisation who has not met with Bridget. Bumbling, witty, ambitious, romantic, ever-so-slightly-fat Bridget is just trying to meet the man of her dreams and get by in 1990s London when we first meet her in her early 30s. She’s forever saying the wrong thing, got her skirt tucked into her knickers at the most hideous moment, arriving to the party a moment too late and in the wrong dress, and generally scraping through life as a singleton. What she does have, is an over eager Mother and a urban family who are the dating High Command. After Edge of Reason, we think Bridget has things pretty sewn up. So why has she arrived in her early 40s, still single, and yet now it would seem pregnant. I can’t wait to find out …

From the Guardian: “Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries, to be published on 11 October with Jonathan Cape, will focus on Bridget’s “somewhat bumpy journey into motherhood”. It will follow the release of the forthcoming film of the same name on 16 September, which was previously believed to not have a corresponding book”.

I am a huge Bridget fan. So, not only did the subject of the movie vex me somewhat, I am having lots of trouble with NOT being able to read the book of the same subject before I see the film. Wait you say? Oh no I couldn’t possibly – I’m one of those people. I was plumping for the new movie to be based on Mad about The Boy – I knew the actors had aged (well, no one can stop nature) and were probably past their credible prime baby making days, and it seemed more appropriate. However, it’s apparent now that Fielding opted to write a retrospective #2.5 book, so be that as it may, as fans, we know how it all ends for Bridget before we’ve seen the new film, or read the new book because we’ve all read Mad about The Boy. I would imagine I’m not the only one having this dilemma.

I’m not going to hold any of this against Fielding or the publisher of her new book Jonathan Cape as Bridget was originally derived in much the same way. I’m hoping that Jude, Shazza and Tom will all be present. Therefore in true urban family style … “come the fuck-on Bridget!”.

From the Guardian: “Fielding’s debut novel, Bridget Jones’s Diary, drew upon Fielding’s anonymous column that she began writing for UK newspaper the Independent in 1995. It was a global phenomenon when it was first published in 1996, and together with the 1999 sequel, Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, sold more than 15m copies worldwide”. 

From Bridget Jones’s Diary: “It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It’s like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting “Cathy” and banging your head against a tree.”Reviews to follow ..

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