Everyone’s favourite singleton to be thrust into the brave new world of Twitterature.
It’s been thirteen long years since a new volume of Bridget Jones’ diary, with all its obsessive weight woes and love laments, has been unleashed upon the world. In that time, fanatics have had to content themselves with reading the series’ two books over and over again, to the point of having memorized them by rote. (Okay, maybe some of us are more fanatical than others.) But the agonizing wait is finally over: Helen Fielding has confirmed that she is working on a new Bridget Jones novel to be released late next year. Hurrah!
And one of the most interesting tidbits to come out of Fielding’s announcement is how her writing and Bridget’s life will be thrust into the world of 2012. Instead of beginning the day with her routine account of weight, alcohol units drunk, calories consumed, and 1471 calls made, Bridget’s diary entries will begin with a tweet. Says Fielding, “It’s more like ‘number of Twitter followers: 0. Still no followers. Still no followers.'”
Perhaps Fielding will take it a step further. What if Bridget’s diary was not on paper at all? What if she has discovered the world of blogging, even tumblr, or instagram? Not only does the new medium give Fielding lots to play with, it gives Bridget an infinite number of worries to obsess over, like the number of visitors she has on her online dating profile, or her mother’s permeating presence on Facebook. Worries that make her just like the rest of us, regretful though we are to admit it.
In the age of social networks and text messages, Bridget has the power of instant drunken replies.
Oof, tumbled over.
As for the story at the heart of the work, it’s a mystery as to whether the perennial men of Bridget’s life, sensible Mark Darcy and reprehensible Daniel Cleaver, will be making an appearance. “Some characters remain and some may have disappeared,” Fielding said. “They’ll still be presences in the book. Like all of us you keep your friends, people stay in your life, but everyone’s life moves on.”
What? Possibly no Darcy and Cleaver? But what will have become of Bridget? If she is to have aged in real time, that would put her in her late 40s to early 50s. Is she the tragic spinster retread she always feared she’d be, the threat of being half eaten by alsatians looming? Or the lonely single mother of a pair of troublesome teenagers? Fielding isn’t giving away much information.
She has grownup. My life has moved on and hers will move on too. She’s still trying to give up [drinking and smoking], she’s still on a diet. She’s trying a bit harder, and is a bit more successful, but she’s never really going to change.
Phew. Now all one has to worry about awaiting this twitterature-influenced Bridget Jones episode is avoiding eating the entire contents of one’s fridge. Non v.g.