11 AprilSat down to write a capsule review of The Diary of a Nobody. Interrupted by a loving thump at the door. It was Mark Nicholls from my review of Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, a piece of spoof metafiction that ranks as my most liked GR review. I studied my 23-year-old self carefully then looked at my 25-year-old self and noted nothing had changed facially in two years except I was even more handsomely bespectacled. “Would you like to buy a copy of . . . ?” he began, but I’d heard it before. After all, I wrote it. “Finished that novel we started in 2009 yet?” he asked snidely. “Yes! I finished that like a month ago,” I said, triumphantly. Mark Nicholls from 2009 circled the Mark Nicholls from 2012 like a toreador taunting a pacifist bull. “Wow. Speedy Gonzalez. You must be the new Joyce Carol Oates,” he said. I snickered, neglecting to tell him about our vagina transplant.12 AprilI change to the present tense since the review is being written today, contrary to the opening sentence. That’s an example of what we call in the trade “unreliable narration.” Having doubts about writing a spoof diary review, despite having spoofed since my teens. I put on the new Big Sexy Noise album, Trust the Witch. Lydia Lunch appears on my desk and berates me for being a pussywhipped pastyasted whitebred chickenshed motherloving dolescrouging booksucking bitchboy. I tell her that’s far too many dashless hybrid words for a Thursday. She laughs and we have anal and a slice of malt loaf.13 AprilI will change tense, since this day follows the day on which the review was written. The question will arise, however, as to whether the first sentence needed a tense change, seeing it was written yesterday. (Although this isn’t true either—the review was actually written on the Wednesday night with a view to being posted on the Thursday!) I will walk to cupboard, where Dostoevsky’s skin is hanging on a coat hanger, awaiting its body. The doorbell will ring. A fleshy bone arrangement with organs will stand there and say: “Looking for Fyodor’s skin. Is he in?” I will wrinkle my beautiful eyes. “How do you know your skin’s a she?” I will ask. “All women will be brought low beneath the eyes of our Creator!” he will shout. “OK, cool it, come in,” I’ll say. “Ooh, using contractions now, are we?” he’ll ask. I’ll say: “Yup.”10 AprilI started to read The Diary of a Nobody. I thought how clever it might be to write a spoof review, using surreal antics as a contrast to the novel’s straight-laced satire. I realised that would probably be a mistake. 25 April (morning)Manny turns up fourteen days too late for the review. He tries to attract attention by pirouetting on the coffee table, but at his age the best he can manage is a forward roll on the settee. Winnie the Pooh walks in and bitches about his boyfriend Dante, who won’t go all the way with him. “To Hell and back, he says!” Pooh sneers. “I’m not that kind of bear.” Manny’s had enough with this review and returns to Yoga For Men where he demonstrates a perfect backwards lotuscrab triple-swivel manoeuvre while sucking a toffee apple.25 April (afternoon)Then Knig-o-lass walks in and says: “This suspirro is a cataclysmic feuerwerk of inconsequentialityness.” She curtsies to Pooh and then scarpers.
It is with the uttermost pleasure that I read through the diary of Mr Charles Pooter of Holloway, London. Mark my words, this gentleman was certainly not a Nobody. I am aware that the excellent Mrs Pooter and the author's own son, Mr Lupin Pooter, didn't value the diary much. Nonetheless, it is my strong belief that they are both mistaken in this respect. By Jove! This distinguished gentleman - which is to say Mr Charles Pooter - not only mastered his business in the City but knew very well how to draw the most exquisite portrait of a suburban life. A life that you might think of as quintessentially dull, but it shines as actually quite amusing, refreshing and dignified in this most valued diary.It is suffice to say that I am utterly delighted to discover that a man of such moral stature and of supremely noble behaviour such as Mr Pooter left his mark in the history of British literature. To tell you the truth, I value Mr Charles Pooter over the whole lot of the most accomplished humourists that England has had the privilege to breed. You might object that Jerome and Wodehouse did rather well in the same literary department and that this Nobody does not deserve to share their fame.To which objection I reply in this way; true, good old John Klapka Jerome and P.G. Wodehouse might have been particularly good when it came to depict funny vignettes and unforgettable characters, but what Charles Pooter gave to the Anglo-Saxon readers is much more: and it is style.In fact, I am proud to state that all of its undeniable mastery the work of both authors pale by comparison to the one of Mr Pooter of Holloway. By the by, shall we forget to mention Mr Pooter's uproarius word jokes? No, we shall better not.For Mr Charles Pooter was first and foremost a diarist and a chronicler of his times (in this respect quite capable to look at a master like Samuel Pepys eye to eye), but also one of the wittiest men around.How regretful to think that a gentleman of such intellectual stature didn't have the chance to meet with his peers!For even though this diary covers a span of only a few months in the life and opinions of Charles Pooter, it is quite clear that his sharp wit was not recognized by his family, friends and acquaintances. And this Pooterish knowledge is excruciatingly painful to bear. Hail to the brilliant Mr George Grossmith for making Mr Charles Pooter's literary legacy known to the readers of today!
Do You like book The Diary Of A Nobody (1998)?
Funny enough to keep me reading it to the end, but not funny enough to make me do anything else except to occasionally smile to myself.Originally published on instalments in a magazine from May, 1888 to May 1889 this is the diary of the fictional Charles Pooter who justified keeping and publishing it in an Introductions where he said:"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 be a 'Somebody'--why my diary should not be interesting. My only regret is that I did not commence it when I was a youth."The humor here is situational, slapstick and word plays. Its British flavor is strong, often Greek to me as I am more partial to Asian or Latin American humorists. Better than "Lucky Jim" (Martin Amis) and "Under the Net" (Iris Murdoch) but definitely inferior to "Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon" (Jorge Amado) and even to a fellow British "Thank You, Jeeves" (P.G. Wodehouse). I don't care if this book is a British cultural icon. I like what I like!
—Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly
This is an excellent, light and amusing read. I wouldn't say it's laugh-out-loud funny, but it certainly had me smiling a lot, which is quite a feat.Charles Pooter is a loveable and slightly old-fashioned, bumbling character, whose diary chronicles his life over the period of a year or so. He's a middle-class man who enjoys a pun (while the puns themselves are not uproariously funny, his reactions and elatedness at thinking them up are pretty amusing).He (usually) enjoys the company of his friends, Gowing and Cummings (the objects of one of the best puns in the story), but is sometimes indignant at their behaviour, as well as at the behaviour of certain other characters and visitors to the household.Even the short summaries of the diary entries at the beginning of each chapter are entertaining: 'Make the acquaintance of a Mr Padge. Don't care for him. Mr Burwin-Fosselton becomes a nuisance.'This is such a good read, and one that I think I'll re-read quite often.
—Kylie
I'd had this for a while and thought it would make good paired reading with Three Men on a Boat, as they're both considered classics of British humor of about the same era. George Grossmith is perhaps best known as a long-time star of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, performing the comic baritone roles (Ko-Ko, Major-General Stanley, Sir Joseph Porter) in Gilbert and Sullivan's operas; his brother Weedon was largely an artist. Their hero, Charles Pooter, is an ordinary middle-class clerk in London, who decides to keep and publish a diary, on the grounds that "I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see -- because I do not happen to be a 'Somebody' -- why my diary should not be interesting." It is interesting, as a very funny, sometimes almost painful depiction of his small, suburban lifestyle, and although it's impossible not to laugh at Pooter, it's also impossible not to like him.
—Margaret
