George & Weedon Grossmith / The Diary of a Nobody
Novel – 230 pages / 1892 / My copy an orange Penguin paperback (1987), bought for £1.20 in 2008 in a junk bookstore in Portsmouth (with the inscription: ‘To my Darling Tricia, wishing you a very belated, happy birthday. With all my love, Adrian xxxxx’)
- 3 nods out of 5 -
Charles Pooter – the main character of the book and the Nobody in question – begins his diary: ‘Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see – because I do not happen to a “Somebody” – why my diary should not be interesting….’ Pooter, this pompous, late Victorian up-tight clerk, starts as he means to go on: in great comedic fashion.
The reader is treated to a year in the life of Mr Pooter and his daily neurosis and problems with social life; in his work place, his home life and wife, and friends – including his repeating of poor puns, such as the one on shirts to be repaired: ‘I’m ‘fraid they’re frayed’. But the book really heats up with the entrance of his son, Lupin, who is the exact opposite of Pooter: a modern being who wants to go where there is life.
This is an enjoyable read and I advise all to go to the local junk bookstore and buy one today; on ending the book I regretted to be leaving a friend in Pooter. But as book jacket testifies, beware, ‘there is a part of him in all of us’!
Novel – 230 pages / 1892 / My copy an orange Penguin paperback (1987), bought for £1.20 in 2008 in a junk bookstore in Portsmouth (with the inscription: ‘To my Darling Tricia, wishing you a very belated, happy birthday. With all my love, Adrian xxxxx’)
- 3 nods out of 5 -
Charles Pooter – the main character of the book and the Nobody in question – begins his diary: ‘Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see – because I do not happen to a “Somebody” – why my diary should not be interesting….’ Pooter, this pompous, late Victorian up-tight clerk, starts as he means to go on: in great comedic fashion.
The reader is treated to a year in the life of Mr Pooter and his daily neurosis and problems with social life; in his work place, his home life and wife, and friends – including his repeating of poor puns, such as the one on shirts to be repaired: ‘I’m ‘fraid they’re frayed’. But the book really heats up with the entrance of his son, Lupin, who is the exact opposite of Pooter: a modern being who wants to go where there is life.
This is an enjoyable read and I advise all to go to the local junk bookstore and buy one today; on ending the book I regretted to be leaving a friend in Pooter. But as book jacket testifies, beware, ‘there is a part of him in all of us’!
