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The Adrian Mole Diaries (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

  • Author: Sue Townsend
  • First Published: 1986
  • Type of Work: Novel
  • Genres: Long fiction

In the tradition of the great “education” novels such as GREAT EXPECTATIONS, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, THE ADRIAN MOLE DIARIES introduces the reader to an awkward but appealing youth whose unintentional humor is an unfailing source of literary delight. Adrian Mole is a self-proclaimed poet and intellectual who sends his poems to the BBC and reads voraciously. Yet he receives mediocre grades at school, and the BBC rejects all of his verse. At home, he endures the caprices of his irresponsible parents (a radical feminist mother and an unemployed father), who fight, separate, have affairs, and finally accept each other -- but only after Adrian has gained a brother and a sister, the unexpected fruits of extramarital dalliance.

Adrian’s own love life is a series of peaks and valleys as he is alternately loved and snubbed by Pandora (“Box”) Braithwaite, his brilliant and sexy girlfriend. He is further tormented by the family dog and by Barry Kent, the school bully, who regularly demands “protection money” from the hapless Adrian. His only friend is Bert Baxter, a ninety-year-old curmudgeon who relies on Adrian for all the necessities of his minimal existence, including Woodbine cigarettes. All the events in Adrian’s diary are placed in the larger context of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and the War in the Falklands.

Sue Townsend manages the diary form skillfully, using it as a device to keep her multiple plots in constant motion (Adrian and Pandora, Adrian and Bert, Mr. and Mrs. Mole), always achieving the maximum comic effect by juxtaposing one improbable event with another. These comic juxtapositions are only part of the book’s success. There is a unique and zany quality to Adrian’s utterances that is somehow unforgettable. He speaks with all the humor of Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield without any of their bitterness. He is almost--but not quite--grown-up, and therein lies the source of his appeal.

Although THE ADRIAN MOLE DIARIES is a comic masterpiece, Sue Townsend’s satire touches all the serious issues of the day, including nuclear war, Social Security, treatment of the aged, feminism, and racism. She even includes a handy glossary of British terms for American readers. THE ADRIAN MOLE DIARIES has already sold five million copies in Britain, and American readers will surely enjoy it as much as their British cousins. There is not a dull or uninspired page in the whole book.