funnier and more accomplished than the original diary. In the Sunday Times, which also led on Bridget, Lynne Truss had no such reservations: "The Edge of Reason is. Fielding is undoubtedly a master of this particular genre, but it's a genre that's getting tired and she ought to quit while Bridget is still an icon." Yet in the same paragraph Merritt was crying enough: "This should be the last Bridget Jones book.
"She is still in superb form," she enthused (Picador will have logged that for the cover of the instant reprint). It was the lead review in the Observer, edging out a set of Nadine Gordimer's collected pensées, and the paper's deputy literary editor, Stephanie Merritt, was in two minds about Bridget's return. Woe betide the literary editor who is late on this one! The shortage of time is perhaps reflected in the choice of reviewers: all twenty- or thirtysomething women closely connected to the papers in which the reviews appeared. Literary editors have been quick to respond, getting reviews into print in what must have been a matter of days of receipt of the book. Some 300,000 copies of the book are on sale in hardback, and there is not much doubt about what will be the Christmas No 1.īridget Jones is undoubtedly a phenomenon. There was a flash launch party at the London Hilton (waiters served an enticing combination of Silk Cut and chocolates), and Fielding's publishers were moved to compare her to Jane Austen (too much Chardonnay, perhaps). Bridget, aka Helen Fielding, has been filling the Daily Telegraph (for which she writes a column) with extracts from the new book, answering tough questions from the paper's readers ("What are you doing for the millennium?", "How are things progressing on the movie?") and making guest appearances everywhere else. Or perhaps you have been on safari in the Congo, where sales of the first book were, apparently, limited.
A s you may have noticed, the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Picador, £12.99), was published last week.
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