I was more than two thirds of the way through this novel when, as Bridget contemplated Kipling's advice in If, I realized I'd read it before. That makes it just the fourth novel I've ever read twice in my life, along with Madame Bovary, At Swim Two Birds and Persuasion. Hmmm.
I did love laughing out loud, e.g., "Sunday 31 August - 114 lbs. (Yess! Yess! Triumphant culmination of 18-year diet, though perhaps at unwarranted cost) .." (after Bridget has spent two weeks in a Thai prison).
I enjoyed the many allusions to Persuasion, from Rebecca insisting on throwing herself off a bridge, to Rebecca ending up recuperating with, and engaged to Giles Benwick, to Darcy suggesting to Bridget that she ought to take an umbrella to Thailand. And I love Fielding's style of humor -- I suppose I love the mashup of low and high culture and the abrupt juxtapositions of Bridget's insecurity on the one hand and her rather incisive sarcasm on the other.
I did love laughing out loud, e.g., "Sunday 31 August - 114 lbs. (Yess! Yess! Triumphant culmination of 18-year diet, though perhaps at unwarranted cost) .." (after Bridget has spent two weeks in a Thai prison).
I enjoyed the many allusions to Persuasion, from Rebecca insisting on throwing herself off a bridge, to Rebecca ending up recuperating with, and engaged to Giles Benwick, to Darcy suggesting to Bridget that she ought to take an umbrella to Thailand. And I love Fielding's style of humor -- I suppose I love the mashup of low and high culture and the abrupt juxtapositions of Bridget's insecurity on the one hand and her rather incisive sarcasm on the other.
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