The Diary of a Nobody

Author: George and Weedon Grossmith

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010 (Originally 1892)

RRP: £5.99

  Everyone knows a Charles Pooter.  He is a lower middle class man working as a clerk in the city.  He is respectable, he has illusions of grandeur and fancies himself quite the comedian.  He decides one day that he will keep a diary for a year detailing everything that happens in his life.  He believes it will be an important record of his life, instead it ends up the trivial whining of a middle-aged man. 

  Although there are few real laugh out loud moments in the book, it never ceases to be amusing. I was not bored on a single page, my favourite moments being when he repeats jokes he makes when he believes no one noticed them (although it’s just that they aren’t funny).  The relationships are completely believeable, the solid marriage he has with Carrie and the friendships he has with the loveable characters of Mr Cummings and Mr Gowings (names which when first reading them, really did make me laugh, such is my sense of humour!).  The key events in the diary tend to centre on his son Lupin, who is not everything Charles expected him to be, he is loud, confident, funny and compulsive, everything Charles is not.  Furthermore, Lupin finds himself in not only work troubles but also in a mess with love.

  It’s hard to believe that this book was first published in 1892 the people seem like real modern people.  That may sound ridiculous but I’m sure I’m not the only one who has assumed that people living over one hundred years ago were prude and boring.  This book is a glimpse into the real world of the late-Victorian era.  It accurately describes the daily life, the jobs, the clothes, the food but it says much more about the people.  Englishmen really haven’t changed as much as we imagine.  A funny, warm and heartfelt read, it’s clear how this book has survived this long and I’m sure it has centuries left in it before the real nature of people change.

Rating: 7/10

The Collector

Author: John Fowles
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Published: 2004 (Originally 1963)
RRP: £8.99

Frederick Clegg, a lonely, boring clerk becomes obsessed with the art student Miranda.  He watches her from his office window, he follows her into shops, but seriously lacking in any confidence or indeed social skills he knows she will never be his.  As his hobby he collects butterflies, an interest that he has been scorned for throughout his miserable, boring life and then one day he wins thousands of pounds in the pools.  Suddenly he has a greater sense of power, a feeling that he can do anything and he sets his sights on making Miranda the latest addition to his collection of beauties.  Knowing she will never love him, he buys a remote house, refurbishes the cellar and decides to keep her as his special ‘visitor’.  His motives are as innocent as wanting to spend time with her, disgusted by any physical intimacy and he spends the time showering her with gifts.  It’s not all roses and sunshine though and obviously these things don’t and never will end well. 

The first section of the book is written from his perspective, you feel as though you really get inside the strange mind of this lonely and pathetic man and in some ways it stirs up sympathy towards him.  It later switches to the diary Miranda kept whilst in captivity so you are equally able to understand how the experience effects her and how her feelings towards him change almost hourly from disgust to pity to fury.  Seeing the story from both angles is an excellent tool to really help the reader know the characters and see how they change but I couldn’t help feeling annoyed and bored by the Miranda diary section.  I just didn’t like her enough!  

Fowles apparently wrote the book to show the dangers of power getting into the hands of people incapable of handling it, of course the subject matter clearly establishes this but the fact Miranda is so unlikeable and arrogant takes away from the argument.  I get that she is meant to be a strong-minded idealistic ‘artist’, but in my opinion she seemed just as inhuman as Frederick (and that’s saying something!).  I think the book feels like an over-the-top sermon by one of those TV priests, preaching about God, what it is to be human and art, it’s relentless.  References to butterfly collecting are clumsily added in here and there as though an afterthought during Fowles’ final draft.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it, I genuinely found the character of Frederick quite interesting but that wasn’t enough for me.

Rating: 4/10