It hadn’t occurred to me to read Bridget Jones’s Diary, let alone review it, until I read the preface to the paperback edition of Oliver James’ Britain on the Couch: Treating a Low Serotonin Society. James writes of the character Bridget Jones, “if there is a better example of this kind of low serotonin individual in popular culture today, I am not aware of her.”

Bridget Jones is the fictional creation of Helen Fielding. Her Diary has been an international bestseller, which I find surprising since it is so full of references to British popular culture that I can hardly imagine anyone not immersed in that culture understanding the book. Indeed, I haven’t lived in Britain for 13 years, and I suspect that I was missing quite a few of the more modern references. I read a British edition, and I wondered for a moment whether the American edition might have footnotes or a glossary for the non-British reader.

However, you certainly don’t need to be British to get the main point of the Diary. Bridget is a single woman in her thirties, and hasn’t settled down yet. She smokes too much, drinks too much, obsesses about her weight, and obsesses even more about finding a boyfriend. Despite being devoted to her anxieties, the book is a quick and enjoyable read. It is easy to imagine it being converted to a TV sitcom. Our heroine manages to move from one disaster to another with cheerful angst, never completely losing control of her life. She has a good group of friends and she earns enough money to live quite well, even though she doesn’t seem to work very hard. She goes to parties, eats out, and can afford to drink and smoke, both of which are expensive habits in Britain. She worries constantly, but she also manages to help her friends and parents when they have their own troubles. Bridget might not be content with her life, but she has plenty to be happy about.

There’s nothing much about the mental health profession in the Diary. If Bridget lived in New York or California, she would definitely have a therapist, counselor, be taking some psychiatric medication or possibly be trying a natural herb like St. John’s Wort. But being very British, those solutions don’t even enter her mind. Should Bridget Jones try Prozac? If she were my friend, I would wish she do something to sort her crazy life out, rather than expecting that the right man will solve her problems, and Prozac doesn’t seem like such a bad option for her.

See also Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

Categories: Fiction

Keywords: humor, humour, humorous