CREEMEDIA
When you’ve spent your adolescent years, as The Dauph has, in places like Berlin, Casablanca and Tijuana, it can be odd relating to a fictional diary of a boy undergoing puberty in a nondescript town in present-day Thatcher-land. Still, this book, brash and British to the core, hooked this world-weary scribbler from its opening entry and didn’t let up until its protagonist, Adrian Mole, had crossed over from a bumbling youth of 13-and3/4 to a still bumbling youth of 16-and-1/6.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
CREEMEDIA
DEPARTMENTS
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
THE ADRIAN MOLE D1AFHES by Sue Townsend (Grove Press)
by Edouard Dauphin
When you’ve spent your adolescent years, as The Dauph has, in places like Berlin, Casablanca and Tijuana, it can be odd relating to a fictional diary of a boy undergoing puberty in a nondescript town in present-day Thatcher-land. Still, this book, brash and British to the core, hooked this world-weary scribbler from its opening entry and didn’t let up until its protagonist, Adrian Mole, had crossed over from a bumbling youth of 13-and3/4 to a still bumbling youth of 16-and-1/6. Adrian’s odyssey is painful, funny and uncomfortably familiar to all of us who have gone through our teenage years glad to be alive and wishing we were dead—-often simultaneously.
By turns a pseudo-intellectual and a would-be punk, Adrian is the kind of lad who Walks a fine line between acceptance and rejection, both by his school peers and the world at large. He’s generally baffled by the antics of the adults in his life, and with good reason. His parents are constantly separating and reconciling and each has produced a child via another partner. Adrian’s school principal is a “pop-eyed git.” His best friend is a 90year-old communist who lives for j brown ale and beetroot sandwiches The teaddBijBHH| The Streets,” the local youth club, is a relic of the '60s who contends that buying fruit is an overtly political act, rejecting South African apples, Israeli oranges and American grapefruits in favor of English rhubarb, though he admits its shape is “phallic, possibly sexist.” Then there’s the Falkland Islands War, which only leaves Adrian more confused about responsible grown-up behavior. As an adolescent, The Dauph had already passed beyond such bewilderment—-but then, my parents had been incarcerated on Devil’s Island from the time that I was five. '
Adrian records his doubts, fears and rare pleasures in his daily journal, along with scraps of his truly awful poetry on subjects ranging from daffodils to Engels. Convinced that he is a sensitive artist, Adrian dreams of having his own poetry program on the radio, despite a succession of rejection letters from the BBC, all of which are duly reprinted in his diary. Adrian’s peers add to his anxiety. His good friend, Nigel, is mixed up, unable to decide which type of sexuality to opt for, homo, bi or hetero, when he confesses to being comfortable with all three. Meanwhile, Adrian lives in fear of Barry Kent, the school thug, who has threatened to “do him over” unless he receives 25 pence in protection money per day. Then there’s Pandora Braithwaite, Adrian’s feminist girl friend who refuses to alter his virginal status. Frustrated, Adrian retreats to his bedroom, seeking comfort in his Toyah Wilcox records, his books (“lam reading The Mill On The Floss by a bloke called George Eliot.”), and his well-thumbed copies of Big And Bouncy Magazine.
Lest you get the impression Adrian Mole is little more Ihan a wimpy English wanker, The Dauph can assure you that, as with his namesake, there 'wmfflmMm ing on beneath the surface. The book’s publishers, Grove Press, have championed such Dauphinish heroes as Henry Miller, Jean Genet and William Burroughs and, in :Sue Townsend, they have\ found a writer whose casual, everyday account of a boy’s coming of age is marked by a shrewd, satirical view of contemporary society that borders on the subversive. Adrian’s innocence, his naivete and his idealism are the weapons Townsend uses for a steady stream of pot shots at such deserving tar religion politicians contem porary moraJity and the wet fare state. As a view of modem times. The Adrian Mole Diaries is a bit like a letter bomb wrapped in Snoopy paper. And you don't have to be English to enjoy it.
Not that those crusty Brits haven’t gobbled it up. Adrian Mole is already something of a phenomenon in Blighty, trailing only warm beer and chips in popularity. Along ■ with The Diaries, the English have been treated to: a West j End stage version, The Adrian Mole Songbgok and a television series. Can a Sylvester Stallone film entitled Rocky Vs. Adrian Mole be far off? Stay tuned. Meanwhile, pick up the book and find out where it all started.
