The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4

S

I found this in a charity shop in Newcastle and grabbed it. Finding this book on the cheap has been a mission of mine for years and I had no success until last week.  I have a feeling Adrian would be proud of me!

I was a bit nervous about reading this after last reading it when I was 11. 1/4 but over 30 years later I enjoyed it FAR more.  Every page was funny and even funnier as an adult and even funnier because this is my generation and my youth.  A nostalgic, bitter sweet and hilarious read.  I loved it!

Adrian is so naive.  He writes things literally without any idea of what's going on.  His parents splitting up, them arguing about who ISN'T going to get custody of Adrian. it all seems to leave Adrian unaffected. He is a misunderstood intellectual (who admits he isn't very clever.) All he wants to do is marry pandora and get a few of his poems published.

I love the bit when his Mum and creepy Mr Lucas from next door are locked in the kitchen supposedly doing DIY and Mr. Lucas tells Adrian he can't come in because the boiler is at a crucial point and his Mum has her hands full.

I love how Adrian starts reading War and Peace on a Saturday and finishes it in 1day saying it was quite good.

I love how he thinks his spots are because his parents feed him unhealthy food and because school dinners are crap.  He believes that crap school dinners are a strategy of Margaret Thatcher's to keep the young people mentally and physically deficient in order that they can't rise up against the government. (Good idea Adrian.)

I love how his Sunday's are so boring. The highlights of the weekend are weekly shops in the supermarket and seeing Pandora.  his parents really are under stress. Break up, unemployment and depression.  But somehow you love them all; even his hard up, unemployed Dadand his Mother, who is a new convert to the feminist movement.  She's learning karate and Adrian is scared that she is going to karate chop his Dad in the wind pipe.

I lovehis 80 year old woodbine smoking communist friend Bert who Adrian befriends only because it enables him to miss maths class every week.  Adrian and pandora spend loads of their free time with him and often end up cleaning the filthy house he lives in.

The way his dad jumps out of bed when Adrian tells him that Argentina has invaded the Falklands and we are at war is a classic.  Adrian's dad thinks the Falklands are just off Scotland and when Adrian tells him they are over 8000 miles away he just groans and jumps back into bed.

As for getting the airfix glue on his model plane stuck to his nose when attempting a bit of glue sniffing..great.

I think this is a wonderful British Classic and if you haven't read it for a while I recommend it.  As for kids of 13 now...I really don't know what they will make of it.  Bits of it are generation specific but the humour and honesty haven't dated at all. Plus it will make teenagers today see how kids entertained themselves when there really was no money and nothing to do! 

PS. I forgot aboutAdrian's diary entry for the school day trip to the British Museum in London. Brilliant! 

PPS. And how Adrian's Dad brings crisps to the hospital for Adrian as a present after Adrian has his tonsils out. Great.

PPPS And Sabre the dog

PPPPS and how his granny beats up the guy who is bullying Adrian.

Enough....I could go on and on.

 

They Were Divided

No joke, I feel like I could get a few points in Mastermind if I decided to have Austro Hungary between 1904 and 1914 as my specialist subject! I'm sure all this useless knowledge will fade quickly but come the centenary of the First World War next year I feel super prepared.

This book was the saddest, the most political and the most boring of all three books.  (Luckily the thinnest too.) My favourite character obviously died of alcohol poisoning and syphillis without a penny to his name.( At least he was spared from having to fight in the Great War.)

Life in Transylvania continued with all the partying, gossiping,duelling and such nonsense. Everyone was arrogantly ignoring all the winds of change and disharmony around the rest of Europe and this attitude   ultimately left Hungary unprepared to gain revenge on Serbia for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.  ( Ironically Franz was universally despised by Hungarians.  Everyone said that the only person who  loved him was his unfortunate wife...who was killed alongside him.) 

One of my favourite sections was when a British anti duelling representative came to Transylvania to talk about banning it and unbeknown to him, whilst he was talking, the guys in the audience were secretly planning a duel.  It took place outside in the tea break, luckily nobody was killed and all involved were able to return back for the second half of the presentation. One guy heavily bleeding and bandaged.

I also loved the parts in themountains with the Romanian peasants and the gypsies,  really beautifully described without a hint of patronism. 

Banffy was a Hungarian speaking upper class Transylvanian but his first love was his beautiful Transylvanian countryside. he despised the aristocratic idiots who run the country.(A group which he unfortunately belonged to.) Banffy was most at home high in the mountains with the Romanians. he learnt the language and had great respect for the peasants. he could see that only trouble lay around the corner and this book is a sad farewell to a country and a system which he knew was gone for ever. 

A fantastic set of books.  A challenge , but also great fun(in parts) but this one was obviously the most serious.  The book ended with the first day of the First World War. What ever happened to these characters is left to my imagination.  Which was a bit harsh! 

BUT it's really made me want to return to Transylvania...maybe next year.

Transition by Iain Banks

 I haven't read any Iain Banks for years and I love lots of his books, so starting this was like being reacquainted with an old friend.  I found this on my friend, Nicky's bookshelf, took it,  started it and have devoured it in just a few days.
It started so well, really weird stuff based around an infinity of parallel universes in which special people,called transitionaries, can move. They take a pill called Septus and transition all over the place.  They take over the physical body of locals (leaving a lobotomised version of themselves in their previous bodies) and murder people who they think will be harmful to the society.  They also torture lots of people in order to get information. 
The organisation running this system is called the Concern, and like all uber powerful countries and government systems it has become highly corrupt and their leader, Mrs d'orletean, is an evil despot.

This book promised so much, but in the end,never really delivered. Also it was incredibly dark and depressing...with horrid sections on the place of torture in society and long rambling sections on the evil of capitalism. (Parts of which were very clever and funny.)

There were lots of gratuitous sex and drug references, but to be honest, I couldn't see why. Don't get me wrong, I'm not  a puritan in anyway,  but it was as if Iain Banks was just being lazy and putting lots of sex and drugs into the plot just because he thought his loyal reader fanbase liked that kind of kinky, weird shit.
I wasn't convinced...sad thing is this book was SO GOOD at the beginning with its Christian terrorists and world jumping assassins.  But I feel I never got past the great ideas to any kind of plot or reason behind what was going on. 

It was a seriously dark book  with lots of pseudo philosophy. A book which has ultimately left me feeling a little bit queasy and with a thousand unanswered questions. A shame really because I loved the ideas.