357 words on Books
Back at school in ninth grade or so our English teacher made a clever move and told us to read the first volume of the Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend over the holidays. As this was distinctly pre-amazon, getting English books was quite complicated and expensive at the time, so she also organised a mass order of the books - a collection of the first three volumes in fact - so we could read them over the holidays. And it was a very entertaining read.
Ever since, I kept a vague interest in what happened to Adrian later on and kept picking up some later volumes when needing a third volume to fill a ‘3 for 2’ deal or so. And while the stories haven’t been quite as thrilling since, they have always been a fun read with all the family and person misery Adrian is made live through.
The latest volume I read was the somewhat current Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction in which we see Adrian work in a book store, go into debt for a fancy appartement that is haunted by a swan named Gielgud, watch his parents essentially lose their home while indulging in relationships which he knows he won’t enjoy from the very first moment.
In total I didn’t find this the most enjoyable volume of the series and at times reading it was downright painful because all-so-clever Mr Mole essentially knows he’s heading straight for misery but he still gives in and goes all the way. Other aspects like the affair with his girlfriend’s sister or the ubiquitous swan are downright funny, while his eternal adoring of the now Blair babe Pandora goes on and on. The war theme from the book’s title is actually a bit tragic as he sees one of his sons go to Iraq and learns about his son’s mate dying there. It’s even more tragic as Adrian just haplessly registers what’s going on there. But I guess that’s just what his ‘character’ has been built on since the first volume of the series…
Bookmark: 14-09-2007, railway ticket to Berlin and back.