Adrian Mole Diaries
Adrian Mole faces the same agonies which life sets before most adolescents: troubles with girls, school, parents, and an uncaring world. The difference, though, between young Master Mole and his peers is that this British lad keeps a diary - an earnest chronicle of longing and disaster that has convulsed more than five million readers since its two-volume initial publication. From teenage Adrian's obsession with intellectuality after understanding "nearly every word" of a Malcolm Muggeridge...
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Adrian Mole faces the same agonies which life sets before most adolescents: troubles with girls, school, parents, and an uncaring world. The difference, though, between young Master Mole and his peers is that this British lad keeps a diary — an earnest chronicle of longing and disaster that has convulsed more than five million readers since its two-volume initial publication. From teenaged Adrian's obsession with intellectuality after understanding "nearly every word" of a Malcolm Muggeridge broadcast to his anguished adoration of a lovely, mercurial schoolmate, from his view of his parents' constantly creaking relationship to his heartfelt but hilarious attempts at cathartic verse, here is an outrageous triumph of deadpan, and deadly accurate, satire. ABBA, Princess Di's wedding, street punks. Monty Python, the Falklands campaign — all the cultural pageantry of a keenly observed era marches past the unique perspective of Sue Townsend's brilliant comic creation: A. Mole, the unforgettable lad whose self-absorption only gets funnier as his life becomes more desperate.Adrian Mole faces the same agonies which life sets before most adolescents: troubles with girls, school, parents, and an uncaring world. The difference, though, between young Master Mole and his peers is that this British lad keeps a diary—an earnest chronicle of longing and disaster that has convulsed more than five million readers since its two-volume initial publication. From teenaged Adrian's obsession with intellectuality after understanding "nearly every word" of a Malcolm Muggeridge broadcast to his anguished adoration of a lovely, mercurial schoolmate, from his view of his parents' constantly creaking relationship to his heartfelt but hilarious attempts at cathartic verse, here is an outrageous triumph of deadpan, and deadly accurate, satire. ABBA, Princess Di's wedding, street punks, Monty Python, the Falklands campaign—all the cultural pageantry of a keenly observed era marches past the unique perspective of Sue Townsend's brilliant comic creation: A. Mole, the unforgettable lad whose self-absorption only gets funnier as his life becomes more desperate.Publishers WeeklyAdrian is 13 years old when we get our first look at his diary, and he has a spot on his chin. For the next two and a half years, dozens of wearisome spots plague him, along with the vitamin-deficient meals his parents supply, his horror of physical exercise and the length of his ``thing,'' which he measures indefatigably. An insatiable reader, he inquires of the cultural department at the BBC how to become an Intellectual, an enterprise hobbled by the superior brilliance of his girfriend Pandora, who prefers to be called Box. But his solipsistic preoccupations are interrupted by his mother's affair with the next-door neighbor, his father's with the woman down the block, his father's job redundancy and subsequent problems with the Dole, and especially by the demands of Bert Baxter, an old-age pensioner whom Adrian, as a member of the Good Samaritans, has agreed to visit. This is nothing, however, to the blow to his pride when his mother becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby who seems to make Adrian himself redundant. Townsend's wry depiction of Adrian's adolescence should make even the soberest reader laugh out loud. But underneath the humor there are provocative thoughts about family relationships and contemporary society. In Britain, the books (the original and a sequel, here combined into one volume) sold some five million copies, inspired a long-running musical and a TV miniseries, and made Adrian Mole a household name. (May)
THURSDAY JANUARY 1ST\ BANK HOLIDAY IN ENGLAND,\ IRELAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES\ These are my New Year's resolutions:\ 1. I will help the blind across the road.\ 2. I will hang my trousers up.\ 3. I will put the sleeves back on my records.\ 4. I will not start smoking.\ 5. I will stop squeezing my spots.\ 6. I will be kind to the dog.\ 7. I will help the poor and ignorant.\ 8. After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.\ My father got the dog drunk on cherry brandy at the party last night. If the RSPCA hear about it he could get done. Eight days have gone by since Christmas Day but my mother still hasn't worn the green lurex apron I bought her for Christmas! She will get bathcubes next year.\ Just my luck, I've got a spot on my chin for the first day of the New Year!\ FRIDAY JANUARY 2ND\ BANK HOLIDAY IN SCOTLAND. FULL MOON\ I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing "My Way'' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home.\ The dog got its own back on my father. It jumped up and knocked down his model ship, then ran into the garden with the rigging tangled in its feet. My father kept saying, ''Three months' work down the drain," over and over again.\ The spot on my chin is getting bigger. It's my mother's fault for not knowing about vitamins.\ SATURDAY JANUARY 3RD\ I shall go mad through lack of sleep! My father has banned the dog from the house so it barked outside my window all night. Just my luck! My father shouted a swear-word at it.If he's not careful he will get done by the police for obscene language.\ I think the spot is a boil. Just my luck to have it where everybody can see it. I pointed, out to my mother that I hadn't had any vitamin C today. She said, "Go and buy an orange, then.'' This is typical.\ She still hasn't worn the lurex apron.\ I will be glad to get back to school.\ SUNDAY JANUARY 4TH SECOND AFTER CHRISTMAS\ My father has got the flu. I'm not surprised with the diet we get. My mother went out in the rain to get him a vitamin C drink, but as I told her, "It's too late now.'' It's a miracle we don't get scurvy. My mother says she can't see anything on my chin, but this is guilt because of the diet.The dog has run off because my mother didn't close the gate. I have broken the arm on the stereo. Nobody knows yet, and with a bit of luck my father will be ill for a long time. He is the only one who uses it apart from me. No sign of the apron.\ MONDAY JANUARY 5TH\ The dog hasn't come back yet. It is peaceful without it. My mother rang the police and gave a description of the dog. She made it sound worse than it actually is: straggly hair over its eyes and all that. I really think the police have got better things to do than look for dogs, such as catching murderers. I told my mother this but she still rang them. Serve her right if she was murdered because of the dog.\ My father is still lazing about in bed. He is supposed to be ill, but I noticed he is still smoking!\ Nigel came round today. He has got a tan from his Christmas holiday. I think Nigel will be ill soon from the shock of the cold in England. I think Nigel's parents were wrong to take him abroad.\ He hasn't got a single spot yet. TUESDAY JANUARY 6TH\ EPIPHANY. NEW MOON\ The dog is in trouble!\ It knocked a meter-reader off his bike and messed all the cards up. So now we will all end up in court I expect. A policeman said we must keep the dog under control and asked how long it had been lame. My mother said it wasn't lame, and examined it. There was a tiny model pirate trapped in its left front paw.\ The dog was pleased when my mother took the pirate out and it jumped up the policeman's tunic with its muddy paws. My mother fetched a cloth from the kitchen but it had strawberry jam on it where I had wiped the knife, so the tunic was worse than ever. The policeman went then. I'm sure he swore. I could report him for that. I will look up Epiphany in my new dictionary.\ Copyright ) 1982 by Sue Townsend The Adrian Mole Diaries. Copyright © by Sue Townsend. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ Adrian is 13 years old when we get our first look at his diary, and he has a spot on his chin. For the next two and a half years, dozens of wearisome spots plague him, along with the vitamin-deficient meals his parents supply, his horror of physical exercise and the length of his ``thing,'' which he measures indefatigably. An insatiable reader, he inquires of the cultural department at the BBC how to become an Intellectual, an enterprise hobbled by the superior brilliance of his girfriend Pandora, who prefers to be called Box. But his solipsistic preoccupations are interrupted by his mother's affair with the next-door neighbor, his father's with the woman down the block, his father's job redundancy and subsequent problems with the Dole, and especially by the demands of Bert Baxter, an old-age pensioner whom Adrian, as a member of the Good Samaritans, has agreed to visit. This is nothing, however, to the blow to his pride when his mother becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby who seems to make Adrian himself redundant. Townsend's wry depiction of Adrian's adolescence should make even the soberest reader laugh out loud. But underneath the humor there are provocative thoughts about family relationships and contemporary society. In Britain, the books (the original and a sequel, here combined into one volume) sold some five million copies, inspired a long-running musical and a TV miniseries, and made Adrian Mole a household name. (May)\ \
