This Is Worse Than When They Offed Beth March: Helen Fielding Murders Mr. Darcy

By Joanna Robinson | Miscellaneous | September 30, 2013 |

By Joanna Robinson | Miscellaneous | September 30, 2013 |

Okay, sorry, are your Little Women wounds still a little too fresh? We’ll leave Beth March out of it then, and focus all out hurt feelings on that monster, Helen Fielding. I’ve been hotly anticipated the third installment in the Bridget Jones book series all summer. The book “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy” comes out October 15th. But Joanna, you cry, the second one was crap! No it wasn’t, gentle reader, the second film was crap. The book was plenty good. Not positively Vonnegutesque, but good. The problem Fielding had in the second installment was how to follow-up the perfect happy ending of her first novel. How do you complicate ol’ Bridge’s life after she’s had this?

He bought her a journal! He likes her just as she is! So Fielding conjured up some asinine reason for Bridget to doubt her relationship with Mark Darcy. (It was less asinine than the movie version and did have some very real-feeling roots in deep insecurities and how they can damage even the loveliest of things.)

So how was she going to do it again, folks? What could be troubling poor Bridget now? Shall we explore the very real drama of motherhood? Further mine Bridget’s work life? No, let’s kill off her bloke and start the whole rom-com rigamarole from scratch. Appalling. Unforgivable. One shouldn’t touch a single hair on Mark Darcy’s head. I didn’t even think he needed to reconsider the length of his sideburns. RIP, Mark Darcy. You were one of our top people. Top person, really. You deserved better.

This isn’t a spoiler, by the way. This is the premise.

(via The Guardian)