After many years, Adrian Mole has come back into my life. I read the first two books over 15 years ago, I guess, and I just found "The Cappuccino Years" in a used book store. I foolishly wondered if my sense of humour might have changed but here I am laughing hysterically and so far I've only read the list of characters!!!
I highly recommend these books for comic relief although I do wonder if non-Brits would "get" it.
karalk, I think people from the US might find some of the political 'ideals' in the later Adrian Mole books rather daunting as the author Sue Townsend is a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist of the Old School and these in-jokes quickly become dated. Her The Queen and I was quite funny. Her plot-line is that the United Kingdom has become a Republic and the Royal Family have been forced to move to a run-down council estate and live on 'benefits'. I could believe the idea of Princess Anne getting things fixed with her big tool box and the Queen, with no money for food, appealing to the softer side of the local's nature when asking for tins of dog food for the Royal corgis. Prince Philip just goes mad.
I've greatly enjoyed the Adrian Mole books. Veer is right in that Townsend's ideas come across strongly, but they mostly serve to make England a more exotic locale with strange customs and, therefore, more entertaining. We tend to think, because of the common language and much common history, that the two countries are much more alike than they are.
veer
Chris_in_the_Valley
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