Bridget Is Back
Sequel to 'Diary' outshines its predecessor

By Sarah Coleman, San Francisco Chronicle

In 1998, Helen Fielding introduced readers to Bridget Jones, an accident-prone, enterprising "singleton'' in her 30s whose search for job satisfaction and firm thighs was rivaled only by her quest to "develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.'' 

When last seen (at the end of the runaway best-seller "Bridget Jones's Diary''), Bridget was sinking into the pillows at a luxury hotel with the dashing, wealthy human rights lawyer Mark Darcy. But if Bridget had made it to the single woman's equivalent of the Oscar acceptance speech, Fielding, as she deftly proves in the hilarious sequel, "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,'' was only getting started. 

Relationships, as Fielding knows, can be hell in their awkward beginning stages. "V. complicated actually having man in the house,'' Bridget scribbles at the start of her new diary, which picks up four weeks after the first left off. Jockeying for space in the bathroom and struggling to get to her job at the TV show "Sit Up Britain'' are the least of Bridget's problems. How, for example, can she convince her single friends that she's not a "traitorous double-crossing side-switching guerrilla,'' or admit to her strident feminist pal Sharon that she wants to shop and cook for Mark "in bizarre possibly genetic-throwback-style way''? 

Things get even more complicated when Rebecca, a glamorous, scene-stealing lawyer with "thighs like a baby giraffe,'' enters the picture. Determined to poach Bridget's man, Rebecca engineers group gatherings that are designed to show off her own charms. When Rebecca sics her teenage cousin on Bridget, the misunderstandings spiral into chaos, and Bridget is soon alone again, dolefully clutching a copy of "How to Heal the Hurt by Hating.'' 

Fielding saves some of her sharpest satire for the self-help industry, and she hits this (admittedly easy) target with dead-on precision. Bridget and her friends inhale actual books such as "If the Buddha Dated'' and "Mars and Venus in the Bedroom,'' only to find that the advice in them -- to "simply detach'' or "let him feel his attraction and spring back'' -- might be harming their relationships more than helping them. 

But although Bridget's "Smug Married'' friends and her parents' generation turn out to be more clued-in than they seem, marriage clearly isn't all it's cracked up to be, either. In a merry subplot, Bridget's hyperactive mother brings a Kikuyu warrior home from her safari vacation, sending Bridget's father scurrying to the potting shed with a bottle of whiskey. And a typical telephone call with married friend Magda, the mother of three under-5s, goes: "Bridget, hi! I was just ringing to say in the potty! In the potty! Do it in the potty!'' 

Here and elsewhere, Fielding has a great ear for dialogue, and her insights into human nature are almost as sharp as those of her patron saint, Jane Austen. Where "Bridget Jones's Diary'' was a witty updating of Austen's "Pride and Prejudice,'' "The Edge of Reason'' takes "Persuasion'' as its guiding light, and the parallels are glorious. At 27, "Persuasion'' heroine Anne Elliott was seen as an old maid whose "bloom had vanished early.'' When a friend of Bridget's parents wonders "how a woman manages to get to Bridget's age without hooking anyone,'' a few hundred years of feminist progress melt into near-oblivion. 

Bridget, of course, owes more to Carole Lombard than to Anne Elliott. She's a full-on screwball heroine, and part of her appeal is her cheerfulness in the face of humiliation. (Look for the prize scene where she mangles an interview with movie star Colin Firth). 

Even so, one wishes she had a few moments where she was a little more pulled-together. Female readers have glommed on to Bridget because she reveals the performance anxiety felt by all professional women (indeed, all adults), but most of us manage to go to work in the morning, and possibly even make it through to lunch, without our worlds imploding. 

And though it's believable that the suave Mark Darcy would be intrigued by Bridget's, er, creative chaos, one wonders if it's really necessary to have him rescue her from not one but several major disasters. 

It seems churlish, though, to punish Fielding for crimes committed against sisterhood when Bridget and her scribblings clearly belong to a long tradition of literary froth. Watching Fielding manipulate her crazy plot is a little like watching a high-wire artist cross a tightrope on a unicycle with a monkey in each hand. Fielding never falters. Without giving too much away, readers can expect hilarious plot twists involving a white rabbit in a bed, a deranged builder, two fillet steaks and a packet of smuggled drugs. 

In fact, Fielding has created that rare thing: a sequel that outshines its predecessor. That said, three isn't always a lucky number, and there's a finite supply of Jane Austen novels in the world. Good comedians know they should "always leave them wanting more.'' Fielding might be well advised to quit while she's ahead, and before copies of "Bridget Jones: The Frisky Fifties'' start piling up on bookstores' remainder shelves.