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Fans of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary will recall
that at the end of that sly and funny version of Pride and
Prejudice, singleton heroine Bridget landed her Mr. Darcy
at last -- Mark Darcy, that is. Bridget Jones: The Edge of
Reason picks up four weeks later, and already the honeymoon
is over. In addition to discovering that the man of her dreams
votes conservative, left-leaning Bridget is also feeling just
a mite uncomfortable with the realities of sharing bed and
board with another person:
V. complicated actually having man in house as
cannot freely spend requisite amount of time in bathroom
or turn into gas chamber as conscious of other person late
for work, desperate for pee etc.; also disturbed by Mark
folding up underpants at night, rendering it strangely embarrassing
now simply to keep all own clothes in pile on floor.
But all of these problems pale to insignificance with the
arrival on the scene of Rebecca, a beautiful, man-hunting
arch-nemesis with "thighs like a baby giraffe" and absolutely
no girlfriend code of ethics when it comes to poaching another
woman's man. Before long, Rebecca's manipulations, Bridget's
own insecurities, and a string of misunderstandings (starting
with a naked Filipino boy in Mark Darcy's bed and ending with
a suggestive valentine from Bridget's dry cleaner) result
in "128 lbs. (good), alcohol units 0 (excellent), cigarettes
5 (a pleasant, healthy number), no. times driven past Mark
Darcy's house 2 (v.g.), no. of times looked up Mark Darcy's
name in phone book to prove still exists 18 (v.g.), 1471 calls
12 (better), no. of phone calls from Mark 0 (tragic).
Fortunately, Bridget has plenty of other problems to distract
her. Her mother has returned from a trip to Kenya with a young
Masai in tow -- to her father's consternation; her best friends
Jude, Shazzer, and Tom are all trapped in dating hell themselves;
her apartment is in shambles thanks to a dotty carpenter;
an unreliable ex-boyfriend has just reentered her life; and
now someone is sending Bridget death threats -- could it be
Mark Darcy? If Bridget Jones's Diary was a modern riff on
Pride and Prejudice, its sequel borrows several themes and
devices (not to mention a section heading) from another Austen
novel, Persuasion. And as in Austen's fiction, here the journey
is the destination. A happy ending for Bridget and her pals
is a foregone conclusion; how they get there, however, will
have you on the edge of your chair -- if you haven't already
fallen off of it laughing. -- Alix Wilber
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